South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Don’t get comfortable
That’s Spoelstra’s warning as his team gathers Sunday for the first time since losing in NBA Finals
Erik Spoelstra is aware that familiar faces at the outset doesn’t always mean smiling faces at the finish.
So when the Miami Heat coach brings his entire team together Sunday for the first time since losing Game 6 of the NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers on Oct. 11, he is determined to make sure that what is old is new again.
With 13 returning players from the 2019-20 season-ending roster, the Heat, according to NBA.com’s calculations, rank fifth among the league’s 30 teams in season-toseason continuity, returning 84% of their minutes played from last season. No team that advanced beyond the first round of the 2020 playoffs has more.
But the Heat also can appreciate the fool’s gold of familiarity, having fallen into the trap of bringing back the likes of Dion Waiters and James Johnson after a 30-11 close to 2016-17 and then stumbling through the next two seasons without a playoff series win.
“Well, I think you have to go through the entire process again,” Spoelstra said of bringing a fresh outlook to a team regrouping after barely two months of recovery.
“I’m leery of just making sure we’re not skipping steps.”
Because of the quick turnaround from the pandemic-delayed finish to last season and then the late start to this season, the NBA has staggered the approach to training camps.
For the past week, there have been individual sessions at AmericanAirlines Arena, as players moved through COVID-19 testing and coronavirus protocols. Now, leading up to the Heat’s Dec. 14 exhibition opener against the visiting New Orleans Pelicans,
“The competition in the East is as fierce as it should be. And I think that’s what brings out, you know, the most, the best out of competitors.”
— Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra
there will be something more typical of training camp.
“Look,” Spoelstra said as he prepared for his 13th season as coach, “I’m really grateful that we have these guys back because I have that same feeling that this is a veteran group, and I know to win and try to accomplish what we’re accomplishing, you typically need a veteran group or group that really has been tested together. And we feel like we’ve had that.
“We’re going to go through the entire process to see how many different levels we can get to. We know we’re gonna have to be better.”
And accept the reality of having played deep into the postseason.
“If you consistently go to the finals, guys like Golden State, all of LeBron’s teams, our former teams, those were quick turnarounds, finishing in late June and then starting up at the end of September,” Spoelstra said of typical NBA finalists having a three-month turnaround to camp as opposed to this two-month whirlwind.
“Regardless, those were quick turnarounds, but that’s the price of chasing something great. It’s much easier to be a lottery team, to be a losing team, to be a team that doesn’t make the playoffs or to be a team that just gets knocked out in the first round. That doesn’t take a great deal of emotional expense or physical expense. This is something different.”
With Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant back for the Brooklyn Nets, with the Milwaukee Bucks desperate to prove their long-term viability to Giannis Antetokounmpo, with the 76ers bolstered by the addition of coach Doc Rivers and general manager Daryl Morey, the landscape in the East has changed since the Heat last took the court. That alone should provide a sense of purpose for a Heat team that had to make its climb to the NBA Finals from the No. 5 seed last season, knowing this year there likely will be homecourt advantage in play in the postseason.
“The competition in the East is as fierce as it should be,” Spoelstra said. “And I think that’s what brings out, you know, the most, the best out of competitors.”