Heat have lost 8 straight for the 1st time since 2008 and are searching for answers
MIAMI (AP) The last time a Miami Heat team lost eight consecutive games, before now, was 2008. Erik Spoelstra was an assistant coach in Pat Riley’s final season on the sideline. And that team, to put it bluntly, was tanking.
This team isn’t.
The Heat, who just followed an 0-5 homestand with two road losses that came by a combined 55 points, are back home for five more games starting Wednesday against Detroit, with their season either on the brink or possibly even more dire already.
The latest loss, the eighth in a row overall and the team’s 22nd in its last 31 games, was Monday at New York. Knicks 116, Heat 95 was the final, a game where Miami jumped out to a 12-0 lead that didn’t mean much of anything.
“We´re all getting tested—I said this before—including myself,” Spoelstra said after the loss to the Knicks, one that sent him to the longest losing streak of his career. “There´s no one that´s absolved from this. I have not come up with enough answers for this team. I have to do a better job. Our group has to do a better job.”
Miami has fallen to the No. 10 spot in the Eastern Conference, technically tied with No. 9 Chicago at 29-39, but the Bulls hold the tiebreaker edge. The play-in tournament is the only realistic path to the playoffs for the Heat now. If they stay 10th, they’d have to win two road games just to have the right to face the No. 1 seed—probably Cleveland—in Round 1.
