The "Heat" are tired, man. Spoelstra's gotta watch this now. That's two losses in three games and he put them through a grueling workout Thursday before Thursday night's 15-rounder against Toronto. In the last ten days they have played six games, four of them went down to, and in one case, over, the wire; four of the games against top flight competition, all wins by the way, the other two blowout losses on the road against dreck. They were tired going into the DC game and a glorified G-League roster wasted them. They played no D against DC and Spoelstra got pissed. I get that. The Thursday gauntlet paid off in the next game but Spoelstra has got to be more careful running this short-handed team through a practice gauntlet, then playing an Ali-Frazier IV game and then going on the road the next night. They just ran out of gas in the 4th quarter. 21-6 is proof evident presumption great there were dead men walking in Mickey Mouseville tonight.
It is a tradeoff, the extent to which a coach and an organization demand furious 48-minutes-of-hell defense. The tradeoff comes at the expense of offense. The "Heat" continued to play great defense tonight, holding Orlando to 40.7% shooting. But that came at the expense of the "Heat" offense, which shot 37.5%.
So now they've endured a humiliating blowout playing no D, rebounded (so to speak) after Basic Training to grind the "Raptors" into dust with their D, and tonight went on the road ("on the road" should be like that; it was in Orlando for Godssake, not Guam), played good D again and got blown out because they were exhausted on offense from playing defense.
Spo uses his entire roster, I'll give him that. Every game, seemingly, and tonight too, he plays ten guys. The problem is not minute management, there are no 48' guys, everybody who does play usually gets about 30'. It is the two-way 100%-effort-100%-of-the-time demand, and the intensity of the practices that are the problems, The only players eligible to play tonight who didn't were UD, JJ and D-Wait. They are down Justise Winslow, too. It is so weird man, that kid's situation, he has missed twenty-five of Miami's thirty-five games--with puzzling injuries, if we're being told the truth. It's like game eight or something that he's been out with, first it was explained to us, a lower back strain, then after several of those missed games it was a bone bruise. I am not a big Justise fan but, well, two buts: first but: "Heat" management, i.e. Riles, Andy, Spo love the kid, just love him, rave about him; he is versatile, I'll give him that. You need somebody else to brick 40%? Justise, step right up, son. (unkind, very unkind of me; I apologize); second but: Love him or not Justise is another body and that more than anything, I don't care if it's Alan Ogg, the "Heat" need every damn player they can get their hands on.
But they can't. Chris Silva is on a REACT belt that automatically zaps him into putty in which condition the "Heat" must send him to the Rapid City "Thrillers"; UD, bless UD, UD WE LOVE YOU!, UD for like three years has done his best imitation of a potted plant on the bench. UD's got fucking carbuncles on his ass from all the sitting on pine he does, and JJ and Dion are not even warming wood, they're worm wood; you drink from the poisoned chalice of those two and the green fairy starts dancing in your fucking head. And see, the problem is, they won't get rid of UD, they won't rush J-Wins back from the chiropractor or the electric-shock therapist as the case may be (I am just a bad man), they can't trade JJ and Dion, they can't cut them and sign two more frisky G-Leaguers whose brain cells are not THC addled because the "Heat" are hard-capped; they cannot do anything with the ~$30 million they have tied up in the THC Twins; if they cut them they could not spend that money; and Spo would rather stick needles in his eyes than play them (He may have to get used to the needles.)
In a word, the "Heat" are FUCKED when it comes to JJ and Dion. FUCKED when it comes to UD, FUCKED on Chris, FUCKED on Justise. Which means, isn't it obvious?: Eric Spoelstra has got to LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP on the Culture of S&M D. Look: the team has run out of gas two of the last three games, you know what's coming next: injuries. Serious ones. Knees, ankles, corpuscles, whatever. There are forty-seven games left to play. If this team makes it intact through 82, what's their reward? "The game only starts in the playoffs." You hear that over and over and over again. You think the NBA regular season is a fatiguing, draining, injuring, ennuing marathon. "Okay, time for SPRINTS! "Gotta pick it up a notch or three fellas, this is the playoffs!" They don't have another notch to pick it up, they've run out of gears, they're in fifth and the engine is screaming. Lighten the fuck up, Spo, or this season could go poof!
It is a tradeoff, the extent to which a coach and an organization demand furious 48-minutes-of-hell defense. The tradeoff comes at the expense of offense. The "Heat" continued to play great defense tonight, holding Orlando to 40.7% shooting. But that came at the expense of the "Heat" offense, which shot 37.5%.
So now they've endured a humiliating blowout playing no D, rebounded (so to speak) after Basic Training to grind the "Raptors" into dust with their D, and tonight went on the road ("on the road" should be like that; it was in Orlando for Godssake, not Guam), played good D again and got blown out because they were exhausted on offense from playing defense.
Spo uses his entire roster, I'll give him that. Every game, seemingly, and tonight too, he plays ten guys. The problem is not minute management, there are no 48' guys, everybody who does play usually gets about 30'. It is the two-way 100%-effort-100%-of-the-time demand, and the intensity of the practices that are the problems, The only players eligible to play tonight who didn't were UD, JJ and D-Wait. They are down Justise Winslow, too. It is so weird man, that kid's situation, he has missed twenty-five of Miami's thirty-five games--with puzzling injuries, if we're being told the truth. It's like game eight or something that he's been out with, first it was explained to us, a lower back strain, then after several of those missed games it was a bone bruise. I am not a big Justise fan but, well, two buts: first but: "Heat" management, i.e. Riles, Andy, Spo love the kid, just love him, rave about him; he is versatile, I'll give him that. You need somebody else to brick 40%? Justise, step right up, son. (unkind, very unkind of me; I apologize); second but: Love him or not Justise is another body and that more than anything, I don't care if it's Alan Ogg, the "Heat" need every damn player they can get their hands on.
But they can't. Chris Silva is on a REACT belt that automatically zaps him into putty in which condition the "Heat" must send him to the Rapid City "Thrillers"; UD, bless UD, UD WE LOVE YOU!, UD for like three years has done his best imitation of a potted plant on the bench. UD's got fucking carbuncles on his ass from all the sitting on pine he does, and JJ and Dion are not even warming wood, they're worm wood; you drink from the poisoned chalice of those two and the green fairy starts dancing in your fucking head. And see, the problem is, they won't get rid of UD, they won't rush J-Wins back from the chiropractor or the electric-shock therapist as the case may be (I am just a bad man), they can't trade JJ and Dion, they can't cut them and sign two more frisky G-Leaguers whose brain cells are not THC addled because the "Heat" are hard-capped; they cannot do anything with the ~$30 million they have tied up in the THC Twins; if they cut them they could not spend that money; and Spo would rather stick needles in his eyes than play them (He may have to get used to the needles.)
In a word, the "Heat" are FUCKED when it comes to JJ and Dion. FUCKED when it comes to UD, FUCKED on Chris, FUCKED on Justise. Which means, isn't it obvious?: Eric Spoelstra has got to LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP on the Culture of S&M D. Look: the team has run out of gas two of the last three games, you know what's coming next: injuries. Serious ones. Knees, ankles, corpuscles, whatever. There are forty-seven games left to play. If this team makes it intact through 82, what's their reward? "The game only starts in the playoffs." You hear that over and over and over again. You think the NBA regular season is a fatiguing, draining, injuring, ennuing marathon. "Okay, time for SPRINTS! "Gotta pick it up a notch or three fellas, this is the playoffs!" They don't have another notch to pick it up, they've run out of gears, they're in fifth and the engine is screaming. Lighten the fuck up, Spo, or this season could go poof!
