The Miami Heat are in a tough place as the team is currently on a six-game losing streak heading into Monday night where they face the high-powered Phoenix Suns. Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke to the media before the game to talk about the recent struggles and what they can do to overcome the slump they are in.
Spoelstra talks about taking a step back to take more forward
While Miami hasn't been a stranger to to having up and down seasons, this losing streak has been a cause of concern due to their uncharacteristic play and funny enough, a lack of the “Heat Culture” they like to tout. However, Spoelstra said that with every season, there is always a point where a brick wall gets thrown into your face and it's about how they can overcome it. He uses the analogy of them taking a “painful” step back to take a “hopeful” couple forward.
“Sometimes you get to these points of a season where it can be frustrating and what you have to do is just pour into the work, pour into each other, and the process,” Spoelstra said. “For whatever reason, we're just at this point where we would have probably had to take a painful step back to get those hopeful two steps forward. And we can't just gloss over the things that have happened. We have to learn from that. So shoot around today was a working shoot around, we watched film and watched a little bit of the film from New York.”
“Some of the things that we could have done better and hopefully start to check these boxes. And then we also had to prepare for Phoenix, a team has been playing very well,” Spoelstra continued. “We do definitely want to get our defensive disposition, where it needs to be consistently and to be able to sustain that. I thought there were a lot of good things from the game the other night and really more than anything else, our inability to sustain. We'll get challenged in a big way tonight and we're looking forward to that challenge.”
Spoelstra says “sometimes you get into some of these funks”
When looking at their last loss against the New York Knicks, they started the game hot as it looked like the offense has come back to life after a sluggish past few weeks. However, the Knicks would come back and handle business due to a couple runs that Spoelstra pointed out that happened in the first and second half. Spoelstra said that in “reality,” a team gets into these type of “funks.”
“The reality is sometimes you get into some of these funks and even if there is some of that, that doesn't make you a bad human being. It's about how you respond to that. These are normal human competitive emotions and you can get discouraged, you can get frustrated, you can get angry, we probably have all of those pretty consistently the last 10 days, two weeks and that's okay,” Spoelstra said. “But it's how do we respond? Are we learning from those things? Are we rallying around each other to push to a better level? And today was a very good morning session, that doesn't guarantee anything, but you just kind of keep on stacking these positives until we get this thing where we want to get to.”
Spoelstra talks upcoming Heat matchup to Suns
The upcoming stretch doesn't get any easier as they face the Suns Monday which feature a big three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal that is all healthy and heating up as of late. After a sluggish start of their own, Spoelstra said to ClutchPoints that those three stars having an immense amount of playing time together has helped tremendously.
“Earlier on, I guess when they're allegedly trying to figure it out and struggling, I don't think they really have their health,” Spoelstra said. “So they've had some extended play where those guys have been available. You can see the firepower for sure.”
As the Heat enter in the second half of the season, they are 24-22 which puts them seventh in the Eastern Conference heading into Monday's game against Phoenix. Including the Suns game, they are home for two contests with a Wednesday night matchup against the Sacramento Kings as it's safe to say that a breakthrough for Miami needs to happen sooner rather than later.
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