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This was odd.
The peculiarity stems from the team the comments came from. After the Warriors won their seventh-straight this season over the visiting Heat on Monday night, 111-103, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and shooting guard Dwyane Wade spoke as if they were a young upstart hoping to make a name for themselves going against the defending champs.
“Our guys did enough to give ourselves a chance,” Spoelstra said after the game.
Dwyane Wade, who was obviously an integral part of Miami’s four-straight trips to the Finals with LeBron James, and who won a title of his own with Shaq in 2007, spoke of “competing.”
What in the hell? ESPN’s J.A. Adande was right. The Dubs have turned a title-winning collection of guys into pretenders to the throne.
The Warriors have an NBA coach giving his players pats on the head for trying hard. That's next level https://t.co/wFCZekIkWG
— J.A. Adande (@jadande) January 12, 2016
“We did what we wanted to do, in terms of coming in and competing.” Does that sound like Dwyane Wade? Does that sound like a three-time champion, who just lost by eight?
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“That’s a very good team out there,” Wade continued. “It seems like every time someone’s open, or even close to open, [the Warriors] make the pass. That’s a winning ball club. I thought we competed very well, but we didn’t have it at the end.”
The Warriors started slow after winning in Sacramento Saturday night. A Chris Bosh jumper midway through the first quarter, gave the Heat a 15-7 edge, but that was their largest of the night, as the Dubs won every quarter despite the Heat keeping within striking distance throughout.
Except, Steph wasn’t very accurate — just 40.7 percent (11/27) from the floor — and Klay wasn’t much better (6/15); Draymond Green had another monster statistical game (22 points, 12 boards, six assists), but he wasn’t able to stretch the defense with accuracy from beyond the arc (0-of-2), which slightly stymied Golden State’s high screen action with Steph.
And still, the Warriors proved to be too much for a team with aspirations for home-court in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
That’s the true measure of Golden State’s greatness at this point in the 2015-16 season: The Heat — a rebuilt team, but with all-stars and All-NBA selections, some of whom have played a role in deciding four of the last five NBA champions — are happy just to “compete.” In an NBA where everyone has the capacity for greatness, it’s normally considered sacrilege to talk of simply competing. Teams expect to win.
But to hear that conciliatory diction from a star of Wade’s magnitude and a coach of Spoelstra’s championship experience, it’s a clear indication the Warriors are simply on another plane of excellence. A little more than a month before the All-Star game, Golden State’s only rivals appear to be the last team to beat LeBron’s Heat on the big stage.
