ESPN is in the locker room following the "Heat" around all this season. How they lucked into that access with this team this year I don't know, but that is one thing on TV I will watch.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Is Pelle Larsson (part of) the answer?
Now I have taken my sleeping pill and I sometimes write my worst under temazepam. Still, I have been reading about Larsson for a while. This post is informed by my view that the "Heat's" issues currently are physical (lack of talent) and mental. To me, the "Heat" are soft, and they're beat mentally and emotionally. They have always played disciplined, if physical basketball under the Riley-Spoelstra regime. Maybe what they need is a spark of undisipline, a recklessness to reset the mentality. This is a sampling of what "Heat" beat writers have written about Larsson this season.
Anthony Chiang, Miami Herald, March 13:
Larsson sparked the Heat with his energy on the defensive end, finishing the defeat with three steals and with the only positive plus/minus on the team at plus-5. “The most inspiring moments were when Pelle came in,” Spoelstra said after Wednesday’s loss. “He had the crowd really inspired, the team inspired and we just need a whole lot more of that — one through 15 — all the way through.”Pelle Larsson willing to dive right in when it comes to providing a needed Heat spark (Ira Winderman, March 14)
Miami Heat guard Pelle Larsson (9) goes after a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
...if Pelle Larsson keeps happening, as the Miami Heat 2025 second-round pick out of Arizona did during Wednesday night’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers with his energizing effort, then rethinking potentially could be in order.While the scoring is not yet there on a consistent basis, and while the fouls have been there too often amid defensive zeal that needs to be reined in, Larsson has shown a deep appreciation of what is needed off the bench.
So he quite literally has dived right in.
In what could stand as the Heat’s ultimate hustle play of the season, Larsson repeatedly dove, crawled and wrestled for possession of a loose ball during the second quarter of Tuesday night’s loss that arguably provided more inspiration than anything offered amid the team’s slump since the Feb. 6 Jimmy Butler trade.
...
“I remember a play I had in Philly, when the ball was on the floor and I didn’t dive on it, and that kind of haunted me for a little bit,” he said. “So I’m glad I got that one back.”With the Heat often going with a veteran mix off the bench, Larsson’s lightning jolts have injected needed vitality, which has left it somewhat surprising that he hasn’t been offered more from Spoelstra.
“Really, the idea was just to get a spark,” Spoelstra said of utilizing Larsson not only for the entire second period Wednesday night but for 28:16 overall. “We needed something to get us going. I wasn’t even necessarily expecting that. I’ve been feeling it for a couple of games. I think in short minutes, he’s mentally stable enough to handle that, three or four minutes and then come out, and get your regular guys in there.”
As it is, those regular guys would gladly embrace more of the 23-year-old Swede.
“When he’s on the court,” forward Andrew Wiggins said, “his energy’s contagious with how hard he plays, the way he plays.”
...
“We need more guys like that, obviously,” guard Tyler Herro said. “I mean that’s what we need. If we can get all five guys playing like that, obviously that’ll help.”"Pelle played so hard,” Spoelstra said after the overtime victory. “He really played hard, picking up full court, guarding bigger guys, throwing his body all around. He had an impact, for sure.” (OT dub over Mavs)
That's only three observations, but they are more than 4 months apart and make the same point. Larsson has the burden of proof and he has met it in providing a "spark", "energy", which is "contagious", and a fighting mentality that I, at least, see missing in this team's core. I would play him more. Or, Spo could stay the course when he's lost 10 straight.
Friday, March 21, 2025
10L FT Les Miserables (18-24 4Q) 98 Houston 102
Wig-o finished with 30, but made his only basket of the 4Q at 1:55. He's not clutch, he's not go-to, he wilts in crunch time. He's Mister Second Quarter. Fleet Van Fred on the other hand is all of the things Andrew is not. 37 points, 13 in the decisive 4th. After Andrew's bucket at 1:55 Fred answered at 1:34 pushing the lead back to 10, 92-102, at which point we were 12-24 in the 4th.
Anti-Herro: 8 pts on 3/11 (0/1) six turnovers and +6 (That metric is so worthless, but everybody uses it.). Tyler is not clutch, is not go-to.
