Heat at crossroads of contention or survival
MIAMI — The respect is that of a championship contender.
The place in the standings is that of a survivalist.
For the Miami Heat, the dichotomy lives on, once again viewed as something more than the standings indicate amid this scramble to avoid the play-in round.
No sooner, for example, did the Heat complete one of their most impressive victories of the season this past Monday at Golden 1 Center, then Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox paused to pay homage to the Heat’s perseverance.
“It’s like a running joke,” Fox said. “Regardless of who Miami puts out there, it looks like that’s a team that played in the Finals or played together for a while.”
That, of course, was the night the Heat were without Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Nikola Jovic, among others.
“They have guys who do their job and they have guys who come out, regardless of how long they’ve been with the team, they play hard. So it’s just their continuity. They play hard. They understand what they need to do.”
Three days later, after surviving a furious late Heat rally to hold for victory at Ball Arena in a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic took stock of the night’s challenge.
“They play with a lot of speed and poise on both ends of the floor. They’re really aggressive,” the two-time MVP and MVP of last year’s Finals said. “They know what they’re doing and it’s hard to play against that team.”
And yet with that loss, the Heat fell to No. 8 in the East, into the play-in bracket, the portion of the postseason mix where one or two losses mean an exit before the best-of-seven first round.
Good enough to challenge the best.
Average enough to stand in the middle of the pack.
As with last season, when the Heat went into the play-in round as a No. 7 seed and exited at No. 8, the discussion as February turned to March was of peaking at the proper time.
Considering how last season went, it is a difficult argument to counter.
“We’re not quite there just yet, but we have a little bit more time to get there,” Butler said. “We know who we are. We know it’s almost close to the most important time of the year. So, we’ll be OK.”
But the play-in also comes with a trap-door.
If not for a fourth-quarter play-in comeback against the Chicago Bulls, last season would have ended in April instead of June.
So while Butler bides, most are tracking the East race.
“It’s not that we’re obsessed with looking at the standings, but we’re all human,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’re competitors. We look at the standings. And I think that’s good for the league and it’s good for our team. It’s good for the players.”
So let the scoreboard-watching commence.
“I watch it,” Herro said of monitoring the playoff race. “I watch it after the All-Star break, because I feel like that’s when games are more meaningful, because of how close the standings are. I’m paying attention to them for sure, even watching the games when I’m not playing, seeing how competitive the games are.”
Spoelstra said that as with last season, it makes this six-week run to end of the regular season compelling.
“You’re competing for something before you get to the playoffs,” he said. “And a few moving parts, but you can still figure out where your identity is, commit to that.
“We’ve been defending way more consistently. And then, ultimately, just figure out how to win games.”
Then the goal will be how to win playoff games, be it with a week off before entering as a top-six seed, or with mere days to game plan if advancing through the play-in.
The outside view is of a team capable of another deep run.
The view from the standings is of a team already confronted with a challenge.
IN THE LANE
BE LIKE MIAMI: Speaking of the play-in round, the success of the Heat’s climb to the NBA Finals last season has created somewhat of a rallying cry from the league’s lesser lot. That includes the Toronto Raptors, and their bid to get into the top 10 in the East. “Yeah. I played in the play-in like two years ago, so it was great,” Raptors forward Bruce Brown, the former Miami Hurricanes standout said, according to the Toronto Sun. “It was a good atmosphere. We ended up beating Cleveland when I was in Brooklyn, so it was good. We’ll definitely try to get there. I mean, we’ll definitely try to get there. You never know what happens in March. Miami was on a play-in and made it to the Finals, so you never know.” Brown does, because he was with the Nuggets against the Heat in those finals. The Heat’s final two games of the season are at home against the Raptors, which could make for compelling play if the Raptors are in play-in contention.
SIR MAXIMUS: Why, yes, you can already purchase a T-shirt commemorating the 59-foot buzzer-beating 3-pointer this past week by former Heat forward Max Strus for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Dallas Mavericks. Less than 24 hours after Strus’ game winner, the Cavaliers unveiled “1conic” merchandise, as an homage to his Cleveland jersey number, with a photo of the shot on the wardrobe items. Earlier in that fourth quarter, Strus scored 12 consecutive points on four 3-pointers in 67 seconds to draw the Cavaliers within striking distance. “That’s the Max Strus we all know,” Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell said, according to Cleveland.com. “We’ve seen it in the playoffs. We’ve seen it in the Finals. We’ve seen it in so many different ways. That’s why we got him.”
BIBBY BLOVIATES: Arguably one of the worst buyout-deadline acquisitions by the Heat in their 36 seasons, with his dismal performance in the 2011 playoffs at the start of the Big Three era with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, Mike Bibby also apparently is not a fan of the way Heat fans travel. No sooner did a “Let’s Go Heat!” chant break out during the Heat’s Monday victory at Golden 1 Center, then Bibby, in his studio role on the Sacramento Kings telecast, let his feelings be known. “I want to harp on this first,” Bibby said when asked his thoughts on the game. “I don’t like the ‘Let’s Go Heat’ chants that are going around in the arena. These guys are trying to make a push. The best fans in the NBA can’t be . . . our team can’t be hearing that.” Bibby, in starting all 20 of his appearances in those 2011 playoffs for the Heat, shot .258 on 3-pointers and .281 from the field, averaging a robust 3.7 points, eventually removed from the rotation in the NBA Finals loss to the Mavericks.
NUMBERS GAME: With Chris Paul a guest on Dwyane Wade’s podcast, the conversation took a turn to the whimsical, about how the two at one point had discussed whether Paul actually could have been dealt to the Heat during the Big Three era. “We talk about all of this,” Wade said of the unlikely hypothetical, “who’s gonna have the ball, how we’re all going to play together, ‘No CP can have the ball.’ We’re done, figured all that out, and then somebody said, ‘Well, who’s going to wear number three?’ Silence. Messed the whole trade up.” Wade’s No. 3 hangs in the rafters at Kaseya Center. Paul has worn No. 3 in each of his NBA stops, with the New Orleans Hornets, Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns and, now, Golden State Warriors.
NUMBER
2. Times the Heat have won every road game in a calendar month, something they lost out on in February with Thursday’s Leap Day loss in Denver, closing the month 6-1 away from Kaseya Center. The Heat’s only undefeated months on the road over the franchise’s 36 seasons remain December 1996 (8-0) and December 2010 (10-0).
