Remnants of last year lurk in the mind of every Heat fan, as something about this team’s play suddenly feels strangely familiar. After beginning their road trip off with a bang by knocking out New Jersey and Atlanta in an overtime thriller; the Heat’s first test out West has not been so kind. Two heart-breaking OT losses, have given Heat fans more to worry about sleep deprivation induced by 10:45 tip offs. Instead Miami is starting to worry about the reemergence of the bad habits developed in “Year 1”. The lightning fast team averaging a league high 106.4 points a game, suddenly disappeared. The final stanza in both Oakland and Los Angeles Wednesday night featured a sluggish and incongruent offense, which more closely resembled the herky-jerky Hawks’ offense that Chuck Barkley ripped into last week.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the prolific heat offense will account for a meager (6 -29 Tues &Wed) combined 4th quarter shooting in the future. The more pressing dilemma is the increasing likelihood
that these two quarters of basketball, will drastically affect the heat’s regular season by pushing the team down a slippery slope. The integrity of the team’s record may be seriously jeopardized in the
next 4 games, all of which feature blue-chip teams (Den, SA, LAL, Phi). This trend is precisely similar to 2010-11, where the heat suffered five losses in six games on their January road trip and another five straight in March. These two quick stretches accounted for nearly fifty percent of the heats losses that season, and demonstrate their trend to spiral after consecutive losses. With the additional constraints imposed by the shortened season, it is certainly conceivable that the next few games may be the toughest
stretch for Miami; outside March’s 4 day encounter against Portland, Utah, and the Lakers. Let’s hope Spolestra, like all great leaders, learns from last the past and avoids the fatal mistake of repeating the mistakes of history.
