Column: Streak is history, the question remains

Staff reports Modified: March 28, 2013 at 2:56 am •  Published: March 28, 2013

CHICAGO (AP) — Losing game after game is nerve-racking, sure, but after a point, so is winning.

Seconds after the NBA's second-longest winning streak was history, LeBron James and his Miami Heat teammates walked off the floor solemnly in single file, their mood seemingly as dark as their black road jerseys. But moments later, inside the locker room, it was a different story.

Players wore wry smiles while taping bags of ice to aching elbows, knees and feet. Those with both hands free wolfed down postgame meals from Styrofoam containers. Instead of the usual bravado about launching the next streak, or even promises about lessons learned, there was mostly relief.

One guy, though, refused to go along.

"We had everybody come in, put a hand on each other, and for the first time I mentioned the streak in front of the guys," Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said after the Chicago Bulls' 101-97 win Wednesday night shut off the Heat streak at 27.

"It was a heck of an experience for us all to have together," he added. "We understand, probably moreso later on in our careers, the significance of that. We took that moment to acknowledge it, to acknowledge each other, that experience."

And with that, Spoelstra was pretty much done reflecting.

"It was never about the streak," he said. "We have a bigger goal. ... It's about 'Are we getting better?'"

It seems counterintuitive to ask how a team that won a championship last season and just breezed through the middle of their schedule like the Harlem Globetrotters is going to get better. That's where Spoelstra comes in.

The 1971-72 Lakers team that still owns the NBA-best 33 in a row had Bill Sharman as coach and Wilt Chamberlain patrolling the middle, but the driving force was Jerry West, who didn't reveal the true extent of his competitive jones until decades later, in a book. The 1995-96 Bulls squad that set the NBA-best regular-season mark at 72-10 was guided by Phil Jackson, who could afford to play the role of Zen master while Michael Jordan did the dirty work of pushing his teammates to their limit and beyond.

Miami has James and Dwyane Wade, cutthroats once the ball is in the air, but neither is as demanding as West nor combined, half as ruthless as Jordan. James, in fact, spent much of his time after the game savoring what had just slipped away. The anger that caused him to slam an elbow into Carlos Boozer's chest trying to run through a pick just inside the 4-minute mark — James' first flagrant foul since 2006 — had long since melted away.

"It's one of the best that this league has ever seen," he said. "We recognized that and rightfully so."

"We haven't had a chance to really have a moment to know what we just did," James said about the brief locker room tribute the Heat gave themselves. "We had a moment, just very fortunate, very humbling and blessed to be part of this team and be part of a streak like that."

Throughout the run, whether the victories ended in blowouts or with improbable late rallies, James got the lion's share of the credit, and deservedly so. He ran the Miami offense more masterfully than Magic Johnson, scored more reliably than Jordan and handed out assists more incisively than Larry Bird. He and Wade played tenaciously enough on the other end of the floor to be all-NBA defenders.

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