Heat faces playoff push in stretch of 8 games in 12 days
Heat faces playoff push in stretch of 8 games in 12 days against tough foes
Typically, Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra insists on living in the moment.
But this hardly is a typical NBA season, and these hardly are typical times for the Heat through a rollercoaster ride of eight games in 12 days.
So as they departed for their two-game trip that concludes Friday against the Atlanta Hawks, they found themselves looking both back and ahead.
With both necessary. After collapsing to three consecutive losses at the end of their previous trip, the Heat knew road reclamation was a priority.
Road reclaimed . . . with Wednesday night’s 107-87 victory over the San Antonio Spurs at the AT&T Center.
But as they prepared for the trip, they also knew what mattered most . . . Friday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena, with the race for East seeds Nos. 4-8 particularly compressed.
One down. One to go.
“Our leaders understood and everybody understood how important this road trip is, and they wanted to set the tone for us,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat one game behind the Hawks for the No. 5 seed, with the head-tohead tiebreaker in the three-game season series in the balance. “This road trip is a big challenge for us.”
But the perspective, at least from Jimmy Butler, is to extend the winning streak to four rather than get caught up in standings
that seemingly change as each game result comes in.
“I can’t speak for everybody. I don’t care,” Butler said of the standings. “I really don’t. I don’t pay attention to it. I don’t be on the World Wide Web like that. So I can’t tell you who is where.
“I know in our team meeting we talk about it. All we got to do is get there. We get there, us as a team, I’ll handle the rest.”
While the Heat advanced to last season’s NBA Finals as the No. 5 seed in the East, that was under the atypical circumstances of the quarantine bubble setting of the Disney World bubble. No travel. No fans.
But this season also has produced its unique circumstances, from unyielding coronavirus testing to the addition of a play-in round that only provides a direct path to the best-of-seven opening round to the top six seeds in each conference.
“We know that we have 13 games left and we can make a push,” center Bam Adebayo said. “We’re trying make that push, push ourselves up in the seedings.”
While the Hawks game, because of the tiebreaker, essentially could count double in the playoff race, guard Tyler Herro said the diminishing number of regular-season opportunities, alone, makes each game significant.
“We’re ready for the playoffs and it’s coming down to the end,” he said. “So continue to work at it.”
A lesson already learned is how quickly it can turn. Not only does the current threegame winning streak follow a three-game losing streak, but the Heat’s 31-28 season has basically been built on streaks.
“Hopefully, we don’t get too comfortable,” Spoelstra said. “That’s something we’re working on, is trying to find more consistency.”
Because of that, even while reflecting back on last week that wasn’t and this week that has been some of the team’s most inspired ball, and even with the playoff-race challenges ahead against the Hawks, Charlotte Hornets and Boston Celtics, Spoelstra said there is nothing wrong about also taking stock.
“This has been, I think, a season where you’re presented with a lot of opportunities to be challenged and stretch yourself and grow in different ways than in normal seasons,” he said. “I think this has been a really good experience for our locker room this year.
“We’re not where we want to be, and the thing that I always commend about this group every day, the group is committed to find solutions and we’ll get better.”