Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was not pleased with their effort on Tuesday. (Mandatory Credit: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Suddenly, after a 14-7 start to the season, the Miami Heat look at themselves in the mirror at 15-15, dropping to the No. 8 seed in the East after fighting for a top-3 seed earlier in the season.
Their most recent outing was arguably their worst game of the season, losing 112-91 to the Toronto Raptors in front of 19,801 fans, hoping to spend their Christmas Eve Eve watching a competitive game between two teams trying to get back on track.
Well, one team. And the other didn’t. I guess you could pick apart who I’m referring to here.
The Heat was essentially fighting an uphill battle the entire way. They missed 11 of their first 12 shots and scored just 44 first-half points, their fewest before halftime this season. Though a quick 12-3 Raptors outburst to begin the second half cornered the Heat into a 16-point deficit, one they couldn’t fully recover from.
“This is not what I would have predicted. I thought we were ready,” Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said after Tuesday’s loss. “I thought we had a good session this morning. I thought coming off of our last two games, on the road, even though there were losses, there were way more good things than negative things.
“It was a lifeless start. And then we just felt like we were digging back the rest of the game. You have to credit Toronto. They came out with a force and speed in this game that we couldn’t get a grapple on.”
The Heat are losers of eight of their last nine games. A once breakneck pace has stagnated, and they still haven’t conjured up a ton of success in the halfcourt since the start of December, ranking No. 21 in halfcourt offensive rating.
“Offensively, there’s things where it can look great, at times,” he said. “We can’t have four games like this. We haven’t had many of these. … [The Toronto Raptors] got us out of anything we were trying to do until the end when the game was over. They pressured us, they got us out of step.”
Spoelstra directly pointed to the team’s Dec. 6 loss against the Sacramento Kings as another datapoint where he didn’t think his team brought enough “competitive force,” to ultimately muster up a win.
“There was Sacramento and this where we didn’t just feel like we brought that competitive force,” he said. “And we got to figure out why, and correct it.”
The Heat will return on Friday, Dec. 26, against the Atlanta Hawks before playing four of their next five at home.
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