MIAMI — The respect is that of a championship contender.
The place on the leaderboard is that of a survivalist.
For the Miami Heat, the dichotomy endures, once again seen as something more than the standings indicate amid this rush to avoid the play-in round.
For example, the Heat barely came away with one of their most impressive wins last season. Monday at Golden 1 Centerthen Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox stopped to pay tribute to the Heat’s perseverance.
“It’s like a running joke,” Fox said. “No matter who Miami fields, it seems to be a team that has played in the Finals or has played together for a while.”
This was, of course, the night the Heat were without Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Nikola Jovic, among others.
“They have guys that do their job and they have guys that come out, no matter how long they’ve been with the team, they play hard. So it’s just their continuity. They play hard. They understand what they have to do.
Three days later, after surviving a furious late Heat rally to earn victory at Ball Arena in a rematch of last season’s NBA FinalsDenver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic gave an update on the evening’s challenge.
“They play with a lot of speed and confidence on both ends of the pitch. They’re really aggressive,” said the two-time MVP and last year’s Finals MVP. “They know what they’re doing and it’s difficult to play against this team.”
And yet, with that loss, the Heat fell to 8th in the East, in the play-in bracket, the part of the postseason mix where one or two losses mean an exit before the first round at best of the seven.
Good enough to challenge the best.
Average enough to place in the middle of the pack.
Like last season, when the Heat entered the play-in round as the No. 7 seed and came out No. 8, the talk as February turned to March was peaking at the right time.
Given how last season went, that’s a tough argument to counter.
“We’re not there yet, but we have a little more time to get there,” Butler said. “We know who we are. We know it’s almost the most important time of the year. So everything will be fine.
But the play-in also comes with a hatch.
Without a fourth-quarter play-in comeback against the Chicago Bulls, last season would have ended in April instead of June.
So while Butler waits, most follow the race to the East.
“It’s not that we’re obsessed with the rankings, but we’re all human,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We are competitors. We look at the ranking. And I think it’s good for the league and it’s good for our team. It’s good for the players.
So let the scoreboard viewing begin.
“I watch it,” Herro said of watching the playoff race. “I watch it after the All-Star break, because I feel like that’s when the games make more sense, because of how close the seedings are. I definitely pay attention to them, even watching the games when I’m not playing, seeing how competitive the games are.
Spoelstra said that, like last season, that makes this six-week stretch until the end of the regular season compelling.
“You’re competing for something before you get to the playoffs,” he said. “And some moving parts, but you can still figure out where your identity is, commit to doing that.”
“We defended much more coherently. And then, at the end of the day, you just have to figure out how to win games.
Then the focus will be on how to win playoff games, whether with a bye week before entering the top six, or with just a few days to game plan if you advance through the play-ins.
The outside view is of a team capable of another deep run.
The rankings perspective is that of a team already facing a challenge.
IN THE WAY
BE LIKE MIAMI: Speaking of the play-in round, the Heat’s successful run to the NBA Finals last season created something of a rallying cry from the league’s underdogs. This includes the Toronto Raptors and their attempt to break into the top 10 in the East. “Yeah. I played in the play-in about two years ago, so that was awesome,” the Raptors forward said. Bruce Brown, said the former star player of the Miami Hurricanes, according to the Toronto Sun. “It was a good atmosphere. We ended up beating Cleveland when I was in Brooklyn, so that was good. We will definitely try to make it happen. I mean, we’ll definitely try to make it happen. You never know what happens in March. Miami was in play-in and made it to the finals, so you never know. Brown does, because he was with the Nuggets against the Heat in those Finals. The Heat’s final two games of the season are at home against the Raptors, which could make for a compelling game if the Raptors are in play-in contention.
MR. MAXIMUS: Why, yes, you can already buy a T-shirt commemorating the former Heat forward’s 59-foot 3-pointer last week. Max Strus for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Dallas Mavericks. Less than 24 hours after Strus’ victory, the Cavaliers unveiled “1conic” merchandise, paying homage to his Cleveland jersey number, with a photo of the photo on the wardrobe items. Earlier in that fourth quarter, Strus scored 12 straight points on four 3-pointers in a span of 67 seconds to bring the Cavaliers within striking distance. ‘He’s the Max Strus we all know,’ Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell said, according to Cleveland.com. “We saw it in the playoffs. We saw it in the finale. We’ve seen it in so many different ways. That’s why we got it.
BIBBY BLOVIATES: Arguably one of the Heat’s worst buyout deadline acquisitions in their 36 seasons, with their dismal performance in the 2011 playoffs at the start of the Big Three era with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade And Chris Bosh, Mike Bibby apparently he’s also not a fan of the way Heat fans travel. Barely a “Let’s heat up!” » A chant broke out during the Heat’s victory Monday at Golden 1 Center, and then Bibby, in his in-studio role on the Sacramento Kings telecast, made his feelings known. “I want to emphasize this first,” Bibby said when asked what he thought of the match. “I don’t like the ‘Let’s Go Heat’ chants going around the arena. These guys are trying to apply pressure. The best NBA fans can’t be. . . our team can’t hear that. Bibby, starting all 20 appearances in the 2011 playoffs for the Heat, shot .258 on 3-pointers and .281 from the field, averaging a solid 3.7 points, eventually being removed from the rotation in the loss in the NBA Finals against the Mavericks. .
NUMBERS GAME: With Chris Paul a guest on Dwyane Wade’s podcast, the conversation took a whimsical turn, about how the two had at one point discussed whether Paul actually could have been sent to the Heat during the Big Three era. “We talk about all of that,” Wade said of the unlikely scenario: “who’s going to get the ball, how we’re all going to play together, ‘No CP can have the ball.’ We finished, we figured it all out, and then someone said, “Well, who’s going to wear number three?” Silence. The whole trade was ruined. Wade’s No. 3 hangs from the rafters of the Kaseya Center. Paul has worn the number 3 at each of his NBA stops, with the New Orleans Hornets, Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns and, now, the Golden State Warriors.
NUMBER
2. Times the Heat won every away game in a calendar month, something they lost in February with Thursday’s Leap Day loss in Denver, closing out the month 6-1 away at the Kaseya Center. The Heat’s only months of invincibility on the road during the franchise’s 36 seasons remain December 1996 (8-0) and December 2010 (10-0).
