The Miami Heat lost their 5th consecutive game tonight at home against the Portland Trail Blazers. The broken record book on the Heat this year has been their lack of success against plus .500 teams and halfway through a brutal 10-game stretch against all winning teams the Heat are 0-5. While clutch shooting (or perhaps lack thereof) had been the go-to statistic to explain the Heat's recent struggles (see video below) a new and perhaps more important trend has emerged after their most recent loss.
The Blazers bench outscored the Heat's bench 41-8 in this contest effectively nullifying 38 points from Dwyane Wade and 31 from LeBron James. In fact in the Heat's 5 straight losses their bench has been outscored by 102 points or more than 20 a game. A lack of production from Chris Bosh (7 points on 3-11 shooting against the Blazers) has compounded Miami's struggles. To shed a different light on this most recent loss one must only look at the New York Knicks last night who also got 30 points each from Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire, they defeated the Jazz by 22 en route to scoring a season high 131.
The Heat have now lost 21 games this year and sit in third place in the Eastern Conference. I bring this up because that is the same number of losses the Cleveland Cavaliers had all of last year with James. Of course the success of the Heat will be determined by how successful they are in the playoffs which will be very interesting considering they were penciled in to win the East before the season started and now there are even whispers that they might struggle to get out of the first round likely against either the Knicks or the red-hot Philadelphia 76ers who have won 7 of their last 8 and are quietly on a tear.
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