Dwyane Wade on Heat struggles: 'You keep coming back ... until you can't'
It's tough to imagine things having been tougher for the Miami Heat this season.
It started in the summer, when LeBron James opted for a return to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, leaving the Heat's streak of four consecutive NBA Finals appearances in serious jeopardy. Try though they might, the roster moves aimed to make up for some of his absence never made the Heat a contender on paper in the best of scenarios.
The best of scenarios didn't play out. They lost Josh McRoberts for the season early on. Later, they lost Chris Bosh for the season's final two months because of a scary medical issue. Dwyane Wade missed time with a hamstring injury, Chris Andersen has spent the year in-and-out of the lineup and even a trade deadline acquisition of Goran Dragic - a trade that mortgaged two future first-round picks - failed to turn things around.
Even the bright spots have been tough, with breakout star Hassan Whiteside occasionally slipping into some bad habits and dealing with injuries of his own. Only one Heat player, Mario Chalmers, has appeared in more than 70 games, and only Chalmers and Luol Deng have appeared in more than 60.
The fact the Heat remain mathematically alive despite all of this is a minor miracle, even if the last breath of that pipe dream is about to be snuffed out.
"You keep coming back," Wade said after Thursday's second-half collapse against the Chicago Bulls. "Until you can't. Until they tell you your season's over, man. This team has been through a lot. So, a loss, a bad 24 minutes, two, three, four in a row lost, that's not going to deter us from coming back and doing our job."
The Heat have lost five of their last six to fall to a game-and-a-half out of the playoffs with three left to play and they've coughed up appreciable leads twice in the past week.
"It's just been that type of year," Deng said. "It seemed like the whole year, we were always fighting and dealing with something, instead of staying consistent and just kind of playing our game."
With games remaining against the Toronto Raptors, Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers, the Heat are technically still alive, so Deng's use of the past tense may be a bit premature. But they'll need a lot of help, and James could deliver the death knell by sitting out a pair of games against the Boston Celtics, one of the teams the Heat are chasing.