by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni
“Growing pains” is perhaps the most diplomatic way to put things for the Miami Heat, after they suffered their worst defeat of the season last night.
The “Heatles” blew a 24-point second half lead to the Orlando Magic, and once again, its star players went cold late in the game and failed to knock down the most critical shots. It’s a growing, and disturbing trend for Miami against the NBA’s elite teams.
No one in the Heat organization has an answer for what’s ailing the team — and the body language from LeBron James and Chris Bosh in the postgame presser indicated a team perhaps beginning to doubt itself a little bit.
The Sun-Sentinel has the quotes from this frustrated group:
“We’re going through this growing pain, and it sucks,” Wade said. “You look for the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a trend. We’ve had leads and we’ve let it go away. I’m not used to being on teams like that. So it’s mind boggling.”
[LeBron] James did not score in the fourth quarter and [Dwyane] Wade scored only two points in the fourth. “Obviously, there is a trend for us, where we do the same things over and over. We’ve blown a lot of 20-point leads; we’ve blown a lot of leads when we’re in control,” said Bosh, who said something might have to change, without specifying. “We have to start being the aggressor.”
It’s certainly not panic time in Miami. There’s plenty of meaningful basketball left to be played, including a big test for the Heat tonight in San Antonio.
Sooner rather than later, though, LeBron and company might wanna think about righting the ship.
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