National Basketball Association

Heat should be sweating bad start

Published Nov. 12, 2010 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

They’re saying to relax. They’re saying it’s early, that 5-4 is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, that there’s no reason to panic, no reason to fret.

The coaches are saying it. The players are saying it. Most of the media are saying it.

They’re wrong.

Following a loss to a Celtics team that sought to and then succeeded in humiliating the Heat, Erik Spoelstra volunteered the P-word on a question about why he told his players it’s “us against the world.”

“I think when you lose two in a row early on, I think everybody is expecting us to panic, and I’m sure probably the outside perception is it is in a panic right now,” Spoelstra said. “And that’s the most important thing for us right now, is to stay together as a group.”

Panic.

There’s that word. OK, it’s been introduced. Let’s ask LeBron James about it.

“There’s no time to panic,” James said. “It’s nine games into the season. It’s a long season. It’s not like the NFL where you can go the first quarter of the season and go 1-4 or 0-5 and be looking down the barrel of a gun. It’s not like that here. In the NBA we know it’s a long season.”

Not as long as you think, LeBron. Not now. Not after where you took your talents and with whom you chose to share them.

“It’s not our job to really worry about what the perception is at the beginning of the year,” Dwyane Wade said. “I know our Heat team started off 6-1 last year. Remember that? And if we go by that we were going to be the world champions, but that didn’t happen.”

No, but what is worth worrying about is NBA history.

Here’s some:

For the sake of this analysis, we’re going to throw out the 1998-99 lockout season (too much madness there). Excluding that season, only one of the past 20 NBA champions started 5-5.

The exception? Michael Jordan’s 1991 Chicago Bulls. The Bulls had something the Heat very clearly don’t: Michael Jordan.

It’s also worth pointing out that the 2006 Heat started 6-4 and 10-10. Their coach, Stan Van Gundy, was fired after going 11-10.

If the Heat don’t beat Toronto on Saturday night, they’re 5-5. A win and they’re still only 6-4. It's also worth mentioning Toronto beat Orlando last night, and the Raptors -- powered by a need to beat Bosh -- could be better than most imagine Saturday.

Think Van Gundy’s squad had higher expectations than Spoelstra’s? Of course not. Still think it’s too early for this stuff to matter? Tell that to Stan. Tell that to Erik. Tell that to history.

There’s another reason this matters. Teams need to bond. They need to like each other, to feel close, to trust their coach and, yes, to buy into a process that builds with every game and, hopefully, crests with the postseason.

The Heat have LeBron chirping at his coach after games about things like playing time, Bosh sounding like a misfit among strangers, Spoelstra seeming to age before our eyes and Riley sitting in the stands, stone-faced.

Of those past 20 champions, six were 6-4. That’s the threshold, historically, if you’re not led by Michael Jordan.

So is it panic time? It needs to be.

Panic can be good. Panic should force champions to win and closers to close.

Panic should mean LeBron doesn’t clank a key three off the side of the rim late in the game.

It should mean Bosh gets tough — right now — and his teammates get him feeling in the mix, socially and game-wise, because they must.

Panic should mean guys like LeBron don’t say things like, “Nah, it’s not more (urgency)” at this time this year than at this time during his Cleveland years.

It should mean Wade scores more than eight points against an opponent set on humiliating him and his teammates.

LeBron needs to feel so much panic his concentration is laser-sharp, his time is spent in the gym, his every fiber is focused on bringing home a W. Bosh needs to feel so much panic he rises to the level of a Big Three. Panic means Spoelstra doesn’t use words like “process” and “timeline,” he uses words like “unacceptable” and “nonnegotiable.”

Panic should mean a soft team convinced it’d won the lottery in July turns tough as hell and imposes its will during every second of every game.

Panic is good.

These guys aren’t the Chicago Cubs, the Florida Gators or the Dallas Cowboys. They’ve moved way past the “should be good” stage. They’re a franchise hell-bent on being a worldwide brand and a cultural icon predicated on turning the greatest free-agent prize ever into one of the greatest dynasties ever.

Too soon? Too early? Please.

The Miami Heat, in success or failure, will be unlike any team ever assembled. That’s reality. That’s the price of the Big Three. That’s just as it should be.

LeBron doesn’t like it? Bosh can’t handle it? Media don’t want to say it?

No matter.

The Celtics get it. That’s why their joy in Thursday’s win was matched only by their zest to make it happen.

The Jazz and the Hornets get it, too. So does every other team in the league.

Every game matters for this team.

Five-and-four?

Panic can’t happen soon enough.

You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter.