Heat this week must conquer season-long struggle against bad teams. Haslem’s unique view

Limping home with just nine ambulatory bodies after a 1-3 road trip, the Heat returns to Miami for what in theory should be one of the easier weeks of its remaining 2022-23 schedule.

But in a season when nothing comes easily for the Heat, this week instead could also be viewed as a dangerous landmine, considering the Heat’s uneven play all season against teams with losing records.

This week’s menu -- home against Indiana on Wednesday and Houston on Friday, and then on the road against Orlando on Saturday -- have too often been the types of games that have bedeviled the Heat this season.

For some teams, this week’s schedule would be a breather, after a difficult road trip that ended with a 123-115 loss in Milwaukee on Saturday, featuring a Giannis Antetokounmpo triple double (35 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists). For the Heat (29-25), it’s seemingly a trap door, a challenge that too often has been met with uninspired play and defensive regression.

Tyler Herro said it succinctly after the recent loss in Charlotte when he noted that “this has been our story all year. We come in here and we can’t focus on the nights like this. And then we’ll go play.. the top teams in the league, and we get a better effort out of ourselves.”

Consider that the Heat is just 13-12 this season against teams that entered Sunday with losing records.

While Miami is a decent 5-5 against the top five teams in the East, the Heat is just 7-7 against the bottom six teams in the East.

The larger question, with the trade deadline looming on Thursday, is this: How can focus and energy ever be an issue for a team anchored by high-effort stars (Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo), a veteran (and now injured) All Star point guard (Kyle Lowry) and several undrafted, blue-collar, chip-on-ther-shoulder rotation players who should know better than to overlook any opponent?

Or is talent, not focus, the real issue?

Udonis Haslem said he does not believe that Miami’s effort has been lacking during those dreadful losses to the league’s doormats, including losses to Detroit, San Antonio and Charlotte.

He sees something else in play:

“It’s more of a relaxed exhale,” he said. “You get up, get a good lead, and then it’s ‘ah, the game is going to slow now.’ But the game is not going to slow. You still have to pay attention to details, you still have to compete. Regardless of these guys’ records, they’re still good basketball teams. You can never relax until the game is over.”

The Heat has lost to three of the league’s worst teams and are 5-3 against teams that are 10 or more games below .500.

“I think we take all games seriously,” Butler said on the topic. “I think we have lapses at times. It just so happens to be [against] teams that records are lesser, but that doesn’t say anything about their talent. It doesn’t say anything about how hard they play. That’s who we are, as of right now. Can we change? Yes. Should we change it? Yes. Are we going to? I say yes. But we’ve got to figure that out before the real time gets here.”

In trying to snap the Heat out of this one-step-forward, one-step-back slog of a season, Haslem said he has tried to mix anger with encouragement, and not spend the whole season yelling at players with the hope of extracting more.

“I’ve used a little bit of everything,” Haslem said. “It’s my last year, and I don’t want to be crazy every night. There’s a balance between pushing to uphold that championship standard and protect my mental health. That balance is very important.

“There have been times I’ve been tempted to let loose but it’s also an opportunity where I’m not going to be here next year and there has to start being other guys holding people accountable and have to start being other guys taking the chair in the huddle that lead the conversation.”

One of those moments of growth came last Tuesday in Cleveland, when the Heat was down in the second half before rallying to win.

“After [Erik Spoelstra] finished talking, I was about to say something, and Bam grabbed me and he said what he had to say [to the team],” Haslem said. “I love when he does those things.”

That message to his teammates, Haslem said, was “stay in it. We came out a little lackluster to start third quarter. Instead of keeping our heads down and having bad body language, let’s tighten up, keep your heads up and we’ll figure it out.”

That Adebayo did that -- and it wasn’t the first time this season that he tapped on Haslem’s shoulder for the chance to speak -- “gives me confidence he can take care of things when I’m done,” Haslem said.

The Heat clearly could use an infusion of talent before Thursday’s trade deadline. But has staleness of this roster become a problem?

Haslem said “I don’t think it’s stale. We have two emerging superstars. We have a superstar [Butler], we have a leader in Kyle. Caleb Martin is up and coming in his role.”

With the wild swings in performance, has Haslem seen Spoelstra more frustrated than at any time in his 15 years as coach?

“It’s been challenging,” Haslem said. “I don’t know if frustrating is the word but it’s definitely been a challenging [season]. When you’re a good team and you check boxes, you’re used to not having to go back to those things. You check them and move on. That’s how you dominate.

“The frustration is we feel like we’ve conquered certain things and we have to go back and go over them a week later. And you’re like, ‘I thought we checked this box.’ That’s the thing about good teams. Once they check boxes, you don’t have to go over it again.”

That’s been a problem all season. And the schedule gets significantly more difficult after these next three; 10 of the following 11 - and 12 of 14 - are against teams in playoff position.

“It’s the maturity thing,” Haslem said of the losses to losing teams. “We have to come out and play high level basketball no matter who we’re playing against. We have to play our game, play to our habits and details. That’s something we’ve struggled with all year. It drives me nuts. I lose sleep over it.

“But one thing I say about this team is we haven’t let go of the rope. We’re right there in the mix. If we can get a little more consistency, we will end up being in top five, top four possibly, having home court opportunity.”

The Heat enters the week sixth in the East.

NOTABLE

▪ Spoelstra said of the road trip: “You definitely have to go home disappointed.”

▪ The Heat dropped to a tie for 28th in the league in both field goal percentage (45.3) and three-point percentage (33.6).

▪ With the trade deadline Thursday, the Heat must navigate injuries to two players with contracts that would be helpful to move from a future flexibility contract. Lowry (due $29.8 million next season) will see a doctor early this week to determine what is causing knee soreness and said he doesn’t know when he will return.

Duncan Robinson, in the second year of a three-year $90 million deal, has missed 16 games because of finger surgery, with a return date undetermined; the Heat said on Jan. 4 that he would be re-evaluated in a month.