Before most could even find their remote and get comfortable on their living room couches on Monday night for Heat-Clippers, Ty Lue was already calling a timeout in the first quarter as the Heat got to 14 points in an instant.

That early stretch consisted of barely any touches for their two elite scorers, Tyler Herro and Norman Powell. And that’s a good thing.

Seven points for Bam Adebayo and seven points for Andrew Wiggins was the way that box score looked three minutes into the game, and that forecasted a formula that makes a whole lot of sense for this Heat team.

If Adebayo and Wiggins can set the tone for this team early in games as the aggressors, it simply puts the defense at an immediate disadantage. The two top players on the opposing teams scouting report right now are Herro and Powell, so if you can redirect the focus away from them early, it’s a massive plus.

Powell still found his way to 30 points, while Herro climbed to 22 points on the night, and a lot of that was coming quickly off the catch as the defense scrambled on the dribble drives of Davion Mitchell, Wiggins, and Adebayo.

“You’ve got guys really denying us,” Powell said when talking about those three guys setting a downhill tone. “We’ve got their best defenders, so they’re really not in the gap. So it opens up more of those driving angles for everybody: Wiggs, Bam, D-Mitch.”

I talked some X’s and O’s of the offense with Norman Powell, on how things open up for Tyler and him when Wiggins and Bam are aggressive early like tonight:

His thoughts; pic.twitter.com/SaxcE7SxD8

— Brady Hawk (@BradyHawk305) December 2, 2025

He finished by noting that once those three guys are rolling early, the individual assignments of Herro and Powell are then forced to help off slightly. He noticed more freedom to move without the ball into space, consequently breaking this offense into an all-around performance last night.

“When everybody’s scoring, it opens the floor for everybody,” Wiggins said on this topic. “Everyone’s in a good rhythm, the ball is moving, and everyone has space to do their thing.”

While it’s fun to look at the success of this game-plan from a night ago, it’s the coaches job to see how they can build off it into something more.

From Coach Erik Spoelstra’s point of view, he seems to think of this as a good opportunity to increase the volume of threes for their two sharpshooters, Herro and Powell.

“Our two best three point shooters, without a doubt, are Norm and Tyler,” Spoelstra noted. “Ultimately, as we start to get more of an understanding, we want those guys shooting those open threes…Ideally, the volume of the threes can be coming from Norm and Tyler.”

Also got Spo’s take on this process:

“Ideally the volume of the threes could be coming from Norm and Tyler.”

Talks about where he sees the offense getting to https://t.co/LIajlnm5py pic.twitter.com/gur9xnY5EP

— Brady Hawk (@BradyHawk305) December 2, 2025

He made sure to mention that there’s a bit of a “dance with that,” when discussing the balance of getting their downhill threats going and their perimeter guys open.

But much of that is based off what the defense gives them. This offense is characterized as “free-flowing,” and the beauty of that is they get to determine this stuff on the fly.

If teams aren’t helping down into the slots on their drives, it’s going to be a lot of Adebayo-Wiggins-Mitchell early. If the defense decides to eliminate those paint touch drives, look for Powell and Herro out the gate.

This roster is built for both styles, and it’s a game by game tug-of-war on whose turn it’ll be.