Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra gave his thoughts on the Dolphins loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the wild card round of the NFL Playoffs Saturday night. Before Sunday's contest against the Charlotte Hornets, Spoelstra talked in his pre-game media availability about having empathy for fellow South Florida head coach Mike McDaniel as he knows what it is like to suffer setbacks.

Besides talking about the ugly loss to the Chiefs, the long-time Heat head coach in Spoelstra made sure to express that he believes the Dolphins are heading in a positive direction. By a final score of 26-7, Miami had to travel to Kansas City to upset the defending Super Bowl champions in frigid temperatures.

“You feel the full gamut when you watched these kind of games, I watched the game last night, like probably a lot of us in South Florida. They're building something and you feel that something really good is happening,” Spoelstra said. “They're not skipping steps with it. There's a lot to be proud of from the season they had and you definitely get the sense that they'll be able to take another big step forward next year. That doesn't make it any easier during the offseason as we all know.”

Heat's Spoelstra dressing up as McDaniel for Halloween

If there is someone who knows about playoff experience and the full spectrum of emotions, it is Spoelstra who have been to the postseason a numerous amount of times. However, while the Dolphins haven't won a playoff game since 2000, Spoelstra and the Heat have won two championships and been to six NBA Finals since he started in 2008.

The two Miami head coaches have had been no stranger to each other, even with Spoelstra dressing up as McDaniel for Halloween last year. Fans must love to see the camaraderie between the two successful coaches in South Florida.

McDaniel speaks on similarities between Spoelstra and himself

Back in September of last year, McDaniel spoke to the media about how the two are similar and which “commonalities” that they share. The main one according to the second-year Dolphins head coach is that they motivate and get the best out of their players.

“We’ve talked a little bit about the commonalities with which we share kind of different ways to look at the game. Really the biggest commonality that we’ve shared is we are in a business where our job is to motivate and curate and get the best out of the players that we have,” McDaniel said. “It’s a complicated life of the professional athlete, where you have so many people in your ear, so many people making money off of you. To be able to take these highly successful individuals, and make them a team, I think that there’s a shared experience that we’ve really mostly focused on when we’ve talked, because it’s some of the biggest problem solving that you need to really undertake.”

McDaniel would later say that watching the Heat games has motivated himself to better coach the Dolphins. He's led the Dolphins to back to back playoff appearances despite not having a post-season win. While the Dolphins season ends in the wild-card round, the Heat are in the midst of a season where Spoelstra received the most committed coaching contract in North America as it was worth $120 million spanning eight years.

Friday's win against the Magic brings the Heat to a 22-16 record as entering in the game against Charlotte, they were seventh in the Eastern Conference. With the majority of the rest of the month inside the Kaseya Center, this is a prime opportunity to rack up wins and secure a seeding spot almost halfway into the season.