The Miami Meat Has Gone Bad

This was the team that was supposed to win five consecutive championships. This was the team that was supposed to put unbridled fear into the hearts of their opponents every time they took the court.  A team so unfairly good that it made us angry.

After watching the Miami Heat lose their fifth straight loss last night, there seems to be several glaring reasons why this once-dubbed super trio hasn’t been succeeding in recent weeks. The problems seem easy to identify, but sadly for the Heat organization, almost impossible to rectify.

The first major issue has to start with Erik Spoelstra’s inadequacy in handling NBA Super Stars. That’s not to say it’s an easy task for any coach to handle these types of players, let alone three of them, but the way Spoelstra swaggered into the pre-season made us all think he might be able to take on the monumental task. It only took the first ten games of the regular season to realize Spoelstra was just exuding false confidence as a desperate way to convince himself he was right for the job. And if things seemed like they couldn’t get worse for youthful Heat coach, he decided to make the mistake of not keeping what happens in the locker room where it belongs.

Here’s a little tip for you Spoelstra. It’s okay for a coach to talk about his collegiate kids crying over a loss when they lose a chance at a National Championship on a last second buzzer beater. It’s not okay to talk about grown ass men weeping over a regular season game. We may never know the true ramifications of his statement, but the fact Spoelstra doesn’t seem to be able to look his star players in the eye during timeouts speaks volumes.

In the beginning of the season, everyone watched while Wade and James had chemistry issues and almost immediately the excuses began to pile up. They didn’t have a full camp together. They weren’t accustomed to each other’s respective styles. Above all else, we were told to give it time. Now more than half the regular season is over, and the King and Flash still can’t seem to get out of each other’s way. The only time the Heat win is when one of the two takes over and the other rides in the backseat. The problem is, neither of them can handle playing second fiddle. They might have said all the right things in the off-season, but it’s clear after last night they both desperately covet the glory. If the Heat can’t beat the Blazers with Wade scoring 38 and Lebron putting up 31, their team’s playoff chances appear to be pretty bleak.

To top it all off, now the third member of the Heatles is breaking his silence and expressing his unhappiness with the game plan. In the off-season, Bosh was all smiles, salivating over the chance of playing alongside his two BFF’s. This would have been all fine and dandy if Bosh actually knew his role instead of, in some delusional state, actually thinking he was on equal ground with the likes of Wade and Lebron. Apparently the mirage still exists, because now Bosh is tired of lurking in the shadows and is voicing his need for equal share of the basketball. Even after going 3 for 11 in the team’s fifth straight loss, Bosh believes it’s his post game that’s the missing piece to the puzzle.

The Miami Heat has turned into the giant soap opera so many predicted before the season started. At one point all three embraced their bad guy personas, even egging on the haters with their over-the-top introduction ceremony, but now the hating has gone too far for at least one of them. Wade doesn’t seem to be embracing the bad boy image anymore, and one has to question if this whole Miami stunt has already started to unravel in the first year of its self-proclaimed dynasty.

The Miami Meat is beginning to spoil, and 48 minutes, against a hot Lakers team that has won eight in a row, isn’t going to help Pat Riley pass a health inspection.

—– Seth Newton