Road dip: Struggles continue away from home
CLEVELAND — The redundancy is in the losses, the Miami Heat 3-8 in their past 11 road games.
But there also is a redundancy in the message from Erik Spoelstra, that his team still has enough time to make things right away from AmericanAirlines Arena.
The next opportunity comes Monday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
“Well, we’ll figure it out,” Spoelstra said, his team still stung by falling in their previous road game, Thursday night against Atlanta Hawks. “We’re going to keep on working on that until it changes or until time runs out.”
Even with the thoroughness of Saturday’s 124-105 home victory over the Cavs, when the Heat scored a franchise-record 82 points in the first half, the Heat appreciate there has been little in the way of homeroad carryover.
“That’s the one thing I’ll give this group credit for,” Spoelstra said. “They’re not afraid to own it and work on it. We’re all frustrated about some of our road games.”
It’s not that the Heat have not been able to compete in going 13-17 on the road this season, it’s just that have not been able to close.
“But, again, I’ve mentioned it before, we’re not as far on the road as it seems,” Spoelstra said. “But we’ve just not been able to finish.
“We’ve had a lot of those road games where we’ve been up in the fourth quarter and we just need to figure out how to get over the top.”
Quick change
Just as the Heat want something different on the road, the Cavaliers vow there will be something different at home when the teams meet Monday.
“We got to accept the challenge and have a better effort for 48 minutes on Monday,” center Tristan Thompson said.
The Heat caught the Cavaliers on the second night of a back-to-back set, coming off a victory over the Washington Wizards. Now there has been time to go to school.
“They make themselves very difficult to guard,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “They know who each individual player is, what their strengths are, and they let each individual play to their strengths.
“What Erik Spoelstra has done, what their front office has done, they have done a really good job in finding a system that fits and finding good guys that fit that system.”
For the Eastern Conference-worst Cavaliers,
there has been minimal difference in the home-road split, at 7-22 at home and 8-19 on the road.
“We have a lot of good lessons to take from this game,” forward Cedi Osman said after Saturday’s loss.
At this point, amid the Heat’s injuries and absences, it is difficult to determine where Spoelstra’s wheel of lineups is going to stop spinning, but Saturday it led to a revival for Kelly Olynyk as a starter.
In 26 minutes, Olynyk closed with 17 points against the Cavs, converting four 3-pointers. It was his highest-scoring game since closing with 19 points on Jan 24 against the visiting Los Angeles Clippers.
“He’s very consistent with his work ethic, watching film, and he’s probably in the weight room right now riding the bike getting extra cardio in,” Spoelstra said. “You do all your prep, it doesn’t guarantee everything, but it gives yourself the best chance to perform and help your team.”
Spoelstra said the rotation remains a work in progress after adding Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill at the NBA trading deadline while dealing with the injury absences of Tyler Herro and Meyers Leonard.
“There have been some moving parts,” he said. “None of this is an excuse, but it is a reality that we brought in three new players and just as we brought them in, two players who were prominently in our rotation get hurt.
“So there have been some moving parts that the head coach is trying to stabilize a little bit, trying to figure out how we can help with that.”
Pitcher Mike Fiers steps into the dugout during Sunday’s spring training game.