RECORD OF 7-13 AN EERIE SIGN
Funk followed bad start 2 seasons ago
MIAMI — The problem is about more than the turnovers, the lulls of ineptitude, the bad losses.
Instead, it’s about the eerie sense of having been here before.
Because the Miami Heat have been here before, with a 7-13 record just over a month into a season.
Two years ago, 20 games in, the Heat stood at 7-13 ... on the way to an 11-30 start.
The difference was the Heat still were trying to figure out a new roster patched together in the wake of the free-agency departure of Dwyane Wade. James Johnson, Dion Waiters and Wayne Ellington were learning to become teammates. Unbeknownst at the time, a 30-11 resurrection would come over the second half of the season, falling a tiebreaker shy of the playoffs at 41-41.
The difference this time, in the wake of Tuesday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks at American Airlines Arena, is that this was supposed to be the season when continuity carried the day, with 14 players back from last season’s roster.
Granted, there has yet to be a season debut from Waiters after January ankle surgery and Johnson has been back only five games since his May surgery for a sports hernia.
But what is different this time is that the game has changed for the Heat. Scoring is up, way up. The fast and furious have raced to the top of the standings. And the mantra of “hardest working, best conditioned, most professional, unselfish, toughest, meanest, nastiest team in the NBA” rings hollow at the moment.
“That was two years ago, a long
time ago,” Wade said of the franchise’s two faces in 2016-17, when he admired from a distance while with his hometown Chicago Bulls. “So it was a different season. Guys have got to have different motivation to get ourselves out of this hole.
“The league has gotten better. Teams like Atlanta, just like us, doesn’t have an amazing record, can put up 130 points on you. It’s a different game. For us to be successful, at some point in the season we’ve just got to figure out to be better at this game than most teams. And right now, they’re better than us.”
A contrasting argument about the state of the team could be made that, at 7-13, the Heat also are only three games behind last season’s pace, when 10-10 at the quarter pole led to a 44-38 finish.
The uphill climb essentially has become the way of the post-LeBron Heat.
“Look, it’s like our old quote, ‘Character isn’t made in a bed of roses and sunshine. Like steel, it’s forged in fire, in between a hammer and an anvil,’” Spoelstra said of the words of Chin-Ning Chu in “Thick Face, Black Heart: The Warrior Philosophy for Conquering the Challenges of Business and Life.”
“Right now,” Spoelstra said, “we’re between the hammer and the anvil. This is the NBA. If you expect it just to be easy, you’ve been led the wrong road.
“This is not what we would like, but this is when you start to develop some character, when things are not going how you want them to, and it feels like you can’t turn it around. So what do you do? You come in the next day and you figure out some solutions.”
The Heat’s reality is that no matter what happens in the remaining three games of this four-game homestand that continues Friday against the New Orleans Pelicans, they will head out on a six-game western swing at least three games under .500.
The perplexing -- and yet perhaps encouraging -element is that the Heat’s focus seems to steel amid adversity.
“We’ve had spurts where we’ve played well,” Wade said. “I think we’ve played our best when we’re losing, which is unfortunate. We’ve just got to keep grinding. The season doesn’t end. Our record is our record. Just got to keep grinding and get ourselves out of it.”
And continue the search for a complete game.
“We’ve just got to put together 48-minute game,” forward Josh Richardson said, “and I don’t think we’ve been doing that.”