Find Out Where The Miami Heat Rank In The Latest Power Rankings

The Miami Heat have sputtered to a 2-5 start to the season.

After making the Eastern Conference finals a year ago, the Heat are now in the bottom half of the standings. They checked in at No. 18 in the latest NBA.com power rankings, far below their expectations.

"In a span of four days, the Heat handed the Blazers their first loss and the Kings their first win," NBA.com writer John Schuhmann said. "The bigger difference between the two games was on defense, where the Heat allowed Golden State and Sacramento to score almost 122 points per 100 possessions over the last two games of their three-game trip."

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra recently challenged the team to playing more together instead of focusing on individual stats. Their first chance to improve comes Tuesday night against the defending champion Warriors at FTX Arena.

"With their offensive limitations (though the Tyler Herro – Bam Adebayo pick-and-roll has been super effective thus far), the Heat need to be elite defensively to compete with the best teams in the East," Schumman said.

MORE HEAT-RELATED STORIES

Erik Spoelstra says the Heat need to play better together. CLICK HERE

Heat need more big games from Tyler Herro. CLICK HERE

Watch Steph Curry put a crossover on Tyler Herro. CLICK HERE

For a look at some of the latest Heat apparel. CLICK HERE

TWITTER: @ShandelRich

Follow all of our Miami Heat coverage on Facebook here

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here

For any Heat or NBA questions, please email shandelrich@gmail.com