Starting To Worry? "We have guys who can close," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said after yesterday's 87-86 win over the Miami HEAT.
A subtle shot at the Miami HEAT? Maybe.
You can debate whether Bulls' forward Luol Deng was tripped/pushed by HEAT guard Mike Miller in the closing seconds yesterday or whether he simply tripped over his own feet, but the reality in Miami is a bit bigger than an extra trip to the foul line for the HEAT.
HEAT coach Erik Spoelstra revealed to reporters guys in his locker room where brought to tears after dropping their fourth straight game.
"This is painful for every single one of us to go through this, there are couple of guys crying in the locker room right now, it is not a matter of want," Spoelstra said.
Inside the locker room none of the HEAT players would admit to tears, but all of them admitted there was something not right in Miami.
"We haven't addressed the problem yet," HEAT forward Chris Bosh said to Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. "We have to find the problem first."
"When you put your heart and your soul, your blood, your sweat and your tears into something, and you want something so bad and it just slips from you… just to come up short again and again, it hurts," Bosh said.
"We're stuck on a treadmill right now... We believe in each other and we believe that eventually we're going to get better.
"Sometimes, you just have to let the pain teach you something."
HEAT star Dwyane Wade said his group was still very much together in all of this, but said he knew a lot of people were happy to see the HEAT struggle.
"Inside our locker room, we stick together, we're like brothers," Wade said. "We win together, we lose together. Outside, the Miami HEAT are exactly what everyone wanted, losing games. The world is better now since the Heat is losing."
"We've got to figure it out. Inside our locker room, we stick together."
HEAT star LeBron James said he wants to shoulder the blame for his team's struggles as of late and revealed he pledged to his team to do more, especially in the fourth quarter.
"I told my team, I'm not going to continue to fail late in games," James said. "I put a lot of blame on myself tonight. I told the guys that I just keep failing them late in games and I won't continue to do that."
The HEAT are now firmly in control of third place in the Eastern Conference with Chicago now having a full game on the HEAT for second place. The HEAT have 19 games remaining on their schedule and will play 11 more home games. Of the HEAT's remaining 19 games they will also face 10 teams with records above .500 and 11 teams from the Eastern Conference.
It is not that the HEAT are losing, it's how the HEAT are losing that's the problem, and the HEAT are starting to get concerned about it.
If the playoffs started today the HEAT would play host to the New York Knicks in the first round, and who in the room thinks this HEAT squad gets past the new-look Knicks in a seven-game series?
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