After posting a rare triple-double during the All-Star game, the first since Michael Jordan, LeBron James of the Miami Heat is bracing himself for what he calls the significant stage of the regular season wars, the final two months. As a matter of fact, James has already started lifting his game to another level even weeks before the all-star break. Now, the time has come for the real thing as the final push before the post-season play begins. Besides James, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, teammates Dwyane Wade and Zydrunas Ilgauskas are all feeling confident too of their chances in the final 26 games of the regular season, according to Yahoo! Sports.
LeBron James: “We’re still learning each other. Our record is really good and we’re excited about our record, but we understand, we’ve still got to continue to get better. I didn’t want to think about me being MVP this year. I wanted to think about bringing the Miami Heat an MVP player on the court. … I’ve always said over my career team success comes individual accolades—and I guess my name is back in the race.
“Me and D-Wade were trying to, I guess, shoot less and make sacrifices and it was really hurting our team. Until we turned the switch and said, ‘OK, we need to just be ourselves and let everyone else catch up to us on the team,’ it’s then we started winning basketball games. And we knew we were going to be all right then. We’ll go out there and just play the game the right way. We never get in each other’s way.”
Erik Spoelstra: “Here’s what’s interesting. As his personal numbers have increased the last few weeks, what’s important is our level of team execution and trust and confidence has also increased. As long as those two things can work in concert, we’re all for it. We’re talking about an MVP, a two-time MVP, who is so dynamic and versatile with his skills he can impact the game in so many ways.”
Dwyane Wade: “We knew each other’s games from playing on different teams, but it’s different when you’re playing with a guy. You have to make adjustments to not only the teammates around us, but to our style of play a little bit. … It was just time. Time cures all. Anytime we had a point where we felt it wasn’t going as smooth, we talked about it.”
Zydrunas Ilgauskas: “I think he’s more comfortable in the system, more comfortable playing with the guys, he knows where everybody’s going to be. We use a lot more of our playbook now. We have a lot more plays in. We just had to have some games under our belt as individuals and as a team for us to be comfortable.”
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