The Miami "Heat" have been a more focused team since, I peg it at the trade deadline.

Eric Spoelstra has settled on a starting lineup and “a rotation" as it is called, the 7-10 most used players on the team. Players now have a good sense that they will play in a given game and about when in the game their number will be called. This site has previously excoriated Spoelstra for his tinkering with the starters and the rotation after two years with the same core group. Spoelstra should have had his rotations set at the start of this, the third season, not with one-third left in the third season. I unsay none of that criticism, I reiterate it.

The "Heat" off loaded two players on trade day, Tyler Johnson and Wayne Ellington. They had to take one player back, I don't even know the fucking guy's name he has played so little, if at all, for salary cap reasons. There is no rational explanation why getting rid of Johnson and Ellington and adding Emanon should have focused Spoelstra's mind and forced clarity on his player selection, but it did.

The players are more focused. And I don't think it is a consequence solely, even mainly, of Spoelstra's rotation clarity. You don't hear a peep out of the players now, never is heard a discouraging word, no  fuckin' this fuckin’ that post games from Hassan. Dion The Mouth Waiters has zipped it. Hassan has accepted his role coming off the bench in favor of Bam Adebayo and Dion, although made part of the starting five by Eric, is on a very short leash. In one recent game Dion failed to "rotate" on defense and the bad guy he was supposed to rotate onto made a three. Immediately, something like 3:52 into the 3Q, Eric yanked him and on the bench Dion sat for the rest of the frigging game. If Waiters bitched about it he didn't do it publicly. In this way (In this way only) the "Heat" this year resemble LeBron James' Cleveland teams. Oh my God, so much bitchin', moanin', throwin' soup at an assistant coach’n and then they'd switch and get serious for the playoffs.

Much more important than "shut up and dribble" the players are giving better effort. That is very recent, not just since the trade deadline, maybe only during this 8-2 win streak they're on. They are not as easily distracted, they stay on task more. There were so many games in the previous sixty or so when you read a write-up by one of the local pencils and you read about the players' lack of effort, a lack of "consistency," that was a near synonym used, especially at home! That's why the "Heat"'s record is so pathetic in 305. A lack of effort is the most infuriating thing for fans, coaches, management. Ira Winderman wrote it more than once, this team does not have the talent to win while loafing. If this team doesn't work hard every night then, as Pat Riley said in a commercial when he got here, they really have no chance.

Eric Spoelstra does his tinkering every damn year. Spoelstra's inability to settle on a "consistent" predictable rotation and this core group of players lack of consistent effort has fucked up the season to the point where Miami is scratching and clawing to hang on to 8th Place with no higher to go than 6th. Are Miami's players smart enough, self aware enough to realize this? Sheet, they're veterans man! They know damn well when they're going through the motions out there. And they also know they can't do that and win. Period there. They know.

Is it not though this way with every team in the NBA? It is, just about. Golden State had that 73-9 season where they didn't lose focus the entire year. The players wanted to break the record for wins. They then let wet willie-in', no practicin', coach firin' Cleve win three straight to win the CHAMPIONSHIPPPP! See what GS has done this year, especially at home? They're lost 10 games in Oakland so far (their last year there, too) and 12 on the road, ooh, BIG home court ad, and right now are moseying on through a 5-5 and sit a mere half game ahead of Denver atop the West. They've done some moseying their ownselves, the "Warriors" have. But the "Warriors" have got more talent than God, a permanent mansion on 1st Place is the "Warriors" natural position, is it not? This "core group" of "Warriors" is so freakishly good, maybe the greatest team all time, that they'd have to try not to win for anything much less.

This by way of explanation, not justification: The NBA has forever been plagued by moseying because there are so many damn games. Eighty-two is just a lot. Manchester City has lost focus this season too and their regular season is 38 games. City played 57 matches in all competitions during their All or Nothing year, 2017/18. In the same season Golden State played 103 games and that only because, except for the conference finals, they breezed through the playoffs 4-1, 4-1, 4-3, and 4-0. They would have played 110 if pushed to the limit. Too many and too much. The Miami "Heat" probably give no less effort than does Golden State. They are just not as talented. Their natural position, as is evident from their cumulative nearly three year 119-118 record is right around 8th Place.