Miami Heat Exceeding Expectations | January 20th, 2020

Miami, FL – The Miami Heat have surprised even the biggest Miami homer NBA analysts, so far exceeding expectations. At the beginning of the season, most pundits had Miami falling in line at around the #4 seed, but more than halfway through the season, after 43 games, the Heat are holding down the #2 spot. Now, that doesn’t go without saying that the #2-#6 seeds are separated by only 2.5 games, so it’s not like Miami is balling way outside of expectations. They are, however, without a shadow of a doubt, surpassing what “experts” predicted, and I can only credit Heat Culture. 

Miami owns the NBA’s best home record, at 19-1. While they have struggled on the road compared to their top-five counterparts in both conferences, they still have notable wins on the road versus some of those same top-five opponents. Early in the season, in October, the Heat spewed culture all over (#1) Milwaukee. In December, they spread Heat Culture in Canada, defeating the defending champs, (#3) Toronto Raptors. A few days later they reminded (#5) Dallas fans what Heat Culture is all about. Then they returned to (#5) Philly and avenged an earlier loss. Other notable road victories were at Oklahoma City and at San Antonio. So, if the Heat are winning these tough matchups, why isn’t their road record (11-12) better? Miami, along with Philly (9-14) are the only teams in the top-five of either conference with sub .500 road records. 

One of those bad road losses for Miami came at the hands of the Washington Wizards, whom they face tonight. Miami looks to get back at the Wiz for the road defeat back on December 30th in DC. Miami’s playing at home, so odds are they’ll get that W. But, just in case you want action, SBD will provide the odds for the game once they are officially released. 

Miami has one of the easiest strength of schedules remaining. Can the Miami Heat continue to defy the odds, and keep exceeding expectations?