The 3-1 Miami Heat have been absolutely rolling on the offensive end. They’re the tenth best offense in the NBA, which is pretty much as good as it’s going to get if your the Heat.
A big part of that success has been the speed of the team seeing a jump. A team that sat at 25th in pace and transition frequency just a year ago, now finds themself as the league’s fastest team through three games.
The other main reason for the scoring output has been their off-season shooter acquisition, Norman Powell. He’s been averaging 24 points a night on 48% shooting overall and 50% shooting from three.
Early Tuesday morning, Powell was added to the injury report due to groin soreness that would ultimately downgrade him to questionable for much of the day. After waiting to see how he felt after going through pregame warm-ups, the Heat downgraded him to out for tonight’s game against the Charlotte Hornets for precautionary reasons.
#CHAvsMIA INJURY UPDATE: Norman Powell (right groin soreness) has been ruled out of tonight’s game vs the Hornets.
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) October 28, 2025
So now the Heat seemingly have to lean into the fastbreak stuff even more than usual. Powell has been a sticking point of generating the Heat decent looks out of thin air, simply through his elite shooting ability.
At least the Heat’s other off-season shooting acquisition saw a positive bump on the injury report, as Simone Fontecchio was upgraded to available.
Powell gets replaced in the starting lineup for a night by the Heat’s second round pick last year, Pelle Larsson. This is how the Heat usually operate when it comes to their rotations, since they like to keep the others in their usual spots.
The Heat are going to need their bench to bring that same offensive punch that they’ve been bringing, since making up for Tyler Herro and Powell’s scoring numbers is no small task.
