The Miami Heat will have a team meeting, which they clearly need. They will watch film from Game 3, which should turn their stomachs.
However they will not take to the court for practice. And they will not meet with the media, according to Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel and other reports.
This is not really a big deal — the Heat clearly looked tired and banged up in their Game 3 loss to the Pacers. A lot of coaches would recommend a day off, just stay at the hotel and watch some film. Pacers coach Frank Vogel would and did — the Pacers are not practicing either.
However, by Miami not meeting with the media it will allow all sorts of wild speculation — will Pat Riley try to trade Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh in the offseason? — to run rampant and unchecked for another day. It’s another day of conversation about Wade and Erik Spoelstra’s little run in without another Heat storyline to displace it.
The Heat likely are going into an “us against the world” mentality that a lot of teams like to convince themselves is the case this time of year.
Which is fine, but it doesn’t solve the on-the-court problems. They need to find an answer for what Roy Hibbert is doing to them on both ends of the floor. They have to get their pick-and-roll working again without Chris Bosh. They have to figure out how to knock down some threes. They have to figure out how to create defensive pressure that they can convert into transition points.
It feels like desperation time for Miami — any time you start Dexter Pittman in a playoff game it is desperation time. We will see what these Heat are really made of with their backs against he wall in Game 4. But right now the Pacers are longer, stronger, more confident and just flat out better.
