How perspective from Haslem helped during Heat’s slow start. And reaction to Bosh HOF news
As the losses piled up for the Miami Heat earlier this season, Udonis Haslem’s voice became even more important.
“That’s just my experience talking because I was still looking at the standings and looking at how many guys we had out,” Haslem remembers. “I know what we’re capable of and I know the true DNA of our team. I’m just telling these guys, ‘Man, keep all of this in perspective. We suck right now. But the teams that are ahead of us, they’re barely ahead of us.’”
The Heat stood at 7-14 and in 13th place in the Eastern Conference on Feb. 4, just four months after representing the East in the NBA Finals. Miami stood 4.5 games behind the then-fourth-place Boston Celtics.
“’Look at the East, it’s not out of reach at all. And the East still belongs to us until this season is over with,’” the Heat’s 40-year-old forward said then. “Keep everything in perspective. So what we’re going through right now as far as injuries and what teams’ records are ahead of us and how we’re playing right now as a team, we weren’t winning basketball games, we weren’t scoring and we were turning the ball over, but we were playing great defense. ... You cut down the turnovers, you know our offense will come around. We keep defending the way we defend and then we’ll start winning basketball games and that’s what started to happen for us.”
About five weeks later, the Heat entered Sunday night’s game against the Orlando Magic at Amway Center with a 20-18 record and in fourth place in the East. Miami’s offense is still searching for consistency with the NBA’s 25th-best offensive rating this season, but it owns the league’s top defensive rating since Feb. 1 and the sixth-best defensive rating this season.
After averaging 17.1 turnovers during its 7-14 start, the Heat entered Sunday averaging 13.4 turnovers in the 17 games since.
“He’s moving mountains with his leadership,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of Haslem, who has served as a Heat captain in 14 straight seasons. “I marvel at how he has totally reinvented this role of a veteran leader to be able to not only have a voice and move the needle, but to develop leaders under him. I think that’s the most brilliant thing that he’s doing right now is developing the next line of leaders. It just shows you his emotional genius and his ability to connect with guys in different ways.
“We all notice when he’s super intense, but he has a lot of other kinds of moments with different guys to help them get through the season. He’s a great mentor to our young guys. He’s obviously an incredible mentor to one of our cornerstones with Bam [Adebayo]. But he also has a way with veteran players. He’s a great model for Jimmy [Butler], as well. I just think his impact is great, it’s vast, you can’t put an analytic, obviously, to it. But he moves the needle, for sure.”
Haslem is the only player on the Heat’s roster who has yet to play this season. The franchise’s all-time leading rebounder has played much less of an on-court role and more of a leadership role in recent seasons, as he has logged just 191 minutes in 28 games since the start of the 2017-18 season.
While Haslem is in his 18th NBA season (each one coming with the Heat), it won’t officially be until he plays in a game.
“I’m always ready. That’s my job is to stay ready so I don’t got to get ready,” Haslem said of possibly getting into a game during the second half of the season. “... But I understand that the bigger impact that I have is off the basketball court before the clock starts and these guys go out there and play. We got routines that we go through before every game and I got different routines with every guy. That has been helping these guys. If Spo wants me out there, I’ll be happy to get out there and set another record. Every time I grab a rebound, that’s a record. I’ll be glad to get out there and set another record. Bam thinks he’s coming for [my rebounding record].”
HAPPY FOR BOSH
Spoelstra said he was “thrilled to see” former Heat forward Chris Bosh as one of the 14 finalists named Tuesday for possible induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a member of the 2021 class.
“I really thought CB should have been a first-ballot guy and he was arguably the most important to our [Big 3] teams because he allowed everybody else just to be who they were, and he had to commit to a great deal of sacrifice to allow that to happen,” Spoelstra said. “I just think CB was the ultimate competitor, winner, teammate, guy that would sacrifice and then obviously dealt with an incredible amount of adversity and handled that with class and grace and perseverance.”
Haslem, who was Bosh’s Heat teammate, said: “I feel like when people talk about the Big 3, they always name the first two guys [LeBron James and Dwyane Wade] and then they name Chris Bosh last. I think those other two guys will tell you, if you know anything about our team or if you were in our locker room, I think we all really felt like Chris Bosh was probably the most important piece to our puzzle. I’m glad he’s getting the recognition that he deserves with everything that happened with his career ending early and him not having a chance to finish it the way he would like to.”
Former Heat guard Tim Hardaway is also among the finalists for the Basketball Hall of Fame’s 2021 class.
The 2021 Hall of Fame inductees will be unveiled on May 16, with the enshrinement ceremony scheduled to take place in September.
▪ The Heat remains without Adebayo (left knee tendinitis) and guard Avery Bradley (right calf strain) for Sunday’s game against the Magic. It marks the fourth straight game Adebayo has missed and the 18th straight game Bradley has missed because of their respective injuries.
Heat center Meyers Leonard is out for the season after shoulder surgery, but is away from the team indefinitely after recently using an anti-Semitic slur. He is also currently serving a league-issued one-week suspension from team activities.
The Magic will be without Cole Anthony (rib), James Ennis III (calf), Evan Fournier (groin), Markelle Fultz (knee), Aaron Gordon (ankle) and Jonathan Isaac (knee) on Sunday.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 11:47 AM.
