After an unexpected 13-game win streak, the once soaring Miami HEAT have now lost 2 games in a row. The major thing lacking in both losses was defense. While the HEAT managed to keep their scoring over 100 points once again, the Magic started the game with a 36-point first quarter.
After the game, Erik Spoelstra focused on the fact that the team as a whole got away from from their identity, which is playing good defense, but Hassan Whiteside disagreed with Spoelstra’s take, saying he felt he played “good defense.”
While Whiteside is accurate about Nikola Vucevic’s stats, the Magic’s center still manage to finish the game with 13 points and 17 rebounds. Whiteside also points out that he led both teams in rebounds, which was 2 more than Vucevic. Erik Spoelstra would probably disagree with Whiteside’s assessment and another notch in the loss column can add some chinks in the armor of his argument.
The 2-game loss streak might cause HEAT nation to panic, but 24 more games left in the season leaves plenty of room for another rebound in team morale. Dion Waiters was also very vocal that the loss was a result of the team collectively missing on important things throughout the game.
Flip the page to see how Dion Waiters disagrees with Hassan Whiteside.
