The NBA has already entered the definition stage of the regular season. With about 10 games left until the end of the initial phase before the start of the playoffs, one of the best teams in the competition is the Miami Heat. Leaders of the Eastern Conference with a mark of 47 wins and 26 losses, the Florida franchise is running as a candidate to fight for a new title in the most important basketball league in the world.
On a new day that was played this Wednesday night, the Heat lost at home to the Golden State Warriors 118-104, but the worst of the evening was not the fall to the San Francisco team. It all started after the start of the second half of the game that took place at the FTX Arena: after calling at 50, the visiting team scored a 19-point streak to take the lead in the third quarter (69-50) and in the midst of the locals timeout, a very strong cross of words broke out between Jimmy Butler and the coach Erik Spoelstra.
The player questioned the collective attitude during the scoring run of the visitors who left them down on the scoreboard by a wide margin and automatically the experienced coach went to the crossing. Butler, who started sitting on one of the chairs on the bench, stood up when he was attacked by his partner Udonis Haslem with a blunt phrase: “I would kick your ass.” The 41-year-old power forward serves as one of Spoelstra's pillars of confidence in the locker room and in this case he jumped to the defense of the Heat coach.
“We have other, more important goals to accomplish, but we want to play better overall. This starts with our leadership. Our oldest players need to take the lead and, in general, we need to play better more consistently. It was at this point that the discussions began. I am aware of how it could have been seen from the outside, but this is our language,” said Erik about the clash. And he closed the conflict with a reflection on the future playoffs: “You can stimulate people through frustration and disappointment. Teams can also go the other way. I don't see the latter happening in our group, in our dressing room, but we needed a kick in the butt.”
The same Miami players could not help answering the journalists' questions in the press room and one of those who sought to give an explanation was Bam Adebayo. “This is us in practice. When we train, we get to that point where it seems that we want to fight each other when we get so angry, but it's just the competitive nature we have in this team,” argued one of the leaders of the Florida franchise.
“It was crazy. It was an outburst of passion,” Kyle Lowry added to the opinions of his peers. And he concluded with a similar thought to everyone who passed in front of the microphone on Wednesday night: “Our guys want to win games and they work extremely hard to achieve it. This passion can come afloat. Sometimes, fire and emotions come out. But for us, this is nothing. We've talked about it and we're going to continue rowing together.”
With a few weeks to go before the end of the NBA regular season, the Heat lead the Eastern Conference but can't relax on their laurels: they have three teams within 1.5 games of snatching the best seed ahead of the Playoffs. Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics patiently await a new stumbling block from Miami with the dream of climbing to the top position just a few games before the end of the season. The Spoelstra team will play again this Friday at 21 (Argentina time) at the FTX Arena.
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