MIAMI – The Miami Heat fell victim to Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant as he hit a buzzer-beater that snapped its six-game winning streak on Thursday night, 110-108. As the Heat were amid a turnaround, the team did suffer a setback with the defeat at the hands of the Grizzlies, but there are traits they keep progressing on as explained by head coach Erik Spoelstra.
This contest featured a multitude of swings with Miami starting slow, gaining major traction before the first half only for it to lead to Memphis getting back an eight-point lead. However, the home team would go on a run to tie the game back up leading to a highly competitive game from start to finish, only for it to lead to the heartbreaking game-winner.
Spoelstra would say to ClutchPoint that with the continuous “playoff” atmosphere, the team is getting “stronger” in terms of their competitive edge.
“It’s playoff basketball,” Spoelstra said. “You know, we feel fully comfortable in these kind of games. Our guys are enjoying this. They feel fully alive, you know, from the competition. You know, the locker room is very disappointing right now, but you know, we gave ourselves enough opportunities to win, you have to make some plays, you know. But this competitive edge is getting stronger.”
“There’s a collective will that I like seeing out of this group, and we’re getting more comfortable with different guys being able to make plays in the fourth quarter,” Spoelstra continued. “This is without Wiggs [Andrew Wiggins]. I feel like we can go to different things and different guys, and guys feel confident with that. It’s a shame, I really felt like once Davion hit that three, I thought we were winning this game, but we’re making some progress.”
Heat’s Bam Adebayo on what he liked to see after the loss
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As the Heat believe they’re trending in the right direction, the loss to Memphis hasn’t deterred those feelings, if anything it has amplified them. The team’s captain Bam Adebayo would say after the game that the difference from before is that they are “competing” and even saw that spirit during the previous 10-game skid.
“We’re competing, that’s what I like to see, we’re competing, we’re not letting go of the rope,” Adebayo said after scoring 26 points, collecting seven rebounds, and recording four assists. “You can see, like, dudes really want to win. Like I said in that 10-game losing streak, we will get all the way to the fourth quarter and then collapse. So see us hold leads, and obviously a team goes up six or seven and we bounce back, take the lead, it just shows how much we’ve matured over these 18 games.”
Spoelstra would go as far as to say that Miami is “becoming a very tough team” coming off the gut-punching defeat to the Grizzlies.
“This was a great basketball game,” Spoelstra said. “We’re not happy with the way it went down the stretch, but we’re becoming a very tough team. This three weeks ago would have been on the second night of a back-to-back, probably a double-digit game, once they made their push, they made a push, you know, two or three pushes there in the fourth quarter, then we’re not going anywhere. Our execution is getting better.”
At any rate, Miami is now 35-42 which puts them ninth in the Eastern Conference as there is five games left with the team fighting for play-in tournament seeding.
