Leaders getting loud as team seeks to climb out of a hole
The Miami Heat’s schedule say it’s only the fifth week of the season.
Still early. A time to gain footing. The most meaningful games in the distance.
But in 2020-21, the NBA schedule lies, because it largely remains an abstract, with games delayed and postponed, the second half of the regular-season calendar yet to be drawn.
The goal is 72 games, down from the typical 82. But even that is not assured amid a pandemic, as Major League Baseball showed with most teams playing 60 games, but some fewer, or even as college football magnified, with Ohio State making the national championship game after playing only seven games.
“It’s a crazy season, and every win counts,” Heat guard Goran Dragic said, with the Heat at 5-7 and in 12th place in the Eastern Conference going into a fourgame trip that opens Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors in
Tampa.
Yet to string together consecutive victories, the Heat have barely strung together a cohesive rotation, with Jimmy Butler and Avery Bradley out the past four games due to coronavirus protocols and Tyler Herro the past two due to neck spasms,
No matter, Dragic said. With players testing as many as three times a day for COVID-19, continuity could prove a seasonlong abstract.
“We don’t know what the future holds,” said Dragic, forced back into the starting lineup in Monday night’s 113-107 victory over the Detroit Pistons at AmericanAirlines Arena due to the absences. “Maybe some other guys are going to be out, you don’t know. We need to stack as much as possible We’re a good team, enough, but right now we’re still looking for our identity. But we’re up and down. So we need to be more consistent.”
Last season, the Heat’s seventh loss came in their 25th game. Now there is the daunting reality of the fight simply to get above .500 for the first time this season, with the next two on the road against the Raptors, followed by two games against the emerging colossus that is the Brooklyn Nets.
“We can’t wait to get those guys back,” Dragic said. “We’re not the only team in this league who is dealing with those problems. So we have to play with our players that we have and hope to grind it, and hopefully that will be enough.”
Such was not the mindset coming in, after advancing to last season’s NBA Finals and within two victories of the 2020 championship.
But Butler has now missed 6 of the first 12 games, with the Heat twice playing with the NBA minimum of eight players in last week’s two road losses to the Philadelphia 76ers.
It is why Dragic drew his own line in the sand when the Heat were falling behind by 19 in the first quarter Monday night against the Pistons, after losing to the East-worst Pistons two nights earlier.
“I was just honest. I told them we were [BS’ing] around, and they’re playing harder than us,” he said of his plea during a timeout huddle. “We had a couple of open shots, we missed those, and from there on, where we don’t make shots, our defense is just not there. They didn’t feel us the first quarter, and then the bench came in and did an amazing job to bring us back in the game.”
While Kendrick Nunn and Moe Harkless helped spark the second unit Monday, this, ultimately will come down to Butler, Herro and perhaps Bradley setting the tone, along with Dragic and Adebayo.
So Dragic spoke up. Then Adebayo. And, finally, perhaps a sign that one victory could be followed by another.
“It is irrelevant what was being said,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “This group has a great deal of passion.
“Goran and Bam were the leaders [Monday] and everyone was following. Goran had that timeout, and another timeout Bam was sitting in my chair and took that timeout. That is what you want your leaders doing, just leading the way and everyone else just follow.”
The victory over the Detroit was somewhat of a shaky statement. But the words of leadership finally may continue to resonate.
“Right now, Bam is kind of the head in the stake when it comes to that leadership role,” Harkless said, “and Goran is right there with him.”