MIAMI — Saturday could have had the Miami Heat on the most visible in-season stage of the NBA season, at the semifinals of the NBA Cup in Las Vegas.
Instead, with Tuesday night’s Cup loss in Orlando, the Heat found themselves with something less splashy but arguably more necessary — a five-day reset that includes, for the first time this season, three consecutive days of practice, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Kaseya Center.
“The timing of these practices have been good,” coach Erik Spoelstra said Saturday. “Last year when we got knocked out of the Cup earlier, we had these practices earlier and that was a little bit awkward. But we all felt, staff and players alike, that we could use some practice time working on some things.
“We want to take advantage of any kind of practice time we can get. Obviously, we would rather be playing right now. But you find the next thing that will move your team forward, and that’s the rest that we had two days and take advantage of this time together on the practice court.”
The break comes amid a season-worst four-game losing streak.
“Look,” Spoelstra said, “we don’t like losing. We have a very competitive group in the locker room. We’re just focused on getting better, not getting caught up in all the panic and narratives that potentially can be out there, just have to rally around each other.”
“Look, it’s a competitive league. There’s so much parity right now. You have to play well and then you have to find different ways to win games. There’s going to be a lot of teams that are going through what we’re going through right now. You can’t panic for all the noise. You just have to focus on, ‘How do we get better?’ ”
Amid the slide, the offense has slowed and the defense has struggled.
“We’re working on getting to our strengths offensively, getting to it more consistently,” Spoelstra said. “But, as you can imagine, we also are drilling our defense, and making sure that that’s consistent to our best version, regardless of what’s happening offensively, whether we’re making shots or not.”
Attendance has been virtually complete at the sessions, with only guard Pelle Larsson sidelined, with the ankle sprain suffered in the first half of Tuesday night’s loss.
But even Larsson was able to get shots up on the side on Saturday.
“That’s encouraging, that he’s able to do a lot of stuff with the trainers and able to get some light shooting in right now,” Spoelstra said. “We’ll just continue to treat him.”
The initial projection with Larsson was an absence of one to two weeks, meaning the Heat returning to action Monday against the visiting Toronto Raptors without one of the most physical and active components of the rotation.
“Well, it’s a great compliment to Pelle, the fact that he’s earned and forced his way into the rotation by that toughness, the intangibles, the winning plays and then he continues to improve offensively,” Spoelstra said. “But this is the nature of this game. And guys will be in and out, and there’s opportunities for another guy to step in there. And our depth is something that we’ve kind of needed all season long.”
Giving back
Carnival Cruise Line, the Heat, and Direct Relief on Sunday will coordinate the loading of 24 pallets of critical medical supplies onto the Carnival Horizon at Port Miami, preparing it for transport to Ocho Rios, Jamaica. The Heat’s Alonzo Mourning will be among those in attendance, with the effort part of humanitarian response to Hurricane Melissa recovery efforts . . .
Students and mentors from the Heat’s School-to-Work program will visit the Lotus House Women’s Shelter and newly built Children’s Village on Tuesday to help provide meals and support for residents. As part of the event, each School-to-Work student will receive a service-hour letter from the shelter to be credited towards their high school requirements, prepaid gift cards for the holidays, as well as tickets for Y100’s Jingle Ball concert at Kaseya Center. The program pairs Heat front-office employees with students to help them prepare for college and future employment.