Miami Heat Crying? Is 'El Heat' on Head Coach Erik Spoelstra?

Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra dropped a pretty big bomb after his team's 87-86 loss to the Chicago Bulls Sunday afternoon.

"There are a couple of guys crying in the locker room," he said as if it were no big deal.

Woah. Letting that out to the public seems like a definite no-no.

First of all, there was about a monthlong period of time before the Heat reeled off their first long winning streak of the season in which many people were calling for Coach Spo's head.

There was talk that he was only around to hold the position until Pat Riley decided to take the team over, that his players didn't totally trust or listen to him, and that his players were growing tired of him.

Then LeBron James bumped Spoelstra and the world nearly ended (I never really thought much of this, as he did it to Mike Brown too, and on multiple occasions, maybe it's just his equivalent to a pat on the rump...yea, probably not).

They then popped off 15 wins in 16 tries in December, one of which being a win in Los Angeles against the Lakers, and the talk very quickly died away.

The talk left, but the problems lingered. Miami has still been unable to beat the best teams in the league, and has been loading up on wins against the bottom half of the standings.

Recently, Miami has gotten back into one of the funks that seemed to define the first month of the Heat's season, and grumblings about Spoelstra are returning.

They have lost four games in a row now to the likes of New York, Orlando (24-point lead blown), San Antonio (30-point rout) and Chicago.

To bring it all together, Coach Spo comes out after their most recent game and reveals that a few of his players were crying after their latest loss.

There are many things that a coach can and should reveal about his team to the media, but his players crying in the locker room is not one of them.

Call them out on them coming up short late in games. Praise them for giving it their all during a game. Call them out for blowing big leads and letting teams back in the game.

But revealing what is going on in the locker room, especially when it is something that I am sure none of the members of the Miami Heat wanted to get out, seems like a slip of the tongue that never should have happened.

It's bad enough that Chris Bosh was a bit over-emotional during the postgame interview after they blew a 24-point lead to the Orlando Magic last Thursday, now they have a reputation of being soft (although Bosh has pretty much always had that reputation).

Now it's out there that there are players on his team crying after a regular season loss in the beginning of March—a game that would not even be remembered five years down the road were it not for this incident.

They will most likely blow it off, saying that what the media and fans of other teams think means nothing, but the media pressure seems to have bothered them at least a bit.

On top of all the pressure that is on this team to succeed immediately, they have had constant scrutiny over every loss, and now they will have to face the taunts of opposing fans, which stand to be worse than ever now that they were given this ammo.

It seems to me that Spoelstra betrayed the team's trust by unveiling a private moment that happened in the locker room, and any team vying for a title needs to trust its coach first and foremost.

If trust in the head coach is lost, players start questioning his play-calling, his playing time decisions and any other decision he makes during the course of the season.

His comment turned this game from a loss in the middle of a long NBA season to a potential turning point in the Heat's season.

There is good news, however: Miami still has to travel to Cleveland once more this season, as they are slated to meet for the fourth and final time on Mar. 29.

It will be the second time LeBron has returned to Cleveland since The Decision...so yea, it's kind of a big deal.

Leading up to the first matchup, everyone talked about the taunts that LeBron and his teammates were going to have to endure, and how it would affect them.

That game seemed to at least band the Heat together a bit, and they went off on their roll, as they won 18 of their next 19 games.

If the same thing happens this time around, they should be hitting their stride just in time for the playoffs...that is, if Coach Spoelstra can hold the team together without another setback by then.