As the Miami Heat concluded their most recent five-game road-trip, the team now heads back home where they will play their next 13 of 18 games at home. In the short-term, they have a four-game home stand at the Kaseya Center starting Monday against the Houston Rockets.
However, while focusing on the road ahead is mandatory, the team is also looking in the rear-view mirror to reflect on an up-and-down past several games as they went 2-3 in the roadtrip. Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra expressed even with the far from perfect performances, he said there was “some really going things from the trip” according to Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel.
“There’s some really good things from this trip,” Spoelstra said. “And even the struggles I think are really important for our team. I really commend our guys for having the right approach about that, even the disappointing moments, even (Friday) just finding a way to get a lesson out of it.
He mentioned how suffering the losses to the Los Angeles Clippers and Utah Jazz led to the big win against the Lakers. Spoelstra is hoping the same can happen from the defeat to the Phoenix Suns to the game Monday.
“We had some major lessons from the Clippers game and the Utah game,” Spoelstra said. “The Utah and Clippers games pushed us into a great effort and complete game for the Laker win, and hopefully this disappointing game will propel us into a good home stand.”
Spoelstra's plan for the upcoming home-stand
In terms of the four-game home stand that is ahead for the Heat, they face the aforementioned Rockets Monday, the Oklahoma City Thunder Wednesday, the Orlando Magic Friday, and the Charlotte Hornets Sunday. The plan is simple for Spoelstra, rest up and get healthy as the team continues to deal with injury problems.
“We understand the four games, who we’re playing, and it’ll be a very important week for us,” Spoelstra said. “But first things first, we need to get home, get some rest, get guys healthy and see where we are.”
Bam Adebayo talks about the road-trip and brutal loss
Star Bam Adebayo is in the midst of a career-best season in points and rebounds while still maintaining his elite defensive prowess. Consequently, to him, he feels the team has been on the road for a long time as the big-man has had a double-double in six of the past seven games.
“I feel like we’ve been on the road for a long time,” Adebayo said. “Going home, we’ll try to protect homecourt. We need to do that.”
Adebayo is right to feel that way as Miami has played 20 games on the road compared to 15 at home. While losses to the Clippers and Suns are valid since they have dangerous pieces, even Adebayo admits that the the loss to the Jazz is a disappointing one.
“I feel like we let a game get away early on in the trip,” Adebayo said per The Sun Sentinel.
Kevin Love reflects on five-game road-trip
Integral Heat rotational piece in Kevin Love gave his insight on the past few games and acknowledged that it would have ” been better to be over .500″ on the road trip. That way, the team would have got back home more “energized.”
“I think naturally it would have been better to be over .500 and gotten a win (in Phoenix), go back home and be reenergized that way,” Love said. “But we’ve got to take these next two days, get our rest, get our legs back, focus in. Because the home stand is going to be huge for us.”
Love said that Monday's game against the Rockets will be important as besides the opponent themselves, they have to bring as much energy as possible for the home crowd. Shockingly, Miami has more wins on the road (11-9) than they do home (9-6), granted they played more contests as the away team as said before.
“It’s never easy after a long road trip to go back in that first game,” Love said. “We need to make sure that we bring the energy and we’re good to go in front of the home crowd. So will be a big start for us against Houston on Monday.”
Still, besides the Heat's injury concerns and heavy road start, the team is 20-15 which puts them at fifth in the Eastern Conference. On the other hand, they face the Rockets who have massive momentum coming off of a win to the Milwaukee Bucks.
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