Spoelstra must be the star every night
Six straight hours of waiting in the African bush. Six straight hours of sitting in an all-terrain Jeep. Six straight hours of watching a leopard sit in a tree, study impalas feeding on berries underneath, waiting for the right prey at the right moment for the right attack.
“He tensed to jump out of the tree several times,’’ Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Each time something must not have been quite right.”
This was last summer in Maun, Botswana, where the Heat coach and his wife, Nikki, went after participating in NBA clinics in Africa. They sat close to the leopard, maybe distance from midcourt to the basket. They watched him work.
“The level of concentration and focus was something to behold,’’ Spoelstra said.
And so now, even before the leopard’s kill, we’re at the crux of the lesson here. Because if there’s something to watch this series it’s the concentration and focus needed to maneuver a Heat roster with a lot of moving, if average, parts as it tries to beat a more talented Philadelphia roster.
The Heat won Game 2 because Dwyane Wade scored 28 points. They won because James Johnson made all seven of his shots. They won because of Justise Winslow’s defense, and despite Hassan Whiteside’s limited play, and even because Rodney McGruder came off the bench for five defensive minutes.
None of that will happen every game this series.
What has to happen every game is Spoelstra.
He has to be the star on a team without one. He has to see the game before it unfolds and impact the game with his decisions. This goes against how NBA teams win big, of course.
Talent wins. Philadelphia has the two best players this series with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid (assuming he returns). That should carry the day for them.
A man in suit and dress shoes on the sideline can only do so much. He draws the plays and decides on playing time. He doesn’t make the shots, defend the basket or be the hero.
“Habits,’’ Spoelstra keeps saying when asked for the importance of the regular season.
The habits he built again this year start with this idea: Anything goes. Everyone be ready. Only two players, Luke Babbitt and Udonis Haslem, didn’t play in Game 2. That’s a long way from Pat Riley’s line on playoff coaching in another era that, “You play seven, you use six and you trust five.”
Adjustments. Tweaks. Changing roles. That’s the concentrated duel between Spoelstra and Philadelphia coach Brett Brown. It’s often in the shadows. It can be understood more by reflecting on the big plays more than the plays themselves.
Take Ray Allen’s iconic shot in Game 6 against San Antonio in the 2013 Finals. In the moments before, Spoelstra shuffled Chris Bosh in and out of the lineup. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich shuffled Tim Duncan in and out with Bosh.
But in that final minute, Spoelstra got Bosh in and Duncan was caught out. With a smaller body to go against, Bosh got the final-seconds rebound to Allen for the winning shot. That’s how coaching impacts games.
Embiid is expected to enter the series for Thursday’s Game 3. That changes the dynamics again. Spoelstra needs Hassan Whiteside more now. Whiteside played 12 awful minutes in Game 1, and 15 serviceable ones in Game 2. Who shows up in Game 3?
So the coach needs focus and concentration as much as any player. Or any leopard. On that summer day in Africa, the Spoelstras were the only ones out with the guide, as a few other people expected to show up didn’t make it.
Spoelstra remembers the six hours, “passing like 45 minutes,’’ when the leopard finally pounced on an impala. He didn’t bite or gouge the prey. He strangled the life out of him.
“Like this,’’ Spoelstra says, placing a forearm under your neck.
It took 10 minutes. All the while, the impala twitched and there was this, “eerie silence,’’ Spoelstra said, as if the leopard knew this was just the cycle of the animal kingdom.
“It was like he was saying, ‘Hey, this is part of life, I’m going to get you today, but another day it will be my turn,’ ” he said.
That’s how it works in sports with less finality. One coach wins. One goes home and reconfigures to make it their turn next time.