Heat continue road trip at Sacramento

Since the Miami Heat have won a title, the scrutiny, and frankly, stupidity around the coverage of this team has considerably calmed down.

But every season, the Heat go through the ups and downs every team does, and due to their status as a contender, it receives a decent amount of attention.

Remember when the Heat lost five in a row in late February and into March in 2011 and the sky was falling? Miami didn't go into the postseason last year playing their best basketball, and we know the adversity they faced in the postseason.

Miami's abnormally bad rebounding has been a focal point of late, as well as the teams road woes, but I can't help but think Miami is going to be back in the NBA Finals anyway.

Regardless, it still would go a long way to restoring some Heat fans' peace of mind if the issue began to get corrected. And that starts tomorrow at 10 p.m. at the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento.

The Kings stink, so that's a good thing.

The Kings are amongst the five worst defensive teams in basketball, and are an atrocious rebounding bunch. The Kings rank dead last in the league in Defensive Rebound Percentage, which is an estimate of the available boards a team gets. The Kings are a mediocre offensive rebounding group as well, and do not present any of the issues the formidable front lines of the Indiana Pacers and Chicago Bulls do.

Demarcus Cousins and Jason Thompson could be problematic, but Miami can more or less focus on those two as nobody else on that roster is a realistic threat to have a big rebounding game.

For the Heat, fighting the habit of coasting during the early parts of the regular season will start to become important as the season goes along, and the sooner the better.

The Kings present an opportunity to jump start that process.