Things haven’t been going well lately for Miami, as the team now lost their eight-straight contest on Monday’s match against the Knicks. With this 116-95 defeat at Madison Garden, this marks their longest-losing skid during Erik Spoelstra’s 17-year coaching career.
The Heat coach’s reputation has pretty much being spotless, having won two NBA titles, plus two more trips to the Finals, back in 2022 he was considered as one of the league’s 15 greatest tacticians. However, things haven’t been going smoothly for the club, especially ever since they traded out Jimmy Butler to Golden State.
“We’re all getting tested, including myself,” Spoelstra said after losing to New York at the start of the week. “No one’s absolved from this. I’ve not come up with enough answers for this team. I have to do a better job. Our group has to do a better job.”
Spoelstra then added: “We have to put our feet into the dirt and hold our ground at this point. You always have a choice. It doesn’t mean you’re going to win, necessarily. … But [you at least have] to make some strides. And you could see that in some of the losses over the last three weeks, where it felt like we were making strides. The last two games haven’t felt like that.”
After team president Pat Riley decided to discipline Butler, suspend him multiple times after he demanded a trade, he sent the superstar to the Warriors. However, the Heat have now gone 4-15 since making this decision, and have been held under 100 points for three-straight games for the first time in seven years.
Now the South Beach club rest in the 10th, which is the final spot for the play-in tournament in the Eastern Conference, but are 10 games below .500 for the first time since 2017. “We’re going through the dark days right now,” said forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. after Monday’s loss.
The Miami sophomore knows that they can pull off a playoff berth if they work together. “As a team, right now we’ve got to come together and find a way to fight. It’s something we’ve been talking about. We just need to find something to rally around,” he assured.
