NEW YORK -- The NBA's most complicated team won a game Sunday that offered an equally complicated view of where exactly they're heading.
In outlasting the New York Knicks for a 93-85 victory at Madison Square Garden, the Miami Heat addressed some crucial questions about their ability to close out close games and win on the road. It was a big victory, it was fueled by the Big Three combining for 73 points and 33 rebounds, and it was much needed after a lackluster three weeks in which Miami played .500 basketball.
The Heat also beat back a furious scoring assault by Carmelo Anthony, who scored 42 points and kept the Heat back on their heels, because LeBron James locked him down defensively in the fourth quarter.
That contrasted a game Thursday in Chicago, when the Heat were outscored in the fourth quarter and then saw the Bulls win the game with a 12-2 overtime.
"We felt we had that opportunity in Chicago and were not able to close the door, and it was good to be able to come back into a very passionate environment and give it a go again — to collectively have a mindset that's strong enough to find a way," Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Dwyane Wade agreed: "It came at a good time for us. We were struggling to play a complete game on the road. And what better place to come in and focus than here?"
But in the details of the game were signs that, if not troubled, the Heat are still not quite right. With only 10 days left in the regular season, Miami's rotation is an absolute mess. That has put pressure on role players who will be sorely needed if the Heat hope to make the title run that eluded them last season.
The victory over the Knicks is a good one. But it's not a statement game that speaks very surely to whether the Heat can win a championship. The road to the Finals will not go through New York. And if Miami and the Knicks do meet in the first round, the Heat will make quick work of them.
But the Heat have lingering issues that are real threats to their championship hopes, and the rotation problem works as a touchstone to all of them. They can beat a team such as New York with these problems. That might not be true for such teams as Chicago, Boston and Oklahoma City.
The rotation alone is a key issue. Last year, Spoelstra at times tinkered with his players' roles and minutes in ways that raised eyebrows in and out of the locker room. He has taken that to a different level this year.
That might be why, when asked after this gratifying win whether he were happy with his revised rotation — Chris Bosh played some center, Udonis Haslem started at center, James Jones and Mario Chalmers closed out the game — Spoelstra veered toward a very self-defensive place. His frustration was palpable.
"We felt good about the way our rotation's going," he said. "At the end of the day, it's not for us to have to explain to our opponent how it's going, our rotation. Some of that is pretty obvious, the direction we're going. It's self-explanatory. Just tightening it up. The guys feel a lot more comfortable. This is something we've had planned for quite a while, and now that we're healthy we're able to execute some of these triggers. In terms of the other teams and opponents knowing what we're doing, it's not a big point for me to say why we're doing it."
Coded here are the words of a coach under an enormous amount of pressure, leading a team that is either a world champion or an utter failure, and sensing — as some of his players seem to, as well — that they're not there yet.
Spoelstra feels good about the way the rotation is going? Doubtful. On Sunday, Chalmers scored only five points, Haslem had zero, Jones was 1 of 4 from the 3-point line, and the bench scored only 15 points. That's one fewer than J.R. Smith scored off the bench, all by himself, for the Knicks.
This is a multilayered problem. Spoelstra clearly can't find the combination that masks some of the Heat's problems. But whichever way he scrambles it, they are what they were last year: remarkably talented and uniquely positioned to be champions, but also vulnerable to long funks and sudden collapses.
The Heat simply are who they are. Their best shot at not withering under the klieg lights that will intensify come the playoffs is to give their three stars a supporting cast that feels comfortable and is in a good rhythm.
Instead, Spoelstra's game plans leave few knowing their roles and fewer still at their best. Into this mix, surely, doubt creeps. If consistency really is greatness, then what is the hodgepodge of approaches the Heat have rolled out this season?
Don't believe it when Spoelstra says those issues are related to injuries. All teams have injuries. Few have as many guys as the Heat who aren't sure, one day to the next, what their roles are.
In fact, last week, after Miami blew the game and lost the heartbreaker at Chicago, Wade had one of those moments after the game in which he revealed the depth of his concern on this very topic.
"We've got to trust our bench a little more. We've got to give those guys an opportunity," Wade told reporters. "I thought (Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau) did a good job trusting those guys no matter what they did. He trusted them all to the end. . . . We need to give (the bench) some confidence. We're going to need them."
It was a shot at his coach and at the direction the Heat have been heading. Wade sees it: The Heat have not coalesced as a true team that's at ease in its own skin in part because that skin keeps changing. And on Sunday, just a few weeks from the playoffs, those same concerns got lost in the warm light of a win at the Garden.
Miami earned a solid win Sunday. But there won't be nearly enough of those come May and June if the team can't figure out how to fix its problems.
You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter or email him at foxsportsreiter@gmail.com.
