SALT LAKE CITY— Thirty hours before the Heat earned their biggest win of the year with heart and with guts, head coach Erik Spoelstra allowed himself a moment of real candor.
"You can prepare for it as much as you want in the summer, but until you're actually under the microscope, in the fishbowl, you don't really know what it's like," he said.
That, more than anything else, offers the proper prism through which to view the Heat's impressive 111-98 win over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night.
The win was a forceful announcement that the confident play and team chemistry that's sprouted the past week is alive and well not long after the Heat seemed on the brink of mutiny.
In marching onto Utah's home turf and forcibly taking a win from one of the league's best teams, the Heat allowed the momentum behind their growing mojo to accelerate in ways that could impact the rest of the season.
They were, simply, fantastic.
Together. Unified. Tough. Full of heart and playing like a unit.
After life in that fishbowl — after not knowing what it would be like and responding accordingly much of the first six weeks of the season — the Heat may have figured it out and turned an important corner.
"Dealing with a lot of adversity, dealing with such extreme pressure and expectations and speculation — when we weren't winning we had one of two choices," Spoelstra said. "To either crumble or figure it out together."
A week ago, a person couldn't be blamed for betting on this team crumbling.
But nothing says figuring it out together like winning a huge road game against a worthy rival. This win also pushes Miami's winning streak to six and puts the Heat on a smoother track toward the supremacy they expected all along.
One of the under-told stories behind the Heat thus far this season — and certainly Wednesday night — has been the fact that the weight of what the Big Three placed on themselves and their teammates was heavier than any of them imagined this summer.
And how, finally, they're learning to carry that burden.
All season, players and coaches have insisted they knew how hard this was going to be. It was hogwash, but they kept on saying it, as if reading from some silly crib sheet, with every bad loss, leaked story, awkward encounter and growing moment of panic.
"I think it just took a while for (our) guys to say, 'Hey, damn,'" Eddie House said. "To see what's happening and that every single night this is what it is and this is how we're going to have to prepare ourselves beforehand to make sure that — bam! — we don't get taken back by surprise.
"I think we're learning to hit first," he said. "And get hit and regain ourselves and come back."
After six weeks of grappling with the fishbowl and the fists — sometimes maturely, often not — the Big Three and their teammates have begun learning just how to do what's expected of them.
That's the lesson from their win over Utah.
That's the better news not found in the game's box score or in today's updated NBA standings.
Before the furor, fury and disappointment of the season's start, this was a group led by star players who thought they'd channel the good vibes and easy chemistry of their Olympic experience into an 82-game glory parade.
That's not intended as criticism. They loved playing together, felt a sense they could do something special and, like most of us, underestimated the hard work behind the payoff.
That's called being human. And young. And optimistic. And a sense of perspective certainly wasn't helped along by LeBron's unique ability to drown out all reason.
What followed was the fishbowl and the chaos inside it: Bosh talking about not fitting in. Wade looking like a man who realized that what he'd just bought might not be worth what he'd paid. LeBron at times angry, or petulant, or downright shocked by the hate.
Leaked stories.
Coaching-change rumors.
Terrible losses.
Yes, it takes time to learn — if one learns at all — to deal with real scrutiny, hatred and the pressure of life under such a searing glare.
Some handle it better than others (say, Wade vs. LeBron).
Some lash out (LeBron again).
Some eventually rise to the challenge (Again, LeBron. See: Cleveland return. See Wednesday night's 33-point, nine-assist, seven-rebound masterpiece).
So the win over Utah wasn't just about winning a big road game.
It was about showing, in a way much more meaningful than beating up on overmatched and overemotional Cleveland or similarly weak opponents, that the Heat are learning to carry the burden and promise of their potential.
"There was a lot coming down on us when we weren't winning," Spoelstra said. "That's what happens in this league. And that's what you like to see out of this group, to buckle down, stick together and figure it out. When you make it through times like that you usually end up getting tougher."
Signs of that newfound toughness and togetherness were everywhere against Utah. In James' sterling play, in Wade's aggressive energy, in Bosh willing himself to nine rebounds on a night when he couldn't find his shot, in the Heat out-rebounding the Jazz 42-28.
That's heart.
That's exactly what the Heat have been missing all season.
It is no coincidence such a performance followed the first time this year that the players went out for dinner as a group.
"Great," House said about the Tuesday team excursion. "Great meal. Great time we had together. We went out and had a lot of fun."
This is December, but it was still one of the first times players said they got out and just got to know each other as a group.
Wade, on his Twitter before the dinner, put a #BuildingTeam hash mark announcing he was going out with the guys.
One of his Twitter followers, speaking what should have been obvious for the Heat a month ago, responded: "Shldnt that be done in offseason?"
Yes it should, something that any student of basketball history would know if they looked back just three years ago.
That's when the Boston Celtics put together their own Big Three and a championship season using a foundation the Heat have just begun to find: actual bonding.
For the Celtics, who were trying to integrate Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, that meant holding training camp in Rome.
Pizza together. Tours to the Coliseum. Mashers in London. Shaved heads. And, in time, an NBA championship.
The Heat needed this, too, long ago — particularly given their lack of playing time together during the preseason.
Still, such lessons are always easier learned by living them, not studying them. And for now, the good news for Heat fans (and bad news for the rest of the league) is Miami seems not to be, after flirting with the possibility, choosing to crumble.
They have learned that this wasn't going to be easy and they have finally started making the strides necessary to meet what it actually is head on.
All of that added up to this being a different Heat team, a different LeBron, on Wednesday.
Young people — all people — expect their dreams to come true and things to work out. That's not life. It's not reality.
Near the mountains, far from home, with only each other, the Heat may finally have transitioned from planning and hoping for greatness to battling and working toward it.
That process — one as important as Spoelstra's — starts with getting past leaking stories about the head coach and feeling too often like strangers. It gets a big boost on the road by spending time together and really letting the fires around you forge you into friends.
If LeBron can keep playing this way, if his team continues to come together, if they continue to learn to carry this weight together, there's no telling where it can end.
You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter.
