- Defense is the primary focus of everything the Miami Heat does, and it's been that way since Pat Riley arrived. It might be more than a mantra this year. Miami started the season playing defense at a level that made no one in the organization happy last season, allowing 100.6 points per game, ranking only 23rd-best league-wide after 17 games. In the 65 games that followed, they gave up just 93.6 points per game, the fourth-best rate in the NBA over that span. Playing defense better from the start of the season has emerged as a top priority for the Heat, who left the Bahamas on Friday after wrapping up six practices of training camp that were devoted almost entirely to that end of the floor.
