Dwyane Wade on big loss to Hornets: 'We just didn't play hard enough'
The Heat got destroyed by the Hornets on Wednesday. We're talking a real waxing.
The final was 99-81. It could've been even worse had the Hornets not pulled their collective foot off the gas pedal in the final minutes. And Dwyane Wade wasn't happy after the game.
From Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald:
Chris Bosh had similar thoughts. From Jackson:
The Heat, who were coming off a big win over the Cavaliers and were sitting atop the East just a few days ago, have now dropped two in a row, falling to sixth in the conference. Man, is the East close!
The top-10 teams in the East are separated by just three games. Three. That's it. Miami, at 12-8, sits just 1.5 games back of the No. 1 14-7 Cavaliers. The Heat still have plenty of time and ways to fix things. Two losses in a row hardly stirs a panic. But Miami better find ways to improve the offense and effort soon before things fall out of sorts.
Dwyane Wade put it this way: “We just didn’t play hard enough. That's what I’ve been cautioning everybody about in the beginning of the season is we’re just not there yet and it’s going to take a while.”
What specifically irked Wade and Bosh were the Heat’s freelancing tendencies on offense.
“You can’t freelance on the road,” said Wade, who scored 11 points in 25 minutes. “It goes back to the Detroit game. C.B. has to touch the ball in spots where he’s comfortable. I have to touch the ball in spots where I’m comfortable and then we play from there. When we get into this freelance basketball on the road, it's just not the game that's successful for us at this point.
"You can get away with that at home. On the road, you have to be specific where you need to go, especially when a team is coming out and they're hot early.”
“Big old fashioned butt whooping,” Chris Bosh said. “Everything was off. We messed up in every facet. By now, we should know our game. We talk about things, but we don’t do it. We’ve had enough conversations, but there are so many you have in the beginning of the year. I don’t know how many speeches [Udonis Haslem] has to give. We have to be professional and come to play.”