Les Mis shot 52.1%. Kel'el Ware had 14 boards. How does this Miami lose when shooting that well and Kel'el kel'eaning the glass like that? Answer is! Positionless basketball. Cows still hugely won the battle of the boards, 46-34, Bam only had 6 rebs, so Cows took 11 more shots. As proof of concept Spo had Bam and Kel'el take 6 treys. They made four of them, but he has them playing out beyond the arc. Evidently not playing D out there, however: Cows shot 50% from range. With this team, with its talent deficit almost every night, when you plug one hole, as we did on O tonight, another leak springs, tonight on D, and hanging onto the ball. We had 21 turnovers, obviously way too many, but only four more than H-Town. BUT: Our 21 t.o.'s led to 24 Cow points. Their 17 gave us 15 points, 9 fewer. We are 4-17 since the trade.
Heat Forever!
Les Miserables (2-8 4Q) 82 Cow Town 86, 9:31, Les Mis Full Intermission
This is torture for Erik Spoelstra. I don't know how he handles it.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Oliver Cromwell Harris' Birthday Greeting to Pat Riley
Ye are factious and an enemy to all good basketball government.
Ye are a mercenary wretch, and would like Esau sell your best players for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God.
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole community. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourself become the greatest grievance.
Your community therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House by the Bay; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your life, to depart immediately out of this place.
Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slave-driver be gone! So! Take away those shining baubles there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!
"I would suggest a team on a nine-game losing streak perhaps not stay the course..."
Spo: "The only thing we have to do now is you just stay the course.
Greg Cote, Miami Herald: "As a nitpick, I would suggest a team on a nine-game losing streak perhaps not stay the course but rather chart a new."
Greg Cote, Miami Herald: "As a nitpick, I would suggest a team on a nine-game losing streak perhaps not stay the course but rather chart a new."
Yeah, I have picked the same nit. I'm a shark,
not a groundhog. Sharks get whales; groundhogs get I don't know mice.
Public Occurrences March 20, 2025
Trump Sends Education "back to the states" (as he did with abortion) Orders Shutting Department
The effect of this is to add centrifugal force to the shared commonalities of national life, reducing the united in United States.9:27 am:
Columbia Caves to Trump, Jewish Pressure
American Jews feel what they feel. I wish that they didn't feel as they feel. I wish that they hadn't felt so aggrieved at the anti-Israel campus protests; that they hadn't dragged the presidents of universities before the congressional star chamber to be grilled and publicly excoriated; that in one Jew's case he hadn't written a Wall Street Journal op-ed urging the biggest and best New York law firms not to hire his law school's beat and brightest.
I wish that the American Jew who had an American-Israeli flag mashup on the side of his truck hadn't felt that I was an anti-semite because I was anti-fascist and had an ANTIFA sticker on my car bumper, and felt that it was necessary and proper to give me the "fuck you" middle finger in traffic.
I wish that American Jews would fully internalize that in America they are beloved, esteemed, admired, and not persecuted.
I wish that they realized that the lengths that they went in their umbrage at the protesters was heavy-handed, that they were creating anti-semitism where it didn't exist, in an entire generation of young people who are just now entering the work force and the professions and will be in positions of power for fifty years and who will carry these memories--grudges--their entire lives.
I wish that American Jews would really reflect on all of this and chill out.
The "beauty" of being "stubborn"🙄
"That’s a tough one…The only thing we have to do now is stay the course, there’s no way to explain some of this…we’re all getting tested in so many different ways that we do not want to get tested but there can be a beauty in that…“We’re all getting tested in so many different ways that we do not want to get tested, but there can be a beauty in these challenges and these tests if we just continue to stay stubborn.”
Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra after last night's loss, the team's ninth straight, to Detroit.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
FT Les Miserables (9L) 113 Detroit Renaissance 116
It was another El Foldo; led end 3Q by 5, out-scored 28-20 4Q.
Miami Misery vs Detroit Renaissance
Les Mis:
D-Ro
Jaq-o
Anti-Herr-o
Ware-o
Bam-o
D-Ro
Jaq-o
Anti-Herr-o
Ware-o
Bam-o
I take it that Wig-o has missed another game for us. Did Riley demand a player who would miss a similar number of games to Jimmy? This is looking like an equal trade in one respect, unavailability.
