The Miami Heat will take on the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night, with the team looking to bounce back from a poor performance on Tuesday, which saw them lose 128-117 to the Milwaukee Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo. As the Heat look to avoid the play-in tournament for this season, head coach Erik Spoelstra will talk about the pressures associated with the team.
Thursday’s game has some postseason implications, as Miami is the eighth seed with a 31-28 record, with Philadelphia (32-26) holding the coveted sixth seed, which is the last spot a team can get to avoid the play-in tournament. Although there are still 23 games left, the Heat must turn a corner and get a win, which made Tuesday’s loss to the underdog Bucks all the more painful, especially as Miami had its three-game winning streak snapped.
When Spoelstra was asked about the pressure on the team, he shared his latest feelings with tennis legend Billie Jean King.
According to the Miami Herald, when asked about the pressure on Miami due to avoiding the play-in tournament, Spoelstra said, “Okay. I hope so.” “That pressure is a privilege, and I want our locker room to feel that pressure. We need to take our game to a higher level.”
Norman Powell explains where the Heat “messed up”
While the Heat’s goal for the remainder of the season is to build some stability to peak at the right time, it needs to start on Thursday, as a win over the 76ers will give them the tiebreaker, something that could be important for seeding purposes. However, the team needs to be better than it was Tuesday, especially defensively, to allow Milwaukee to have offensive success without Antetokounmpo.
Miami also struggled offensively, allowing a 30-point quarter in the first half and a 39-point period in the final frame, making no field goals in the final six and a half minutes of the game. Norman Powell will still call the defense the Heat’s fault.
“Honestly, we didn’t get enough stops,” Powell said after scoring 26 points. “They kept going back to the same play. And a lot of times we messed up. Sometimes we were able to get it right, sometimes we weren’t. And I think they were able to be successful in that, and they had confidence. And they started making plays consistently, and we just didn’t get the stops we needed.”
Spoelstra will mention how the defense needs to travel in these important road games, as the team looks to live up to that notion for Thursday’s tilt against the 76ers.
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