Why are the Heat now thriving in the third? ‘Our coach is a maniac’

1 week ago 2

MIAMI — When the going wasn’t good for the Miami Heat, when the losses were coming eight times in nine games, a sense of dread often coincided with the start of the second half.

It was as if a previous rendition of the Heat was back, as if Erik Spoelstra’s team was mimicking the third-quarter failures of Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, third quarters becoming the social-media snark of turd quarters.

Now?

Now third quarters of heft and substance, including in Thursday night’s road victory over the Detroit Pistons that extended the winning streak to four going into Saturday’s 5 p.m. game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Kaseya Center.

Addressed and answered.

The exit from the halftime locker room no longer a road to ruin.

“Well, we’ve had enough games where we were a dud out of it, and I credit the locker room,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “In our meeting on Christmas Eve, basically everybody was talking about that, that we need to have more consistency coming out of the locker room.

“We’ve had a lot of halftime leads or played great first half basketball. Even in those losses, we had so many of those games where we played really well, and then the third quarter would just do us in. And so our guys have taken that to heart to try to be more consistent throughout the course of the game.”

Thursday night, the Heat outscored the Pistons 31-27 in the third. But it was a 15-2 start to the period that let the Eastern Conference leaders know Spoelstra’s team wasn’t going to fade, the surge creating enough of a gap to help withstand a late Detroit rally within two.

From rant, to results — and maybe a bit less Spoelstra stress during intermissions.

“Definitely a conversation,” center Bam Adebayo said of the Spoelstra talking point during both the slump and now the revival. “But more so our mentality going into the third.. We feel like we have a drop off to start the third. Our coach is a maniac and he’s going to emphasize it and pick at it until we get it right.

“So we’ve been getting this right, keep this going so he can stay off our backs.”

Jaime Jaquez Jr., who again helped boost the bench, this time with 19 points on Thursday night, said getting it right in the third was the acknowledged pathway to this on ramp of success.

“I think, you know, we’re just coming out with a different energy, different mentality,” he said, one of four Heat players with 15 or more points on Thursday night. “Really just trying to assert our presence and our dominance. Especially if we have a lead going into the next half, we want to come out and be really strong.”

Forward Norman Powell, who led the Heat with 36 points, said getting it done on both ends was essential in Thursday’s third, with the Heat limiting the Pistons to .429 shooting in the quarter, including 2 of 10 on 3-pointers.

“Not every night, like I’ve said before, we’re going to score 140,” he said of what the Heat accomplished their previous two games. “Everybody wanting to see that is great, but we got some good teams here that play defense, that are physical. They’re going to take us out of our first and second and third options.

“So we’ve got to be able to adjust and work the ball around and get the looks that we wanted. I thought we did a great job throughout the course of the game doing that, not letting their physicality take us out of what we wanted to do and playing together, trusting one another through the 48.”

While the 31-point third period hardly was overwhelming by recent Heat scoring standards, finding a way to come out of the period with a 13-point lead is what Spoelstra said mattered most.

“Sometimes you just need to get some of those possessions in the mud, and we were able to get some second opportunities,” he said. “And it’s a different way for us to impact the game. Third quarters are looking much better.”

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