Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Close not counting very much for struggling Heat
Miami staying competitive, but loss total growing
MIAMI — One can’t fault the Miami Heat when it comes to making every moment count. Each of their three games this week has been decided at the final buzzer.
But there also have been two more defeats, including Thursday night’s against the Houston Rockets, in what now is a stretch of 10 losses in the last 13 games.
“We’re right there every single game,” said forward Kelly Olynyk as the Heat turned their attention to Saturday night’s game against the Brooklyn Nets at AmericanAirlines Arena.
“We need to make one more play, [have] one more possession, whether it’s a stop or a score or something. We’ve just got to focus on having that mentality, whatever it is, whatever it takes.”
Despite the recent slide, the Heat woke up Friday just a single game out of the playoffs in the Eastern Conference as reprieves have been coming more often than victories.
It is among the reasons coach Erik Spoelstra continues to stress hope.
“I see so many things trending in the right direction, and this has been going on for three weeks,” he said even in the bitter aftermath of seeing a 10-point lead against James Harden and the Rockets melt away in the final 6 minutes, 18 seconds.
“And that’s why you just have to stay with it until we can get the results that we want more consistently. Everybody’s objective enough to see that there are some good things happening, and it’ll just require some more perseverance and more in general.”
And yet the frustration is as real as the variety of ways Spoelstra’s team is finding to lose. On Monday night, it was a no-reason foul by Josh Richardson in the final ticks against the Phoenix Suns; on Thursday night, it was a steady volume of reach-in fouls that fueled Harden’s 58-point performance, the highestscoring game by an opponent in the Heat’s 31 seasons.
“The games are so close in this league,” Olynyk said. “It boils down to one stop, one steal, one rebound, one offensive putback, one more make, one more shot, one free throw, whatever it is to get us over that hump.
“And we’re going to have to find it somewhere. It’s not easy, but it’s something that we’re just going to have to lock in, focus on and get one more.”
There have been numerous times during this stumble out of playoff position that the Heat have shown the ability to complete with the best.
Even in needing a miraculous Dwyane Wade 3-pointer at the buzzer in Wednesday’s victory over the Golden State Warriors, the Heat were up 24 points earlier against the two-time defending NBA champions. They had led Houston on Thursday by as many as 21 points. And then the seemingly mindless play of a lottery team kicks in.
“I feel at this point we know what we need to do,” Wade said. “Like [Thursday], we knew that when James Harden drives, don’t reach, and we continued to do it.
“And that’s been our season. A lot of it is just the mental errors of the game. The only way we’re going to change it is if it really hurts. And if it doesn’t hurt, then it’s not going to change for us.”
Defining the source of that pain would be a place to start.
“It seems to be the same thing a lot, but sometimes it’s different, so I don’t know,” Richardson said. “I mean, it’s frustrating.
“Right now you’re kind of picking out in your head on the way out what you did wrong, what you could have done better. So you can’t always look at it completely as a negative. You’ve got to start figuring out what to do better.”
Even amid ongoing hope, the search for answers continues.
“When we do figure it out, I’ll get back to you and give you that answer,” guard Justise Winslow said. “But part of this right now is us trying to figure out what it is, who it is, how it is and that sort of thing. But I don’t have the answers. If I did, I think we would have won some of these games that we’ve lost.
“So we’ve just got to keep going, watch the tape, see how we can get better. But I don’t have that answer for you. We just have to continue to get better and grow from these experiences, and hopefully one day soon we will turn that corner.”