MIAMI – After the Miami Heat dropped their ninth straight game on Thursday night to the Detroit Pistons, 116-113, there is no doubt a level of frustration from the type of losses the team has been having. This time around, Pistons star Cade Cunningham hit a game-winning three ball which put the Heat away on their home floor to mark the sixth straight loss at the Kaseya Center as head coach Erik Spoelstra speaks on the bright side of the situation.

Heat’s Erik Spoelstra on the “beauty” of the nine-game skid

This was another contest for Miami where the team was competitive throughout but lost at the very end as it was the 19th time they blew a double-digit lead which leads the entire NBA. However, there were inspiring performances from Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro who scored 30 and 29 points respectively.

Spoelstra would say to ClutchPoints that amid the nine-game skid, there has been “beauty” in seeing the camaraderie led by the two stars even during the “ridiculousness of these games.”

“That’s what we need, you know, He and Tyler, you know, just brought it from an urgency, an edge, a leadership standpoint,” Spoelstra said. “I heard their voices the very first second of shoot around, ‘We got to get this right.’ And then that went on the entire game, the two of them. If we can all step back, it is a beauty to watch, the camaraderie, the group is rallying around each other, rallying around this ridiculousness of these games, and Bam is spearheading.”

“He’s our emotional leader,” Spoelstra continued. “He’s playing so damn hard on both ends, even some of those plays where he forced some turnovers down the stretch, you know, playing on the weak side, rebounding, initiating scoring, and being the leader. But you know, we’ll need that, if it takes more, then we got to all do more, including Bam, Tyler, and myself.”

Tyler Herro has a message for the Heat amid the long losing streak

As Herro and Adebayo look to lead a major turnaround for the Heat despite there only being 14 games left in the season, the team is still in play for a play-in tournament berth and chance for the playoffs. Herro would send a message to the rest of the team after the loss where when going through a losing streak like they’re currently in, “self-doubt” could leak in as  they ave to “continue to stick with it.”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a tough stretch to go through obviously, you know, I feel like a lot of people will start second guessing themselves when the process isn’t necessarily getting the results that you want,” Herro said. “Just to lose eight, nine in a row. Lot of self-doubt starts to creep in. But you try to rely on the work, rely on the time and the effort we put in to get to this point, and just got to continue to stick with it.”

Heat’s Erik Spoelstra on feeling “worthy to win”

While the Heat’s mental discipline is no doubt being tested, especially in the amount of painful losses the team has endured like by Cunningham’s game-winner, there is apparently still aspects to build on. Spoelstra would stress after the ninth straight loss which is the most in his career that the goal is to put them in a position where they are “worthy to win.”

“That’s a tough one,” Spoelstra said. “I mean, we did a lot of things very well, and we had some of our better defenders out there, defenders that can cover a lot of ground. But Cunningham also is a really good player, so he can manipulate a lot of different things and get into the pain and create some overreactions and things like that. So it’s not all just us, but I say this all the time, and I said it to the team. You always want to get your team in a position where you feel worthy to win, and that’s the tough thing that’s been going on the last six weeks.”

“We feel like we’ve been worthy to win, and we just haven’t simply been able to get a win. And that’s what’s tough,” Spoelstra continued. “We’ve laid two eggs in Memphis and New York, everything else, laying it all out there. May not be playing great, may not be finishing great, we all might be making mistakes, including myself, but in terms of laying it out there and being worthy enough to have better chances to win. I truly feel that in my heart.”

At any rate, Miami is now 29-40 which puts them 10th in the Eastern Conference as they next take on the Houston Rockets, looking to snap the skid and prevent 10 straight losses.