INDIANAPOLIS -- What could have been the Heat's biggest implosion of the season turned into a hard-fought win Tuesday night against the Indianapolis Pacers.
But it was also a stark reminder of just how damaged the Heat's collective ego was after losing to Boston two days before.
In hanging on for a 110-103 win despite blowing a 24-point first-quarter lead sparked by the team's finest 12 minutes of play all season, the Heat displayed the dual nature of their first year together. They are a team with a deep well of greatness capable of producing fantastic moments and dominating for long spurts. But they're still plagued by an inability to hang onto those moments and crush the competition the way any champion must.
"That was a game that gave us everything we could handle," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said afterward. "Our energy and disposition was outstanding and I think that was a residual from the game on Sunday. We all felt bad about it. It was not indicative of how much improvement we've had the past few weeks and we came out with a great focus."
Yes, but it's time the Heat move past a loss at Boston inspiring a win at Indianapolis. Because the same focused angst that drove Miami to avenge Sunday's Boston debacle could have sparked a psychological regression had they not beaten the Pacers.
That's how long and deep a shadow the Boston game spread across this team. What happened to the Heat on Sunday was an awakening of the wrong sort.
After the loss, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James looked like Samurai warriors who'd spent an inordinate amount of time committed to a code of teamwork and excellence and honor designed to make them the most respected warriors in the world -- and then run smack into an opposition armed with guns.
So a loss to Indiana on Tuesday, after racing to such a dominating early lead, could have been disastrous to the trust and growth Spoelstra has boasted of the past month. The Heat did not need any more reminders that their sense of superiority and their dominating play can be brushed away so quickly.
That's where Wade came in. He scorched the Pacers for 22 first-quarter points and played like a man possessed well into the second quarter.
After the game, he told a sideline reporter that his past few games had convinced him that it was time to come out and simply take over.
"The last couple games I felt I hadn't been that aggressive and I felt like I wanted to do that," he said.
That's all well and good. In fact, it's more than that -- 41 points of inspired play of the variety Wade unleashed was remarkable.
But it's against elite teams, not the Indianapolis Pacers, that the Heat need Wade to offer such a concerted effort at implementing his will on the floor.
The Heat also need to find within themselves that switch that allows them, once they begin pounding their opponent into submission, to finish them off. With stark brutality and a hunger to humiliate.
Instead, after rattling off that early 24-point lead, the Heat allowed themselves to be outscored 35-17 in the second quarter. In that stretch, LeBron and Chris Bosh scored two points apiece.
"I told the team in the locker room we're one of the best fourth-quarter teams in the game," Spoelstra said. "I don't debate that. With that said, we need to push for a championship-level consistency. Whatever quarter that may be."
Yes they do. Because it's quarters like the second that offer the widest and surest openings for teams like Boston and Chicago to plow through come the postseason.
On Tuesday night, Wade threw a one-handed, full-court alley-oop pass to LeBron. Later, LeBron pulled a move not seen since NBA Jam -- he threw the ball off the backboard, seemed to levitate in the air and then grabbed the ball as it ricocheted and scored.
And unlike the video game, LeBron is a human being, not a cartoon character.
The greatness didn't end there.
Wade hit shots that made the opposing fans gasp with awe. LeBron, too. The Heat's Big Three scored 90 points. Wade had 41, LeBron 27 and Chris Bosh 22.
"I think we played a good game," LeBron said. "We came in this building, a hostile building, (and won)."
And yet the Heat allowed the Pacers to come back and play with them until late in the fourth quarter.
This is the stuff of good teams with amazing players. Not the stuff of championship teams.
The Heat, as Spoelstra said after the Boston game, have a long way to go. The longer they allow themselves to be outplayed for entire quarters against inferior opponents, the further they'll have to travel to get there.
None of this is to say the win at Indianapolis is anything but a quality victory. Since dumping coach Jim O'Brien at the end of January for interim coach Frank Vogel, the Pacers have gone 7-2.
Their two losses?
To the Miami Heat.
But it is to say racking up quality wins and having a respectable playoff run do not qualify as a successful season for this team. The Heat's lack of a killer instinct -- of that intangible that allows one team to put its feet on the throats of another team and push -- marked much of the night.
If they don't fix it, it'll end up marking a season that will be judged a failure.
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