On how the players would follow up, he said simply: “Going back to practice, go back to our shoot arounds and and figure out how to overcome this once again.” Jaime Jaquez, Jr. after Slobbercknokers debacle.
Groundhog Day. "Hey group, today let's work on getting that 46-16 3rd quarter down to, say, 44-16!" This team doesn't need practice, it needs therapy. l
It would seem, at times such as these, we should be hearing from someone in ownership/management. Erik Spoelstra can address what the players need to do. But he can’t or shouldn’t have to address why these are the players he has been given. With Jimmy Butler arriving in a week, this certainly could get uglier beyond the elements within Erik Spoelstra’s control.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Jimmy Butler is Wise
This is nuanced and true:
“I saw a group that wanted me to be a part of it. That's all you ever wanted to be is wanted in this life, not just in this league. In anything, you want to be wanted. Needed is like a necessity. Wanted is like somebody’s choosing to bring you aboard this. I think that’s the ultimate sign of respect.”
Antoine Walker ("Heat" 2005-07) on Pat Riley
I had not thought of this, but Walker is right. When Riley decides on divorce there's no no-fault, he's going to destroy you and do it publicly.
"I love Pat. I mean, he’s a disciplinarian. He likes to do things his way. And one thing about Pat, if you look at the trend and you guys follow, when he’s kinda done with you, he does it publicly. I mean, this is even back dating to D-Wade, Shaq, Jimmy, and myself. I mean, it never stays in-house, and he just makes the move, and he kinda does it publicly. I didn’t like the Jimmy situation because you shouldn’t have to start fining guys for their money and taking their money away like that. I think if you wanna part ways and move him, there’s ways you can do that.”
Beans 21 Rust 26, End 1Q
Was it not real? Hard to believe that in 2023 the "Heat" beat Beans to reach the NBA Finals.
Public Occurrences March 18, 2025
"To the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants …Give us back the Statue of Liberty."
"We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home."--Raphaël Glucksmann, French Member of European Parliament
Trump administration reinstating almost 25,000 fired workers after court order
Thank you for all your concern! I’m doing ok now and doctors say it was food poisoning. Appreciate my MSG family for taking such good care of me and I need to shout out the crew that had to clean that up. Appreciate you!
More importantly, the Knicks are now 1-0 when I throw up on the court so maybe I’ll have to break it out again in the playoffs 😅 #goknicks
"We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home."--Raphaël Glucksmann, French Member of European Parliament
Docs: Tracy Morgan Had Food Poisoning
tracymorgan
More importantly, the Knicks are now 1-0 when I throw up on the court so maybe I’ll have to break it out again in the playoffs 😅 #goknicks
Ew Esse Em Elle Ee
My daughter-in-law Ana did the best that she has ever done on flashcards today and we did over 500 of them.
You never know what kind of day you're going to have. Yesterday I woke Ana up still in her night clothes and we struggled with flashcards, which is more our norm than exception. Today, for whatever reason, Ana's memory of material old and new was steel trap tight. I bet she got 90% correct. Honestly, I was amazed, and told her so during study.
I just memorize the look of the q's without understanding, the way I learned to recognize 宋彬彬 as Song Binbin's name in Chinese characters without understanding the language. Ana of course has to understand the medical language. When she gets a brain cramp over a specific answer, I use little tricks: pointing a finger gun at her, making word play (TGF-B is "TGIF"), humming Bridge over Troubled Waters when "bridge" is the answer; pointing to her (pink, of course) plastic cup for "plastica linitis". Today, SHE played these little games with me! "You know this," she'd say, and then mime the answer. One flashcard called for the demographic group. Ana turned and looked at me. "ELDERLY!" I answered. 😂 "It helps me remember", she said. Yes! When you can teach a layman, you have really mastered the subject.
And now we're finished with another area, reproductive, and we move on. Sharks keep moving forward or they die.
"Now there is the reality of having fallen and not necessarily with the ability to get back up."--Ira Winderman
“That’s the thing [the 2H El Foldos] that we’ve been racking our time, our brains, everything, trying to find solutions for that,” Spoelstra said of the failure to sustain, maintain, retain. “We have not come up with solutions and we’ve pretty much tried everything.
