The Miami Heat 2011-2012 Season Preview

Unfinished business. Although not verbally expressed in those specific terms, that is the sentiment that permeates throughout the entire Miami Heat organization. The Heat lived up to their promise to compete for a championship last year making it all the way to the NBA Finals but failed to bring home the hardware. This year they vow to change that.

This team experienced a lot of adversity last season but was still able to capture the second seed in the Eastern Conference and advance all the way to the Finals. Pat Riley has done a great job of putting this roster together and has the organization in position to be a championship contender for years to come. Here is a look at the Heat’s 2011-2012 roster:

Point Guard

Mario Chalmers struggled with consistency throughout the year including the playoffs but had a pretty decent season overall. Chalmers was a reserve for most of the season last year and was slow to jell with his new teammates but he played very well during the playoffs. That is until the Heat got to the Finals. Chalmers wasn’t very effective guarding JJ Barea and Jason Terry forcing LeBron James to take it upon himself to guard those players at times.

The Heat were able to pick up Norris Cole in the draft to back up Chalmers. Cole is super-quick and is a hard worker defensively. He was more of a scorer in college than a facilitator but that doesn’t look to be much of a problem since Dwyane Wade and James handle a lot of the point guard duties. Wade will get minutes here as will Eddie House.

Shooting Guard

Having James and Chris Bosh around sure made things easier for Dwyane Wade. Wade had one of his best seasons statistically last year finishing the season with career highs in shooting percentage and rebounds. He averaged 25.5 points-per-game and shot over 50 percent for the first time in his career. His assists fell dramatically but that’s because James handles the ball so much.

Eddie House will be Wade’s main backup until Mike Miller is able to return. Miller had hernia surgery during the offseason and will be sidelined for up to eight weeks. Expect to see James and Shane Battier get minutes here also.

Small Forward

LeBron James had another great season statistically but did face a lot of criticism for playing poorly during the final minutes of big games. There are numerous reasons why the Heat fell short when games got tight in the fourth quarter but the media and fans were quick to point the finger at James.

James had a lot on his plate last season. He would guard the opposing team’s best perimeter player, he was the Heat’s de facto point guard and he was the team’s leading scorer on most nights. Playing with Wade and Bosh caused a lot of James’ statistics to decline but the Heat weren’t a very deep team last year so James still played an insane amount of minutes. Some of James late game failings were because he was simply fatigued. Hopefully that won’t be the case this season.

Miami signed Shane Battier to back up James and give the Heat more outside shooting. Lack of outside shooting was another thing that contributed to the Heat’s late game struggles since the Heat didn’t shoot consistently enough to create space for James, Wade and Bosh to operate. Battier also helps because he takes those tough defensive assignments away from James which should allow James to be fresher in the fourth quarter of games. James Jones and Miller will also see minutes at small forward throughout the season.

Power Forward

It’s funny that the one member of the big three that spent the most time in the post was the only member of the three not to shoot over 50 percent on the season. Chris Bosh was also the only member of the big three not to average 20 points-per-game last season. He dropped under 10 rebounds-per-game and had a difficult time adjusting to life as the third scoring option behind both Wade and James.

Bosh seemed to wake up towards the end of the season though and played well throughout the playoffs. Bosh has vowed to be more aggressive this year and even bulked up during the offseason in order to play more minutes at center.

Udonis Haslem will get the bulk of the minutes backing up Bosh but they are also expected to be on the floor together a lot with one or the other defending the opposing team’s center. Haslem only played in 13 regular season games last year before going down to injury. He came back during the playoffs though and had a key role in helping the Heat reach the Finals. Juwan Howard will be back to add depth to the position.

Center

Joel Anthony will start but the Heat will be taking a center-by-committee approach to the position. Anthony is a strong shot blocker and averaged nearly two blocks-per-game during the playoffs while playing less than 30 minutes-per-game. The Heat need him to be more aggressive on the boards though.

Haslem and Bosh will see a lot of minutes here and Dexter Pittman could be in the rotation also. The Heat are hoping that Eddy Curry can contribute and have expressed a desire to bring back Zydrunas Ilgauskas for another season.

Coaching

Erik Spoelstra is not a bad coach. As a matter of fact he’s probably as good or better than about 80 percent of the coaches in the league right now which is why the Heat recently signed him to a contract extension.  He coached this team through a lot of adversity last season guiding them all the way to the NBA Finals.

Spoelstra is great at preparing his team to face an opponent and allows his players to play their games when they are on the court. That’s where the good news stops though. Spoelstra was badly out-coached by Rick Carlisle during the Finals, exposing his weaknesses as a coach. He did a horrible job making in-game adjustments and was not able to exploit match ups against the Dallas Mavericks. If Spoesltra was a better X’s and O’s coach it’s possible that the Heat could be raising a championship banner this Christmas instead of watching Dallas raise theirs.

Prediction

The Miami Heat will definitely be a top one or two seed in the playoffs and will once again make a deep run in the playoffs. The Heat are an easy favorite to advance back to the NBA Finals since there are really only two teams in the Eastern Conference that truly have a chance to challenge them for the conference crown. Can they finish what they started last year though? We’ll find out soon.

Roosevelt Hall is an NBA Blogger for Pick And Fade. He can be contacted at RHall_TPFB@Yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @rhall_tpfb.