Heat searching for answers amid 8-game losing streak

MIAMI (AP) — The last time a Miami Heat team lost eight consecutive games, before now, was 2008. Erik Spoelstra was an assistant coach in Pat Riley's final season on the sideline. And that team, to put it bluntly, was tanking.

This team isn't.

The Heat — who just followed an 0-5 homestand with two road losses that came by a combined 55 points — are back home for five more games starting Wednesday against Detroit, with their season either on the brink or possibly even more dire already.

The latest loss, the eighth in a row overall and the team's 22nd in its last 31 games, was Monday at New York. Knicks 116, Heat 95 was the final, a game where Miami jumped out to a 12-0 lead that didn't mean much of anything.

“We’re all getting tested — I said this before — including myself," Spoelstra said after the loss to the Knicks, one that sent him to the longest losing streak of his career. “There’s no one that’s absolved from this. I have not come up with enough answers for this team. I have to do a better job. Our group has to do a better job.”

Miami has fallen to the No. 10 spot in the Eastern Conference, technically tied with No. 9 Chicago at 29-39 but the Bulls hold the tiebreaker edge. The play-in tournament is the only realistic path to the playoffs for the Heat now. If they stay 10th, they'd have to win two road games just to have the right to face the No. 1 seed — probably Cleveland — in Round 1.

And this isn't a slump. This is a collapse. They can't score, they can't hold leads and nobody has any solutions.

The Heat have been held under 100 points in three consecutive games for the first time since November 2018. They're 10 games under .500 for the first time since 2016-17, when they started 11-30 and then went 30-11 the rest of the way. They wasted a double-digit lead on Monday night — a 13-point edge — for the 18th time this season, tying Utah for the most such losses in the league.

How did that 13-point lead get away? The Heat gave up a 76-36 run. That's how.

“It's frustrating,” Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. said. “We’re going through the dark days right now.”

They've lost 17 games in which they've led after the first quarter, the second-most such losses in the NBA this season. They've lost 11 games in which they've led going into the fourth quarter, tied for the most such losses in the league. They've been outscored by 20 or more points in a quarter seven times this season, including once on Monday.

When it goes bad, it goes really bad for Miami.

“Anyone would just quit and get comfortable with losing and feel sorry for themselves,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. "But obviously, nobody feels sorry for us. We have to dig ourselves out of this hole. It all starts in this locker room.”

Somehow, these days are even rougher for Miami than the Jimmy Butler suspension sagas were in December, January and February before he got traded to Golden State for Andrew Wiggins. Back then, the Heat were at least winning half the time or so. He missed 19 games because of injury or suspension between Dec. 21 and Feb. 5; the Heat were 10-9 in those games.

In the 19 games since the trade, they're 4-15.

“We’re trying to play the right way,” Heat captain Bam Adebayo said. "Spo wants us to play the right way. So, we’re going to keep competing.”

There have been issues outside of the obvious on the boxscore. Wiggins has been in-and-out of the lineup with injuries, Nikola Jovic — who was blossoming into a key part of the Heat rotation — is out with a broken hand and Miami has tried nine different starting lineups in its last 11 games.

“This has been one of the biggest challenges of a regular season that I’ve been a part of,” Spoelstra said. “And we just have to stay the course. This is the NBA. We’ll have another game on Wednesday night. We have to collectively get our mind right where all these losses don’t have to impact the next game. That is the mental discipline. That is a tough human condition to fight. It’s human nature to stack up some of these memories and let that affect us for the next game.”

Detroit — one of the NBA's best success stories this season — awaits on Wednesday. Houston is at the Heat on Friday and Charlotte is the opponent on Sunday. Butler and Golden State visit on March 25 and Atlanta, a team Miami is chasing for play-in positioning, ends the homestand on March 27.

That's the next stretch. It won't be easy. These days, nothing is for Miami. A team that goes into every season with championship aspirations now has an uphill fight ahead just to get into the playoffs.

“Is it easy? No. But you have a chance in this league,” Spoelstra said. "That’s the beauty of this league. You have opportunities to develop your grit, to reveal your grit, to reveal your competitive character, to collectively develop it together and you do that through really tough experiences. And we’re going through it right now.”

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