A big issue for the Miami Heat has been offense. As a matter of fact, the Heat are 27th in the league in offense, pouring in 94.1 points per game. Now, before I offer up opinion, it is important to note something. Miami has struggled horribly with injuries this season.

Dwyane Wade was out seven games, Chris Bosh just finished a seven-game stretch where he sat out with an injury and Danny Granger was injured towards the beginning of the season. Chris Andersen, who has played well as a starter for Miami, was out with an injury as well. They haven’t been able to play a long stretch of basketball together until now.

Now that that is out of the way, we can become critical. Although Miami has played pretty good defense, only allowing 98.1 points per game, which is good for eighth in the league (albeit coming at a high percentage), they have pretty much relied on Dwyane Wade for much of the season to carry them on offense.

He is averaging 23 points per game this season, which is tied for sixth in the NBA in scoring. Before the season began, Miami had shelled out maximum dollars for Chris Bosh to play with higher production than Wade, not vice versa. In fact, they gave less money for Wade this offseason.

The Miami Heat need better production from Bosh.

The first three games Bosh played when he came back from injury, he averaged 17.6 points and 6.6 rebounds. It wasn’t until last Sunday against the Brooklyn Nets that we saw inspired play from Bosh, chipping in 25 points for the Heat. That is what a team needs from players they pay nine digits to.

But there is still a large problem that I see with that victory. Wade and Bosh combined for 51 points in that game, but the third-leading scorer was Hassan Whiteside. I am as excited as anybody to see the improvement that this guy might bring the Heat. But the Heat will not be able to hold opponents to 84 points all the time. Thus, the Heat must encourage players to step up.

Consider Luol Deng and Mario Chalmers. Again, one must give leeway because Bosh has been injured, but Chalmers’ and Deng’s scoring needs to rise. During the beginning of the season, both of those players were scoring well. Chalmers was averaging 14 per game, and all was well in South Beach.

Now Chalmers is averaging four points per game on 26 percent shooting, while Deng is averaging 12 points per game, scoring six against the Brooklyn Nets. If Miami desires to be competitive, which they can, they need to look for better ways to score. One of those ways might be to up the tempo, something that they have failed to do this season.

They are averaging 8.8 points per game on fast break points, significantly less than last season’s number, and significantly less than 27 other teams in the league according to TeamRankings.com.

The Miami Heat need more scoring, and they need it badly.