Erik Spoelstra isn’t about to send any sympathy cards to the Knicks over their early-season struggles. But the Miami Heat coach can relate.
A year ago he was going through a similar situation trying to get his three superstars and a compliment of new faces to play as a unit. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh rocked the NBA by deciding they would apply their All-Star talents in South Beach.
When James talked about winning “not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven …” championships, the Heat were expected to dominate as soon as the 2010-11 season began. That didn’t happen. At one point, the Heat were a mediocre 9-8 and there were questions whether the “Big Three” could co-exist.
The Knicks are facing the same questions after putting Amar’e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony in the same uniform and getting off to a 4-4 start after a 103-80 win at Detroit last night.
Such mediocrity is a thing of the past for the Heat, who improved to 8-1 with a 101-90 triumph over the Nets last night at the Prudential Center. After working through their growing pains last year and reaching the NBA Finals where they were beaten by the Mavericks in six games, the Heat appear to be on a mission of destruction. Wade sat out last night with a bruised foot, but James tried to beat the Nets by himself, scoring 22 of his 32 points in the first quarter.
“It’s good that we had last year and we used it as a blueprint to come into the season,” James said. “But we have to continue to get better and continue to play like how we’ve been playing lately.”
While not mentioning the Knicks specifically, Spoelstra offered a reminder that it’s not an easy task to get from where the Heat were this time last year to where they are now.
“We brought in nine new players and some new components,” the Heat coach said of last season. “Dwyane missed all of the preseason and all of October [with injury]. We spent a good deal of our time trying to implement a pretty detailed defensive philosophy and habits that we created all the way to June. We made a lot of progress during the course of the year.”
Then he used the word coaches preach but fans don’t necessarily have patience for.
“It was a process and continues to be,” Spoelstra added. “You can talk about championship level defense; you can talk about defending and doing things with toughness and commitment. But you have to work on it.”
The Knicks are going through some of the same growing pains trying to get Stoudemire, Anthony and Chandler to mesh with each other and the rest of their new teammates. Though the Knicks have vowed to be more defensive-minded, talent doesn’t always produce instant results. Complicating matters is a lockout shortened season that has had less impact on the Heat because of what they went through last year.
“The fact that we spent eight months together, all the practice time and the training camp that we had and all the ups and downs we went through helped us grow closer,” he said. “It allowed us to start a little bit quicker.”
The Knicks have a ways to get there. So do the Nets (2-7), who have been ravaged by injury this year. Mehmet Okur, the backup center to Brook Lopez who is out with a broken foot, is day-to-day with back spasms. Damion James is sidelined with a sore foot, and Anthony Morrow played after undergoing root canal.
“I don’t know if there’s as injured a team as we are,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said.
As Spoelstra would say: “It’s all part of the process.”