Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat working to ‘get it right’
Spoelstra says team’s ultimate focus is on making it to the playoffs.
Erik Spoelstra typically warns his players about avoiding what he terms “the outside noise.” Tuesday, the Miami Heat coach said there is no reason for his team to create any of its own amid this run of nine losses in the past 11 games.
“We don’t have to express anything to you,” Spoelstra said following practice at AmericanAirlines Arena, in his first media session since again pointing, in the immediate wake of his team’s Monday night loss to the league-worst Phoenix Suns, to progress being made. “We owe nothing to any of you. We can express our disappointment and anger to ourselves.
“But this is not about sending a message to any of you. This is about us and it was even more paramount that we have blinders on and just focus on doing better and not trying to please or satisfy whatever anybody else opinion of what’s going on.”
Spoelstra emphasized that even with the slide, his team remains in playoff contention and that that should remain the ultimate focus.
“We’re going to continue to work at this until we get it right,” he said. “We’re disappointed about it and there’s not much else to say about it. The only thing you can do is roll up your sleeves and work.
“This is not about trying to prove how angry we are to everybody out there. There’s a lot of guys in this group that lost sleep last night about this and it has nothing to do with any one of you.”
Spoelstra’s comments came in advance of a challenging back-to-back set Wednesday at AmericanAirlines Arena against the Golden State Warriors, and then Thursday on the road against the Houston Rockets.
“We have to keep on grinding in this and show some grit and some perseverance,” he said. “There’s going to be some more disappointing moments. And then ultimately there’s going to be some exhilarating moments.
“We’re still in a group — I don’t care what anybody else says — we’re in a group that’s fighting for something right now. And we still have every much of an opportunity as those teams. Those teams are going to go through their ups and downs, as well.”
The Heat are 10th in the Eastern Conference, 1 1⁄2 games out of the eighth and final playoff seed, without a home victory since Jan. 12.
“We just need to focus with blinders on our game to make sure we can do it more consistently than we have been,” Spoelstra said. “Because there have been great moments in all of these losses that we’ve had, even at home. It’s been our inability to do it consistently that’s been costly.
“Today was a work day. We’ll continue to learn from it, be accountable to it and then we’ll get better.”
Spoelstra said it is more than a matter of having a veteran base or players out due to injury, with Justise Winslow, James Johnson, Rodney McGruder and Derrick Jones Jr. all missing Monday’s loss that allowed the Suns to snap a 17-game losing streak.
“There’s nothing that should or should not be happening in this league,” he said. “It happens, and you do something about it. That’s it.” That’s what Tuesday was about.
“Some guys probably didn’t sleep because of a certain play or a certain thing that happened in the game or whatever the case may be,” guard Dwyane Wade said. “But when you come in today and the NBA schedule says you’ve got to play Golden State on Wednesday and Houston on Thursday, you got to get over it and you got to figure out a way to be better individually and hopefully that brings better to the team.
“So we all looked ourselves in the mirror after last night to see what we could have done better, and then we try to do it better the next game.”