Heat vs. Thunder
Miami seeks to build playoffs momentum.
MIAMI — With a playoff spot already secured, the Miami Heat could blow off the two remaining games of the regular season.
Instead, they have chosen the opposite approach. The Heat are hoping this final stretch can build momentum entering the postseason.
“It can make you go into the playoffs feeling good about yourself,” guard Dwyane Wade said.
“You’re going to play a totally different team, it’s going to be a totally different situation, environment when you got to lock in on a team for seven games — whoever you end up playing. So it’s not going to give you a lot of momentum, it’s going to give you confidence if you end the season winning. Whenever you win, you always have a little bit more confidence.”
There is much more at stake for the Oklahoma City Thunder, who need a victory to secure a spot in the Western Conference playoffs. If they lose their final two games, they will miss the postseason.
Because of their situation, it will create a playoff atmosphere Monday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. The Heat say they prefer it than the alternative.
“I think that’s good because you guys know when we play against lottery teams, we don’t play well,” guard Goran Dragic said.
“But when we play against good teams,
it’s a playoff contender and we know that this is really an important game for them. We’re going to play hard because we don’t want to be the team who just ... what happened last year to us. We want to compete, and I think that’s fair to basketball, to other teams and OKC, too. Have a good game and in the end we’ll see who’s going to be better.”
The Heat are attempting to shake off the disappointment from Friday’s embarrassing loss at the New York Knicks. They lost by 24 to a team that is headed to the NBA draft lottery.
“That’s not what we wanted,” forward James Johnson said. That’s not Heat basketball. Our coaching staff worked extremely hard for that scout. We didn’t come out and perform. It’s no knock on them. It’s just us as players. We sat down, we talked about it. That’s not the kind of example of basketball we want to be playing.”
Added Spoelstra, “All we’re focused on right now is OKC. We want to certainly play better than we did in New York. OKC is bringing it. It should be a good challenge for us.”
Although the Knicks loss slowed some of the momentum, the Heat refuse to let it take away from what they have accomplished this season. After being eliminated from playoff contention in the final game last year, they are back in the postseason for the eighth time in 10 seasons.
Spoelstra allowed the players some time to celebrate, but they aren’t content with just making the postseason.
“We’re past that,” Spoelstra said. “We already took our night of acknowledgment and celebration. I wanted our guys to enjoy it because it does mean something for this group to show the perseverance and the character to come back and make amends and take the next step. This group earned it the hard way, but we don’t want to be satisfied with that.”
The Heat have simply used last year’s disappointment as motivation for their current task.
“We didn’t want to bring anything that we did last year into this year,” Johnson said. “It’s a whole different team. Guys are another
year older, and we’re a little more mature. We’re just focusing on this year. Once we clinched that we would get into the playoffs, that’s when we had a little bit of a talk about how far we came to get to this point.”