“This has been one of the biggest challenges of a regular season that I’ve been a part of. And we just have to stay the course.”
Ira Winderman quickly counters.
Actually what is needed is a change of course.
I agree ENTIRELY with Ira. When you have "pretty much tried everything" and you refuse to change course, that is? What is that? That's what normal folks commonly say is the definition of insanity. Ira doesn't propose the change that is needed. I proposed just giving the guys a day off from practice or going en masse to the islands for a weekend, just to get out of the rut. I admit it sounds silly. My thought was that the players don't need, in fact are probably getting innured to, drill, drill, drill. Their problem is not between the lines, it's between the ears.
I didn't know the below.
Monday night’s indignity included a national audience on ESPN. The network next will be at Kaseya Center on Wednesday night to continue to chronicle this fall of a franchise that just two years ago was in the NBA Finals.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Unique
Among other things, Eleven LIKES water, has always played with it. Somewhere she found a hair ring belonging to my daughter (who hasn't set foot in my place in several years) and has made it her new toy for the past several days. Here she plays with the hair ring, kicking it about, and then picks it up and drops it in her water bowl!
In the two vids below, filned before the one above, she dunks the hair ring in the water bowl, and in the second, fishes it out again. Then the vid at top picking it up and dunking it again.
Tracy Morgan
Mr. Morgan had a serious incident. You don't have to be a MD to know that. As far as I know it came on suddenly. There was a tremendous amount of vomitus, no apparent blood though, which is good. He did have a nosebleed (likely caused by intraabdominal pressure going to his head) accompanying the projectile vomiting. He couldn't stand and had to be taken out of the arena in a wheelchair. He is 57 years old, overweight diabetic, alcoholic, and has been hospitalized in the past for his various physical problems. Godspeed Tracy Morgan.
Will Manso
@WillManso
Erik Spoelstra on the Heat’s struggles:
"I have not come up without [sic] enough answers for this. I have to do a better job.”
He adds:
"This has been one of the biggest challenges of a regular season that I’ve been a part of.”
10:27 PM · Mar 17, 2025
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1,540 Views
10:27 PM · Mar 17, 2025
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1,540 Views
Jyair
@CantCookJyair
This Miami Heat team is so bad bro…Why do I torture myself by watching every game?
10:14 PM · Mar 17, 2025
·81 Views
ME
FT New York Slobberknockers 116 Les Miserables Miami 95
Tom Thibodeau played his whole available roster except two guys.
Even Thibodeau...
...isn't making his starters (MINUS JALEN BRUNSON BTW!) play 48' against Les Miserables. FO' benchwarmers have played d.d. mins.
Tres Miserables. Manny Hatty (41-15😂) 88-64, End 3Q
ANOTHER BLOW-OUT! Elles and Gees, the way the "Heat" are playing, honest to God, they could lose the last 14 games, finish the season on a 0-22 collapse. We are the Zollner Pistons of 2024/25!
Putrid! I don't know who Tracy Morgan is but...
...Tracy Morgan just threw up in front row seats onto the court watching Hatters-Les Mis.
Great Minds & etc
Miami Heatle 🔥🐬
@HeatleMiami
The Miami Heat will win their first game in 2 weeks tonight 🥹
6:42 PM · Mar 17, 2025
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374 Views
Manny Hatty (-6.5) vs Misery , 7:30
That's a drop from -7.5. I think Les Mis are going to win, not just cover. I'm incorrigible, I know. I just don't think they're going to lose EVERY game.
Sunday, March 16, 2025
All agree, "Heat" don't compete in grizzly defeat
"We are desperate to our souls to collectively figure out how to win one game. We lost our competitive spirit in the second half...Vets who have been in our locker... this is humbling.”--Head Coach Erik Spoelstra
Spo has become a philosopher this trying season. This is about the "souls" at 601 Biscayne Blvd. Spo the philosopher-coach is impressive to me buy it hasn't helped him help the team win games post-trade.
"You’ve got to be a competitor, fight until you can fight no more. I could have done a better job doing a lot of things this game.”--Andrew Wiggins
“It’s not like the season’s over. Including myself, I don’t think we displayed [competitive spirit] tonight. Shame on us. We’ve addressed it as a team. We will figure it out the next game on Monday.”--Kyle Anderson
If Kyle had just not uttered that first sentence...
