Heat Had Team Meeting About Poor Rebounding

The Miami Heat have a lot of advantages rolling with a small line-up this season. It causes a lot of problems for other teams, especially for big men who are trying to keep up with a fast player like LeBron James who lines up at the four sometimes. Other teams have been following that motive, such as the New York Knicks, who have been rolling with a starting line-up that has Carmelo Anthony as their power forward. However, with small line-ups comes some negatives as well, and usually that big one is rebounding. So far, the Heat have suffered the most out of this. The Knicks have a legit big man in Tyson Chandler, but all Miami has is Chris Bosh, who isn’t known to be the most aggressive guy down low. With that, the Heat had problems against the Chicago Bulls on Friday, having a rare loss at home. The Bulls dominated the boards, 48-28. Miami could only produce four offensive rebounds. With that, head coach Erik Spoelstra called for a team meeting about the rebounding issues, as it could cause a big problem come in time for the playoffs. “This is something that we’re going to fix,” Spoelstra told the Associated Press. It’s a glaring weakness on the Heat. It’s something they definitely need to address before things get worse for them. “We’re improving in so many other areas, particularly offensively,” Spoelstra said. “Rebounding’s the area that has to take the priority right now.” Miami ranks in the top five in several categories like field goal and three-point percentage, turnovers and points per game. However, they rank dead-last in the league in rebounds, being outrebounded almost by three per game. “We’ve got to go out and do it,” LeBron James said. “If the ball is in your region, try to go up and get it. If not, box out your guy and let somebody else go get it.” James has been doing a lot of the work, having a career-best of 8.5 per game. Bosh and Dwyane Wade aren’t doing so bad either, having almost the same averages from last year. But it is still not enough. “We have enough guys who are capable of it,” he said. “Individually guys are capable of doing their job better, either block out or chase down rebounds. We need to have some career years from guys on the glass.” We’ll see if Miami can fix these rebounding woes come Sunday against the Washington Wizards.