Miami Heat: 3 takeaways from 2018-19 season opener

3. Heat unable to get good looks

At his press conference immediately following the loss, head coach Erik Spoelstra lamented the Heat’s inability to get into their preferred actions at the offensive end:

"“We had a tough time generating the type of looks that we wanted to, and you have to credit their defense — they’re long, they’re well coached, they really do a good job of protecting the paint.”"

With a frontcourt consisting of Aaron Gordon, Nikola Vucevic, Jonathan Isaac and Mohamed Bamba, the Magic have the requisite size and athleticism to cause havoc at the defensive end. For the Heat, this particularly showed up in a couple of areas.

Through their six preseason games, the Heat had been exceptional in getting to the free throw line, averaging 32.3 attempts per game. However, in this contest, they had just 22 attempts for the night.

Furthermore, the Magic’s overall length also affected the Heat on the perimeter. In shooting just 9-of-33 from 3-point range, the Heat gave another example of just how important the long ball is to their overall success. Last season, the Heat were just 8-17 when they nailed nine triples or less.

Richardson was the biggest culprit, hitting just 2-of-10 from long range, while the bench overall nailed just one of their eight attempts.