Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dragic back in rhythm
Guard bounces back from scoreless night with 22 against 76ers
MIAMI — As the Miami Heat continue to search for late-game answers in the midst of a threegame losing streak while shooting guard Dwyane Wade remains away from the team on paternity leave, an encouraging sign was point guard Goran Dragic’s return to form in Monday night’s home loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
Dragic missed two games with a swollen right knee and returned on Saturday in a scoreless 0-for-7 shooting night against the
Washington
Wizards. However, on Monday
Dragic led the
Heat with a team-high 22 points and five assists on 8-of-15 shooting in 29 minutes.
Dragic, who was no longer listed on the injury report ahead of the 124-114 defeat, said it wasn’t much to do with how his knee felt, but more so getting back into the swing of live game action.
“Just reading properly,” said Dragic, whose 16.7 points per game is second on the team to guard/forward Josh Richardson. “Even the game before, I missed some easy shots, layups. Probably just reading.”
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra agreed, and said Dragic’s improved game against Philadelphia was “as expected” after an off night vs. the Wizards and extra preparation ahead of Monday night.
“The game before that, he just hadn’t done anything for three days and it’s just hard to jump into an NBA game full speed,” Spoelstra said. “That just shows you how much he wants to help the team to go out there and play
when he’s not 100 percent. But he was in great rhythm last night. It’s great to see him physically moving the way he’s capable of.
“If Goran gets any kind of preparation for a game, he’s going to do what he does as well as anybody in this league. He’s incredibly consistent and reliable, and both of those things are great talents to have that you can bank on somebody and what they do every single night.”
Dragic had a few plays when he showed he was comfortable with the knee. On one steal of a behindthe-back save from Sixers center Joel Embiid to avoid a backcourt violation, he charged ahead of Philadelphia’s 7-footer and slammed a dunk down as Embiid trailed closely in search of a chase-down block.
“That’s all in the heat of a battle,” Dragic said. “You’re not thinking about it. You just try to play through it and don’t think. I always have a high pain tolerance. I always play through injuries. That’s nothing new from me.”
Still without Wade, whom the Heat have stated will give as much time as he needs on paternity leave, Dragic can provide Richardson some help in leading a backcourt trying to find its rhythm late in games. Richardson, the Heat’s leader in points (20.5) and field goal attempts (16.6) per game, played the entire fourth quarter but didn’t get a single shot up in the period against the 76ers.
“If you are the main guy, the defense is going to lock in,” Dragic said. “But the good thing about that is we have a lot of guys. We just need to be patient. We just need to read the situation. … It’s not going to be the same guys scoring 20 every game. We have that ability that it can be a different guy.”
As easy as it may be to point to offensive issues, the Heat still believe defensively is where they need to make the necessary improvements.
“I think everything starts on the defensive end for us right now because, as a team, we’re scoring enough points where we should be winning,” Richardson said. “We start from the other end, and we’ll figure it out from there.”
The Heat had a longer practice than anticipated on Tuesday afternoon, working toward correcting those mistakes on defense.
“What we have right now is a flagrant inconsistency. That can be from quarter to quarter, from possession to possession, from different lineups that are out there,” Spoelstra said. “In the same game, we can show the most connected, brilliant defense and then the worst examples of someone driving the lane. And we’re wondering, probably like the average fan [Monday] night, ‘How is that guy wide open at the rim against a team that prides itself on defense?’
“Part of that is the skill level of Philadelphia, but that’s not our identity. That’s not who we are. We have to commit to the tough things defensively and do it possession by possession.”
Dragic said the Heat’s defense was miscommunicating against the 76ers and allowed them to run many of the same sets they were already familiar with from the five-game first-round playoff series last year.