Riley: Wins beat better draft pick
Recent 13-game winning streak turns Heat’s mood around.
In about two weeks, the conversation surrounding the Miami Heat went from the possibility of coming away with the first overall pick of the draft to their odds of making the playoffs.
That’s what winning 13 games in a row will do.
And for those who believe Miami would have been better off to continue its losing ways, do not count Pat Riley among that crowd.
T h e t e a m p r e s i d e n t recently spoke to Heat season ticket holders, and Fox Sports Sun’s cameras captured the speech.
Here is the latest snippet, which ran during Tuesday’s broadcast.
“We have a pick in the draft this year,” Riley said. “About 12 games ago, it looked like it might be the No. 1 pick in the draft. But you don’t ever mess with the karma of winning. Never. You let the game of basketball take it where it will take you, OK. And I think this might take us somewhere. So I will defer the pick for winning because that’s what we’re all about here.”
Even after having the streak snapped Saturday and losing consecutive games to two of the league’s worst teams — Philadelphia and Orlando — Miami remains just two games out of the final playoff spot.
Still, that does not mean Riley will be looking to bolster this team at the trade deadline, which is Feb. 23. Not at the expense of the long-term plan. He will not sacrifice cap space or a young player for the purpose of only making this team better.
Any deal Riley might pull off still will be with the future in mind.
Upset locker room: After two consecutive losses to losing teams, there was plenty of frustration in the Heat’s locker room Monday night.
After falling 116-107 to the Magic, Heat players were disappointed with the team’s defensive performance.
“You’ve got to help other guys,” Dion Waiters said after the loss. “Five people have got to help everyone out there. Simple as that. It’s not about stopping guys individually. You need everybody on a string.”
But when center Hassan Whiteside was asked about the Heat’s defense after Monday’s loss, he made it clear that he took care of his job in defending Magic center Nikola Vucevic.
“That was my job. Vucevic shot 4 for 14, so I call that good defense,” Whiteside said.
Vucevic did finish with just 13 points on 4-of-14 shooting, but it was the Heat’s defense around the rim that was the issue. With Whiteside as Miami’s primary rim protector, the Magic accumulated 52 paint points and shot 69.2 percent at the rim.
When asked why he was pulled from the game earlier than usual Monday with 9:15 remaining in the first quarter, Whiteside didn’t seem to understand the message coach Erik Spoelstra was trying to send.
“(Spoelstra) just took me out because the guy got a rebound,” Whiteside said Monday night. “It went over my head. It happens, man. I lead the league in rebounds the last time I checked. So I know how to rebound. It just went over my head. We talked about it, and I came back in, and I led both teams in rebounds.”
One day later, Spoelstra downplayed all of the comments. But he did admit that he would rather his players take a day to clear their minds before voicing their frustration just minutes after a dis- appointing loss.
“That’s part of being in a competitive business,” Spoelstra said after Tuesday’s practice. “That’s why I even reminded them during the course of thi s year — because it is a young team — that there’s going to be a lot of emotion, and I find it best to usually just get out of the arena, have a nice dinner, express your frustration at home, let it get out of your system and come in the next day with a clear mind to work and try to find solutions. I really commend this group for that.
“If they weren’t getting frustrated, then you have a problem, and you have a lifeless group. I find that all born out of the right place.”
White s i d e b l a med t he team’s frustration on the Heat’s recent 13-game winning streak. It’s been a while since Miami faced adversity during a stretch of losses.
“When a team hasn’t lost in almost a month, guys forget what it feels like to lose a game,” Whiteside said Tuesday. “I think that pain came back, and it was a thing we forgot about for a while. So it’s OK, though. It’s not the end of the world. We lost two games, and we just got to come out here and get the next one.”