SAN ANTONIO - There's no longer anywhere to hide. The delusion must end.
Friday's 30-point humiliation by the Spurs has to be the final straw.
For much of the season, Heat players and fans have lived under the veil of a false reality that often mirrored America's political discourse: big on embracing what they wanted to hear, not so big on processing reality as it stood.
The Heat's November follies - and the clear fractures stretching through the hype, hope and false prophesies of absolute greatness - shook all of these folks to the core.
Because from the very beginning they preferred to believe the Heat were already championship-caliber when they should have been assessing what the team needed to do - and it's quite a lot - to get there.
Then came a December stretch that included a host of creampuffs, followed by the apologists and delusionists ignoring clear signs of trouble ahead. This could occur because the Heat padded their record thoroughly against so-so teams even while the mounting losses against quality opponents went underappreciated or ignored.
This can work in politics, where spin and a knack for lying to oneself or one's constituents - regardless of political affiliation - can keep politicians in office and their supporters happy with what they don't have to know or admit.
It doesn't work so well in sports, where, eventually, spin and a knack for lying to oneself end abruptly. Competition and scoreboards have a way of cutting through such things.
Which brings us to the Heat's 11-game stretch against worthy opponents. It's their own personal March Madness, and so far they are 0-3, including Friday night's 125-95 absolute beatdown at the hands of the NBA's best team, the Spurs.
It was Miami's worst loss of the year, an embarrassment that not even the most loyal of fans can ignore. This game was the Nixon tapes coming to light; it was Bill Clinton's deposition on television. There was no place left to hide.
It was also a telling reminder that the less glitzy story is sometimes the more successful one.
The Spurs are everything the Heat aren't. They're in Texas, not South Beach. They've been built over time and through the draft, not in one spectacular burst of free agency. They're a team sometimes described as boring to watch that specializes in precise ball movement, team chemistry and exquisite execution of a game plan.
Mantras aside, the Spurs are the league's poster child for putting winning over glory.
This is a team in which Tim Duncan, no slouch, has taken a less-than-leading role to accommodate the rise of players like Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. He's done it with grace. And it's helped his team to the best record in the league.
The Spurs have confidence stemming from depth, another thing utterly different from the Heat, and they have spent a lot of time learning to play together, trust one another and believe in a process.
These are words and goals right now in Miami. They're deeds and history in San Antonio.
For the Heat, the past two days have shown just how hard it is to build a dynasty overnight.
Reality began to rear its ugly head Thursday when the Orlando Magic shook the house of false narratives the Heat have lived within all season. Until Orlando raced back from a 24-point deficit, it seems Miami might stay comfortably clustered between its ill-made walls - happy if vulnerable there with fans who call critics haters. Those who should have known better assumed talk about the Heat's shortcomings were nothing more than outsiders trying to "make a name" for themselves.
But that wasn't it at all. It was simply the fact it's hard to create what San Antonio or the Lakers have overnight. The Boston Celtics did it a few years ago and people believed wrongly it was easy.
It's not easy. It takes time. And the route San Antonio has taken is every bit as promising, if not as sexy, as the one Miami has embarked on. That was clear Friday night.
On a brutal back-to-back, the more complete team with the actual history together and a legitimate sense of brotherhood showed the Heat what Miami is still working toward.
San Antonio sent all that talk of the Heat simply walking to greatness in a single season tumbling down. All that remains underneath is the rubble of collective self-delusion and some hard, glaring truths.
Among them:
- The roster is wrong. Period. This is why you don't let players, even amazing players, dictate rosters. Let LeBron and Wade be stars. Let general managers be general managers.
To get right, either Pat Riley has to fix it or the Heat have to hope they can come together as a unit. If the goal is a championship, that almost always takes more than a season, the 2008 Celtics notwithstanding.
- The Heat don't have a killer instinct to match the hype surrounding them. They can't beat good teams, let alone great teams, nearly often enough to be champions.
- LeBron James has not found a way to channel his incredible skill into the glory he expected when he came here promising multiple - not one, multiple - championships. He did not know how hard this would be. Having found out, he doesn't yet know what to do. That, too, takes time.
- Chris Bosh still doesn't fit in. He seemed to be crying after Thursday's game, though that's a matter of trying to interpret the moment. What isn't open to interpretation is he too often vanishes in big games. The guy who in November admitted he didn't fit in still doesn't, not on this stage, not with this kind of pressure. He is Exhibit A that the problems of November still plague this team. That should have been expected.
- The Heat remain fumbling and overmatched when playing against a good team that has at least a very good point guard. Against the league's best team, with Tony Parker returning from injury early and unwilling to miss a game against a team he could so easily exploit, it simply wasn't fair. He had seven assists to two turnovers in the first half, thus making Mario Chalmers and Mike Bibby look silly. The Heat were never really in the game, despite once cutting the deficit to 11 after the Spurs roared to a 24-point lead at the end of the first quarter.
- LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are not enough. LeBron was fantastic Friday, racking up 26 points, eight rebounds and seven assists and playing as if he had to do it all (because he does). Wade was OK, with 19 points. And they weren't even close to enough.
The closest Miami has come this year to facing these hard truths - and thus truly fixing their problems - was at the end of that awful November stretch in which all the pain and ridicule forced a players-only meeting. That meeting temporarily turned things around. It also came after a tough loss to a very good Dallas Mavericks team.
Maybe this game, finally, can trigger another collective awakening in which the Heat candidly assess their shortcomings.
It's time to start ignoring all the fans telling them how great they are.
The Heat are not a perfect team. They are now 14-17 against winning teams, including 0-5 over the past month. They are 1-8 against elite teams. They haven't been able to beat Boston yet this year. Or Dallas. Or Chicago.
This isn't American politics. Eventually, the spin gives way to the game; the sycophants and cheerleaders must be silent and watch from the sidelines; and a team must find out in the only way that matters - by the scoreboard - where they stand.
"We basically got blitzed right from the beginning," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said afterward. "We made a little bit of a run at the end of the second quarter. But they outplayed us, blitzed us, and there's nothing really else to say."
It's time for the delusion to end. What must follow is another team meeting: One with the same lessons, fire and fear of that November talk.
Only this time, after this crucial meeting, the Heat can't forget, or be fooled, or get complacent.
They're not what they thought they'd be when LeBron uttered those words about taking his talents to South Beach.
Which means they need every ounce of panic, fear, anger, togetherness and - most important - truth they can get.
Otherwise, May is going to look a lot like November and March.
You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter.
