Humble Heat prepared to endure road to title

MIAMI -- Even now, in the midst of winning 15 of 16 games, the Heat are humble. A 9-8 start leaves a lasting mark and forces change.

All the early season cockiness has long since evaporated and been replaced with reasonable expectations. The road to the NBA title, the Heat have found, isn't paved. It's bumpy and filled with potholes. And those potholes swallow up the fakers as easily as those who give halfhearted efforts.

Miami might have fit both categories in the first month of the season. It's not that way any longer. The Heat are working hard. You saw evidence in Tuesday's 106-98 victory over the New York Knicks at AmericanAirlines Arena. It was flashy at times, it was workmanlike at times.

"I think we did our job, we did what we're supposed to do," guard Dwyane Wade said.

Wade led the way with a season-best 40 points. Forward LeBron James almost had his fourth triple-double of the season, finishing with 18 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. Forward Chris Bosh had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Teamwork, not entitlement, ruled the day.

The Heat fell behind, 2-0, then took a 34-15 lead and never let New York closer than three. The Knicks didn't give up. They got close at 61-55, 88-80, and 97-94.

"They kept coming," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

But the Heat (24-9) stayed focused. You saw a similar inspired effort in the 96-80 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day.

Miami pounded New York on the boards 50-32 on Tuesday. That, too, was a significant sign of growth.

"That was one of our big problems early on in the season," James said of rebounding. "And I think that was learning each other. We were looking for one another to get a defensive rebound or offensive rebound instead of using our athleticism to go and get it. There's times we would let our bigs try and get a rebound, and me and D-Wade would be leaking out and trying to get on the break too much."

You see the evidence all the time of the Heat getting their act together. You saw it many ways against the Knicks. In the second quarter, you saw Bosh swat a layup attempt by Knicks forward Wilson Chandler. James grabbed the rebound, took one dribble and threw ahead to Wade for the spectacular dunk. The offense uses the defense to get easy buckets. That's how Miami had a season-best 56 points in the paint.

However, here's how the Heat showed they really have progressed. Even with the hard work Miami already has shown, it has to work even harder, and the players know it. They admit it. They're not there yet. Wade said last week the Heat probably couldn't win a best-of-seven title series right now, at this moment. Bosh 'fessed up to the same thing a few days ago.

Bosh said he doesn't think the Heat, right now, could beat, say, Boston or the Lakers in a best-of-seven series.

"No, I don't think so," Bosh said. "They have too much experience right now. We haven't even played a series together. They've been through the fire. They've played in Game 7s. They've won championships. I think that counts for a lot. We have a long way to go. Later on in the playoffs, if we do come to it, we're going to have to be a lot better. We're going to have to play really, really good basketball in order to get it done."

The Heat weren't singing this tune during that gaudy, audacious welcome celebration in June. At that time, James was half-jokingly counting up how many titles the Big Three of himself, Wade and Bosh could win.

"Four, five, six, seven . . ." James said with a smug laugh. The crowd was going wild. No one figured the Heat would meet with such stubborn resistance.

Early this month, one person in the Heat organization casually mentioned the reason for the team's improvement was because Wade and James began playing hard. The person said Wade and James thought their names would win games at the beginning of the year. Their epiphany, this person opined, was the Heat's turning point. He might be right.

A few days ago, Wade talked about how much training camp can be a lie. Everyone thinks they had a good camp, Wade said, and everyone comes out of camp thinking they're going to have a good team.

"And then reality sets in," Wade said. "It sets in for everyone. For us, it set in early that we weren't the team that we were going to be or we thought we were at that time. (It was) just very humbling, especially for the guys with the talent we have on this team to understand it's not just about individual talent, it's about getting this team together and we finally were able to do that."