Players at a loss to explain inconsistency
There have been few constants during theHeat’s up-and-down season. But Jimmy Butler vocalized one of them late Friday night.
“We’re actually really consistently inconsistent, if you really want to be honest,” Butler said following the Heat’s painful 118-103 loss to the shorthanded Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena.
Just take a look at the results from the Heat’s post-All-Star-break schedule: Miami opened the second half of the season with a four-game winning streak, then dropped six in a row, followed that up with another four-game winning streak, lost one game, won the next two, then went through a threegame losing skid, bounced back with a three-game winning streak and then lost to a Hawks team on Friday that was missing its leading scorer Trae Young and leading rebounding Clint Capela.
“This has been somewhat of a trend with our basketball team,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of Miami’s loss to Atlanta in advance of Saturday night’s matchup against the Chicago Bulls at
AmericanAirlines Arena. “We have some success and we just did not have those multiple efforts that we had certainly in the last game, but even the two games before that.”
The Heat, which played its 60th game of the regular season on Friday, is deep enough into the schedule that Butler wants the comparisons to last season’s team that represented the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals to stop.
Miami is currently in seventh place in the East and would be part of the play-in tournament if the season ended Saturday.
“I don’t like talking about last year,” Butler said. “We have a different team, different roles, different mindsets. We got to stop comparing who we are now to who we were because that’s not good in any form of the game.”
Heat guard Kendrick Nunn called the team’s inconsistent play this season “unexplainable.”
“We’re capable of winning,” Butler said. “I think we just get caught up in our own agendas at times. It’s not bad. It just happens. It’s the human condition. But that’s not who we are or who we’re supposed to be, and that’s damn sure not what’s going to win us games. We gotta be in this thing together, which we are. We just have lapses.
“I’m telling you, I’m riding with these guys until the wheels fall off. But at the end of the day, we got to do everything on both sides of the floor together.”
Friday’s loss wasn’t the Heat’s first this season against an opponent missing key players. Miami also lost twice to a Los Angeles Clippers team without the All-Star duo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on Jan. 28 and Feb. 15, a Washington Wizards team missing Russell Westbrook on
Feb. 3, a Golden State Warriors team missing without Draymond Green and James Wiseman on Feb. 17, and a Denver Nuggets team without Jamal Murray on April 14.
During a season full of inconsistent play, the Heat’s path to success is clear.
When Miami has posted a defensive rating of 110 points allowed per 100 possessions or better, it is 22-9 this season. But when the Heat finishes with a defensive rating of of 115 points allowed per 100 possessions or worse, it is 1-15 this season.
“It’s just a matter of consistency regardless of what our lineup is, what the rotation is,” Spoelstra said. “It’s a matter of trying to take control of the game, impose our will defensively, get the right kind of shots that are in our wheelhouse.”
When asked to explain the Heat’s inconsistent play this season following Friday’s loss to the Hawks, Butler didn’t want to repeat the same answer he has been giving all season.
“If I answer that question, I feel like I shouldn’t even have to because every time you ask me that after we lose a game or something like that, it’s the same answer,” Butler said. “So just go back and read it from two weeks ago whenever we lost a game.”
INJURY REPORT
The Heat ruled out three of its top guards for Saturday night’s late game against the Bulls.
Reserve guards Goran Dragic (lower back and right knee injury recovery) and Tyler Herro (right foot soreness) missed the contest after playing in Friday’s loss to the Hawks. In addition, starting guard Victor Oladipo missed his ninth consecutive game on Saturday because of right knee soreness.
The Heat is expected to have 13 of its 16 players available on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Bulls were without All-Star guard and leading scorer Zach LaVine, who’s averaging 27.5 points on 50.6 percent shooting, because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols. Saturday marks the sixth straight game LaVine has missed while in protocols.
The Bulls also were without wing Troy Brown Jr. (left ankle sprain).
Anthony Chiang: 305-376-4991, @Anthony_Chiang