National Basketball Association

Heat not swept up by latest good fortunes

Published Mar. 15, 2011 1:54 p.m. ET

foxsports

When the Miami Heat were teetering on the brink of their season slipping away a week ago, coach Erik Spoelstra implored his team to ignore the noise.

Three wins later, the same rule applies.

Even a 30-point romp over NBA-leading San Antonio - the Spurs' worst regular-season loss since April 2005 - was not worth a Heat celebration. Not now, anyway, with Oklahoma City coming into Miami on Wednesday and two more games by week's end against likely playoff teams Atlanta and Denver.

''It's been an ebb and flow kind of year for us,'' Heat guard Dwyane Wade said. ''But I think, at this time of the year, it's good that we get to look at times where we played well and times where we haven't. And now going into the stretch, knowing what works ... we've got to keep it up and keep that energy and effort up, first and foremost.''

The Heat had lost five straight and were in a nip-and-tuck game with the Los Angeles Lakers last Thursday, one where the outcome was very much undecided with 90 seconds remaining.

For whatever reason, everything seemed to change in one moment.

Starting with a 6-0 run to close that win over the two-time defending NBA champions, the Heat have outscored opponents 234-165 in the last 97 1/2 minutes. This marks just the second time Miami has won consecutive games by 30 or more in franchise history, the other in 1996. And while they hardly worked alone Monday, the Heat ''Big 3'' of Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh scored 80 points, matching the Spurs' total output.

All of this was met with a resounding shrug by Spoelstra, who has been saying for weeks that the big picture is what matters most.

''I'm sure some people now will start to jump slowly on the bandwagon,'' Spoelstra said. ''It's not about any of this. We've got to quiet everybody and quiet the noise out and continue to work together to get better.''

While that's surely true, there are some significant signs for the Heat to be encouraged about.

Bosh went public in his frustration with his play three games ago, vowing he would be more assertive and demanding in the post and revert closer to the way he played when he was the No. 1 option for the Toronto Raptors. Since then, he's averaging 24.0 points and 10.3 rebounds on 61 percent shooting.

''It's been a lot of ups and downs for us,'' Bosh said. ''But it's all a part of what we have to go through to get to where we want to go. Before, it was tough - it was very tough - to lose close games, make small simple mistakes that would cost us the game, and that has helped us pay attention to detail. Because sometimes when you feel that pain, you never want to feel it again.''

He wasn't the only big man who had a marked impact against the Spurs.

At first glance, Jamaal Magloire's line of four points and seven rebounds seems ordinary.

Magloire, who's only getting minutes right now because Zydrunas Ilgauskas is sidelined with an infected foot, simply changed the game Monday night, setting screens, muscling San Antonio's front line on both ends, scrapping for rebounds. His 20 minutes were the most he's logged in exactly one year; he played 23 minutes against Philadelphia on March 14, 2010.

In the last two games, Magloire has scored eight points. He'd scored a total of nine in Miami's first 65 games, most of which he spent in a suit.

''I've been waiting all year,'' Magloire said. ''Again, I'm a competitor. I have the utmost faith in Coach, that the decisions he makes are in the best interests of the team, and I'm just going to do what I'm told and be ready for when my name is called.''

It might be getting called more now.

''Jamaal is one of the quintessential professionals,'' Spoelstra said. ''He's one of our favorites that we've had in our organization. And it's not been easy for him. ... When his name is called, he's always prepared and he's ready and it's not by accident. He's the first here every day and usually the last to leave. He lives close to the average American life - it's about 9 to 5 every day.''

There's a lot of those lunchpail-like efforts going on right now.

The playoffs are a month away. James said the Heat haven't given up any hope in their quest to catch Boston and Chicago for the top spot in the East, although that seems like a daunting mathematical mountain to climb given that both the Celtics and Bulls would own tiebreakers against Miami.

To the Heat, that doesn't matter. It's all about the ''now,'' as Spoelstra said.

''I personally hope we don't care as a team about the noise on the outside,'' Wade said. ''We have to learn how to not worry about it either way. At one point, the Miami Heat was great. At one point, the Miami Heat wasn't. And as I continue to keep saying, we can never get too high or too low.''