Wonder which player led the team meeting? During the Jimmy Drama K-Love loudly laid into the team.
Public Occurrences March 16, 2025
"Right Direction" highest in U.S. Since 2004; Trump Job Approval Tied for His Highest; Dems Approval All-Time Low
(Axios)
(Axios)
Erik Spoelstra's Lineup Tinkering Fails To Bear Fruit ...
No.
Blame the coach’s meddling,
No.
because at this point, it’s clear the Heat’s problems have had very little to do with starting games. They can’t close,
Both true. CAN start; can't close. Good point. Well...How'd we start against Beans? Against Grizz? I think overall a decent point.
struggle in second halves and seemingly have little confidence when it matters most, but opening stretches have largely been solid.
That is the key to this.
I, of all "Heat" observers, cannot dispute that point, or Tony Mejia's characterization of Spo's lineup moves as "tinkering" and "meddling". (Publocc search term "tinker") But. What is spo'sed to do? Pat Riley chased off the team's motor, leaving a team reeling in drawn-out emotional chaos, brought in three new guys, the best of whom is no Alpha, and threw them in Spo's tool box with intent that he use them. Spo did, he used them, started Wig-o and D-Mitch first game. It didn't work out. Then Wig-o gets hurt and misses several games. Wig-o, according to one GSW beat writer was "uncompetitive". There were reports all season long of defeatism and shoulder-slumping body language on GSW. That all changed, according to Draymond Green "1,000,000%" for the better, when JBIII arrived.
Head coach Erik Spoelstra is clearly trying to find the right formula to lift his team out of its brutal funk, but he looks like he’s fumbling for answers and pressing the wrong buttons at this point.
...Highsmith and Duncan Robinson, which is arguably Miami’s strongest defensive lineup...
WOW. Didn't know that!
No.
Blame the coach’s meddling,
No.
because at this point, it’s clear the Heat’s problems have had very little to do with starting games. They can’t close,
Both true. CAN start; can't close. Good point. Well...How'd we start against Beans? Against Grizz? I think overall a decent point.
struggle in second halves and seemingly have little confidence when it matters most, but opening stretches have largely been solid.
That is the key to this.
...
Spoelstra will undoubtedly have a different rotation in place when Alec Burks returns from his back issues, but at this point, he’s got to strive for consistency...Wig-o has started games well. And not finished. He seems to me to shrink in the spotlight. He's not a go-to. The "Heat" right now are a team of sixth men and role players. There is not a superstar on the roster. That is my perspective on the team's talent and I think it's the chalk. Andrew Wiggins? No. Tyler Herro? No. Bam is the team's best player, the captain, and the team's motor. Bam is fabulous. But he cannot dominate a game.
Spoelstra has a vision for this team, said he had the same vision after the trade, that finally he had a positionless team that could "run". But he doesn't have the horses.
I thought that Spoelstra would stick to a starting, and finishing, lineup with Wig-o and D-Mitch until the end of this season. I agree with Mejia's point that the team needs "consistency". But with Wig-o getting hurt Spoelstra couldn't. 601 Biscayne is never going to give up on a season and when the results aren't there Spo has a mandate to tinker.
Imo, Spo should ride with the first post-trade lineup, but this is all lineup shit and tinkering about his tinkering plays right into his weakness. It ignores the central issue to me: defeatism. This team, no matter who starts and who finishes, does not believe that it will win the game. Any game. Charlotte or Boston, Chicago or Cleveland. Get off to a hot start? "They'll come back and beat us." Get off to a bad start? "It's over, we're gonna lose again."
...Jaquez has shown flashes of coming out of his season-long sophomore slump over the past few weeks, but shuffling between starting and coming off the bench is unlikely to benefit him finding a rhythm.
I was 3J's biggest champion when he arrived. A draft steal. Then he got hurt. History tells that if players are going to make a big jump, they do it in their second season. 3J has not. It's not a slump. It's a low ceiling. 3J is 24. That's OLD for a second-year NBA baller.
(Tony Mejia, SI)
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