Heat fight turnovers
Miami ranks 4th-worst in NBA for losing ball
It was the most glaring deficiency in the wake of the Miami Heat’s loss to the Wizards on Wednesday.
The 17 turnovers they committed weren’t conducive to winning against a quality opponent. In this case, those errors gifted 26 points, which could be pointed to as the deciding factor in a 102-93 defeat. Washington turned it over 12 times.
It has also been an ongoing stumbling block in the Heat’s 6-8 start.
“The truth is turnovers are crippling our team right now,” coach Erik Spoelstra said Thursday.
Miami is averaging 16.3 turnovers a game, which ranks fourth-worst in the NBA.
They were particularly crippling in the fourth quarter Wednesday when five turnovers figured prominently in frittering away a 7-point lead.
Heat players are aware of the problem, but have been unable to pare the miscues to an acceptable level.
“If I knew the answer we would have already fixed it,” guard Goran Dragic said. “You just need to stick with our work ethic, try to get better, especially in practices, try to eliminate those turnovers that usually are coming from a pass from like a launching pad, when you’re inside the paint you kind of jump and you don’t have enough time to see the open guy, that’s why you get in trouble.”
Josh Richardson said after the game that the concern is to maintain ball control without sacrificing aggressiveness.
“Nobody is saying that. But we do have to take ownership,” Spoelstra said. “An easy cop-out is to say ‘Well, we can’t be robots. We can’t play passively.’ That’s a cop-out.”
Guard Dion Waiters, who led the team with five turnovers Wednesday, said many of them result from aggressively attacking the paint. It’s how he plays, and that won’t change.
“I’m never going to lose that,” Waiters said. “Just be smarter and [improve] decision-making also. Sometimes it’s just keeping it simple.
“I had a couple of lategame turnovers that was me just not taking my time and trying to force the issue. But that is something we can control ourselves. … Kind of slow down. We like to run. Sometimes you’ve got to be patient and allow the offense to work for itself.”
Spoelstra spoke of the turnover issue as central to an overriding problem on inconsistent play that has plagued the Heat through the first 14 games.
“We don’t have necessarily cut our turnovers to 10 a game,” Spoelstra said. “That’s not realistic. But, a couple per game, maybe get five shots more to our strengths rather than coughing up a poor, inefficient shot. That can dramatically change your offense. Just that alone. But we have to take ownership and not deflect — not deflect what the issue is.”
The turnovers and spates of taking ill-advised shots have led to perplexing swings between solid play and other stretches of seeming inability to get out of their own way.
The fluctuations have been simply game-to-game or even quarter-to-quarter, which was the case Wednesday when the Heat followed a resurgent third period with a bumbling fourth.
Sometimes it is minute-to-minute.
“You have those minutes we play really well, we look amazing and then I feel like we just go away from those,” Dragic said. “Usually it’s one-on-one, we shoot a tough shot. Basically, we need to stick to our principles, get a trigger, try to move the ball. When we do that you can see how good we can be.”
In seeking solutions to the turnover bugaboo and the maddening up-anddown play, Spoelstra said: “We found some basketball things that we can help. But, still it becomes about an overall responsibility, taking responsibility, taking pride in taking care of the basketball, understanding context of game, of what just happened. Sometimes the one play or two plays or three plays that happened before that affect your decision on that next play and we’re not necessarily making those reads very well. We’ll get better at it.
“We’ve been scaling back and trying to simplify right now,” he continued. “That doesn’t mean that we won’t grow and evolve. But right now we do need to trend in the direction of keeping it a little bit more simple.”