{"id":686964,"date":"2026-03-29T23:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/686964\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T23:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:52:16","slug":"heats-late-season-struggles-hit-new-low-against-tanking-pacers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/686964\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat’s late-season struggles hit new low against tanking Pacers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when it seemed as if it couldn’t get any worse<\/a>, it just did. In probably their most embarrassing loss of the season, the Miami Heat fell to the tanking Indiana Pacers to close out a pretty demoralizing three-game road trip. <\/p>\n

Miami is now in 10th place in the Eastern Conference standings and three games back of the 6th seed and four games back of the 5th seed.<\/p>\n

With just seven games left on their schedule, it’s pretty safe to say that the Heat’s chances of breaking out of the Play-In Tournament mediocrity are all but done<\/a>. At this point, there’s no guarantee they’ll even be able to earn their way into the official playoff field. <\/p>\n

The Heat’s defense hits a new low <\/p>\n

At the center of it all was the Heat’s sluggish defense. After being called out by Erik Spoelstra<\/a> just a couple of days ago, the Heat…didn’t respond. Against the second-worst offensive team in the league, the Heat allowed 135 points. <\/p>\n

Even against one of the worst defensive teams in the league, the Heat couldn’t muster enough offense. In a game that Miami needed to win, they turned in one of the worst performances of the year. <\/p>\n

The Heat didn’t just lose. They didn’t just have a huge letdown at one of the worst possible times. They looked like a team that didn’t want to be out there. They looked like a team that had given up. <\/p>\n

I won’t go all the way to question the Heat’s effort, but it’s hard not to with how they looked against the Pacers. Mind you, the Pacers are not just a team that is *trying* to lose. They’re a team that is was just 1-18 since the NBA All-Star break heading into the game against the Heat.<\/p>\n

And, still, the Heat didn’t even look like they belonged on the same floor as the Pacers. <\/p>\n

This loss will define the season for the Heat<\/p>\n

It was as bad an effort as you’re going to see from a team that was supposed to be fighting for their playoff lives. It’s one of those games that could end up defining a season. And not in a good way. <\/p>\n

It’s one of those games that should open the door for some big changes this summer. At least it should. <\/p>\n

Even before the complete meltdown against the Pacers, this season was already trending in the wrong direction for Miami. It just got a whole lot worse with this unexpected result. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just when it seemed as if it couldn’t get any worse, it just did. In probably their most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,144,295,189,3881,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-686964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-heat","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-heat","12":"tag-miamiheat","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116315157472396556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}