Big, "intentional", gutsy, intelligent win by Erik Spoelstra and the team last night. It brings our record to within two one-thousandths of a percentage point expressed as a decimal of our historical performance over nine full seasons from 2014/15:

"Heat" 2023/24: 30-25, .545, projected 45-37 over 82 games.

2014/15 through 2022/23: .543 average. 45-37.

It is, I believe, unprecedented consistency. It is all that we should expect.

But it is not all that we should hope. 

Over those nine full seasons the "Heat's" standard deviation wins is +/- five, remarkably small standard for a sports team. Thus it is as reasonable to expect in any given season that we will win 40 games as 50 but the greatest likelihood is 45. We hope for a deviation of +5 wins this season over our average 45, that is 50, the mark of an excellent season in the Association. Rationally, our hopes are tempered by statistical probability, and after our seven-game losing streak I tempered mine to 47-48 wins. 

The "Heat" have 27 games remaining. They would have to go 17-10 to get to 47 wins. That's a .630 pace. Our decimal win percentage, in smaller sample sizes, has been .630 or better on two occasions, early in the season, 9-5 on Nov. 20 and 10-5, Nov. 22. Using the same number, 27, of games, we were 15-12, .556, on Dec. 18. The next 27 games ended with the win over Beer on Tuesday night. We were 14-13, .519, over that span, 29-25, .537, on the season to that point. 

Judgment here is bounded within the walls of current statistical reality, historical statistical probability, assessment of the terrain ahead and reasonable hope. My best judgment is that we will exceed the projections of statistics, that we will go outside even the standard deviation of the past nine seasons, that we will go 21-6 over the final 27 games, and that we will win 51 games. That is my judgment.