Heat’s ‘harrowing ride’ hits another bump after ugly loss to Wizards: ‘This one is painful’
Losses happen during an 82-game NBA season, but the Miami Heat’s home loss to the struggling Washington Wizards is one that shouldn’t have happened.
“It’s a tough loss,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’re well aware of that.”
Sunday night’s 110-108 loss to the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center is arguably the Heat’s worst loss of the season.
“This one is painful,” Spoelstra continued. “We have a bunch of competitors in our locker room. Nobody feels great about this.”
The Wizards entered tied for the NBA’s worst record this season at 10-53 and just snapped a 16-game skid a few days ago. It has been so bad that the Wizards had not won a road game since Jan. 29.
But instead of taking care of business Sunday against one of the NBA’s worst teams, the Heat became just the second team currently with a winning record that the Wizards have defeated this season. The Wizards’ other such victory came against the Indiana Pacers on Dec. 15.
The Heat led by four points with 8:55 left in the fourth quarter before the Wizards took control by going on a game-deciding 24-10 run to take a 10-point lead with 2:45 play. In the final quarter, the Heat shot just 3 of 14 (21.4 percent) from three-point range and the Wizards got hot to shoot 6 of 9 (66.7 percent) from behind the arc.
“This game is just very humbling,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said as he sat in front of his locker following the loss. “If you don’t come out with the right mind-set, this is what will happen, this is what will continue to happen.”
Suddenly facing a three-game skid after winning 11 of its previous 14 games, the Heat (35-29) can’t afford for these types of results to continue to happen as it fights to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament with just five weeks left in the regular season.
Sunday’s loss to the Wizards dropped the Heat from sixth place to eighth place in the Eastern Conference with 18 games left on Miami’s regular-season schedule. The Heat needs to finish with a top-six seed in the East to avoid needing to qualify for the playoffs through the NBA’s play-in tournament for the second straight season.
The Heat stands one-half game behind the seventh-place Indiana Pacers, one game behind the sixth-place Philadelphia 76ers, 1.5 games behind the fifth-place Orlando Magic and two games behind the fourth-place New York Knicks. That’s the pocket the Heat finds itself in, as it holds a comfortable lead over the ninth-place Chicago Bulls and has too much ground to make up to realistically catch the third-place Cleveland Cavaliers.
“This is why I love this time of the year because every team is going through it and you feel like it’s only you that is going through something like this,” Spoelstra said after Sunday’s loss. “Everybody is going to have the context and pressure and expectations on the games down the stretch. And they have meaning. It’s not as if we don’t talk about the standings, everybody is well aware of the standings, especially with the competitive nature of the group that we have. But you also cannot be overwhelmed with anything.”
With Sunday’s game marking the Heat’s fourth in six nights, the team took Monday off before returning to practice on Tuesday in preparation for Wednesday’s matchup against the Denver Nuggets at Kaseya Center in a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals.
“What we can focus on is our rest [Monday]. We do need that,” Spoelstra said. “I think we’ve had four in six or something like that and a crazy travel day and getting in late. That’s not an excuse, that’s not why we lost at all. Washington made some plays down the stretch. But we can get some rest and get ready for practice on Tuesday and prepare for a big game on Wednesday.”
But to avoid a four-game losing streak and defeat the Nuggets, the Heat will need to do something on Wednesday that it hasn’t done enough this season: Get a win over a quality opponent.
The Heat is just 14-20 this season against teams currently with a winning record and is 0-10 this season against the teams currently with the NBA’s top five records. The Nuggets, which defeated the Heat in the teams’ first matchup of the season in Denver on Feb. 29, entered Monday with the league’s third-best record.
“Just got to sustain the right level of play, man,” Heat guard Terry Rozier said. “We got to have a way that we want to play and we got to go out there and do it to a tee and sustain that throughout the whole game. We understand that this league has the best players in the world. But when we got a plan and we execute it, we’re tough to beat. But in these last couple games, it’s kind of like we get away from our identity and who we are.”
The Heat needs to get back to its identity — built around a top-10 defense — again before it finds itself in the play-in tournament for the second straight season.
“We love all the context and pressure at this time of year,” Spoelstra said. “And we didn’t handle our business in these three games, but I know there will be teams in the East that don’t, as well. And we’re not leaving it up to them, we’re just going to have to focus on ourselves. But this is a harrowing ride and our group has the right intentions.”
Sunday’s ugly loss didn’t make the Heat’s ride any smoother.
