Heat not swept up by latest good play (AP)

MIAMI (AP)—When the Miami Heat were teetering on the brink of their season
slipping away a week ago, coach Erik Spoelstra implored his team to ignore the
noise.

Three wins later, the same rule applies.

Even a 30-point romp over NBA-leading San Antonio—the Spurs’ worst
regular-season loss since April 2005—was not worth a Heat celebration. Not
now, anyway, with Oklahoma City coming into Miami on Wednesday and two more
games by week’s end against likely playoff teams Atlanta and Denver.

“It’s been an ebb and flow kind of year for us,” Heat guard Dwyane Wade(notes)
said. “But I think, at this time of the year, it’s good that we get to look at
times where we played well and times where we haven’t. And now going into the
stretch, knowing what works … we’ve got to keep it up and keep that energy and
effort up, first and foremost.”

The Heat had lost five straight and were in a nip-and-tuck game with the Los
Angeles Lakers last Thursday, one where the outcome was very much undecided with
90 seconds remaining.

For whatever reason, everything seemed to change in one moment.

Starting with a 6-0 run to close that win over the two-time defending NBA
champions, the Heat have outscored opponents 234-165 in the last 97 1/2 minutes.
This marks just the second time Miami has won consecutive games by 30 or more in
franchise history, the other in 1996. And while they hardly worked alone Monday,
the Heat “Big 3” of Wade, LeBron James(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) scored 80 points,
matching the Spurs’ total output.

All of this was met with a resounding shrug by Spoelstra, who has been
saying for weeks that the big picture is what matters most.

“I’m sure some people now will start to jump slowly on the bandwagon,”
Spoelstra said. “It’s not about any of this. We’ve got to quiet everybody and
quiet the noise out and continue to work together to get better.”

While that’s surely true, there are some significant signs for the Heat to
be encouraged about.

Bosh went public in his frustration with his play three games ago, vowing he
would be more assertive and demanding in the post and revert closer to the way
he played when he was the No. 1 option for the Toronto Raptors. Since then, he’s
averaging 24.0 points and 10.3 rebounds on 61 percent shooting.

“It’s been a lot of ups and downs for us,” Bosh said. “But it’s all a
part of what we have to go through to get to where we want to go. Before, it was
tough—it was very tough—to lose close games, make small simple mistakes that
would cost us the game, and that has helped us pay attention to detail. Because
sometimes when you feel that pain, you never want to feel it again.”

He wasn’t the only big man who had a marked impact against the Spurs.

At first glance, Jamaal Magloire’s(notes) line of four points and seven rebounds
seems ordinary.

Magloire, who’s only getting minutes right now because Zydrunas Ilgauskas(notes) is
sidelined with an infected foot, simply changed the game Monday night, setting
screens, muscling San Antonio’s front line on both ends, scrapping for rebounds.
His 20 minutes were the most he’s logged in exactly one year; he played 23
minutes against Philadelphia on March 14, 2010.

In the last two games, Magloire has scored eight points. He’d scored a total
of nine in Miami’s first 65 games, most of which he spent in a suit.

“I’ve been waiting all year,” Magloire said. “Again, I’m a competitor. I
have the utmost faith in Coach, that the decisions he makes are in the best
interests of the team, and I’m just going to do what I’m told and be ready for
when my name is called.”

It might be getting called more now.

“Jamaal is one of the quintessential professionals,” Spoelstra said.
“He’s one of our favorites that we’ve had in our organization. And it’s not
been easy for him. … When his name is called, he’s always prepared and he’s
ready and it’s not by accident. He’s the first here every day and usually the
last to leave. He lives close to the average American life—it’s about 9 to 5
every day.”

There’s a lot of those lunchpail-like efforts going on right now.

The playoffs are a month away. James said the Heat haven’t given up any hope
in their quest to catch Boston and Chicago for the top spot in the East,
although that seems like a daunting mathematical mountain to climb given that
both the Celtics and Bulls would own tiebreakers against Miami.

To the Heat, that doesn’t matter. It’s all about the “now,” as Spoelstra
said.

“I personally hope we don’t care as a team about the noise on the
outside,” Wade said. “We have to learn how to not worry about it either way.
At one point, the Miami Heat was great. At one point, the Miami Heat wasn’t. And
as I continue to keep saying, we can never get too high or too low.”