MIAMI – After the Miami Heat's dreadful road trip recently, the team has a great opportunity with a three-game home stand that starts Tuesday against the Phoenix Suns. With the Heat going through the process of adjusting to their various lineups, the franchise is approaching the halfway point of the season, as head coach Erik Spoelstra speaks on the underlying issues with the team.
After a hot 14-7 start to the season, Miami plateaued, which was helped by opposing teams figuring out the new free-flowing, fast-paced offense and the in-and-outs of players with injuries. The team would lose the next eight of nine games, then win the next five of six.
Now, the Heat enter the home stand having lost every game in the recent road trip, which included a 122-94 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, then being blown out by the league-worst (in terms of record) Indiana Pacers, 123-99. It would culminate in the loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, 124-112, as while it was a better outing, Spoelstra would explain to ClutchPoints what has “really hurt” the team.
“But I would say in the last month or five weeks, we've only had two duds of a game of games, the rest of them, we've played really well for large stretches of games,” Spoelstra said. “To me, that says we should have more wins than we have right now, but this inability to really sustain and have that consistency more throughout the course of the game has really hurt us, and we have to grow from that. I think we will, our guys understand that we have a competitive group. We have a group that has big aspirations, that wants to win, wants to move up in the East.”
Asked Erik Spoelstra about the frustrating road trip and what the underlying trends.
“We just have to be better at sustaining now. Indiana game, but we can’t afford to lose those kind of games, and that’s with all due respect to the Pacers…”
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Erik Spoelstra on what the Heat “can't afford” to do
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra keeps his eyes on his team during the second half at Kaseya Center against the New Orleans Pelicans.
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As rumors have recently surrounded the Heat regarding February's deadline and the availability of such stars as Memphis Grizzlies' Ja Morant, there's no doubt that Spoelstra and the rest of the team are focused on turning this season around. Besides coaching, Miami is looking to overcome Bam Adebayo's current slump and Tyler Herro's return, with the starting lineup looking to adjust.
For Spoelstra, he would speak about the mental aspect needing to be better, pointing out the outing against the Pacers, saying how the Heat “can't afford to lose those kinds of games.”
“I mean, there are third-quarter issues in all three games, where there were massive runs, it seemed right around that six-minute mark…20 to six runs in the last six minutes, we didn't handle that well. Now it's a combination of some of our starters, our second unit. We just have to be better at sustaining,” Spoelstra said.
“Now the Indiana game, you know, I don't like to ever say you just flush a game, but because we can't afford to lose those kinds of games,” Spoelstra continued. “And that's with all due respect, you know, to the Pacers, they just got a big win against Boston. However, with the mindset and energy and game that we had against OKC would have served us very well against Indiana.”
At amy rate, Miami enters the home stand at 20-19, which puts them eighth in the Eastern Conference, which is how they finished the past three seasons. Looking to get out of play-in tournament purgatory, Miami looks to snap its skid in the aforementioned home stand, starting Tuesday against the Suns, Thursday vs. the Boston Celtics, and finally Saturday in a rematch with the Thunder.