Miami Heat: How the Next 3 Weeks Spell Out Future Playoff Success for Miami

The time for beating up on cellar-dweller teams is over; now it's time to see how well the Miami Heat can handle themselves when the pressure is on and their backs are against the wall.

Miami has had no problem all season long with beating up on teams with records below .500 due to sheer talent alone, but they now must look toward chemistry and cohesion as the contributing factors if they look toward having a successful next few weeks.

With losses to Chicago and New York and wins against Sacramento and Washington over the past week, the Heat have proven little to nothing to their critics about how far they have progressed.

It appears that they have even regressed to the tactics that they were pulling in the first few weeks of the season. Instead of ball and player movement being a focal point of the offense, the Heat come out with an offense that features the two most talented players in the league settling on difficult jumpers late into the shot clock.

While the defense has remained somewhat consistent, Miami has failed to get it completely together on offense. Even with Wade and James being two of the top five scorers in the league, the team still goes through stretches of ugly offensive basketball.

A number of factors contribute to the stagnant play on the offensive side with either role players not hitting open shots, the team playing four-on-five ball whenever Joel Anthony is on the floor, or the big three not attacking and not drawing fouls.

All of these factors were huge in their recent losses to the Bulls, Knicks and Celtics.

Now, they look towards a March that features hell week times three.

Not only do they start off the month with a back-to-back against the Orlando Magic and San Antonio Spurs, but they come home to play Chicago a few nights after. The Sunday matinee against the Bulls is the first of six consecutive home games for Miami with not one of the games being anything near a cakewalk.

In the same week where they play Chicago, they take on Portland, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies.

It doesn't get any easier from there either as they take on San Antonio and Oklahoma City before finishing off the ridiculous stretch with back to back games against the Atlanta Hawks and Denver Nuggets. Each team the Heat face are currently a postseason team with the worst team being the Grizzlies at 33-28.

The combined records of the teams are 343-194 which equates to an average winning percentage of nearly .640. Miami is 6-6 against all the teams during that stretch and have yet to play the Spurs.

So much for stats, let's talk about the actual game.

There is little doubt that the Heat have had their fair share of struggles against the elite teams of the league. Against the four best statistical teams in the league, they haven't won a game with three losses to Boston, two to Chicago and two to Dallas.

Miami held their own in each game with none of them being blow-outs, but they also illustrated that they aren't all ready to contribute when the game is on the line and the players need to step up.

The three losses to Boston all came down to the wire before the C's eventually pulled away; the two losses to the Bulls and the two losses to the Mavs are basically the same story on a different day.

One of the main problems has been the inability for the Heat to hold a lead.

They have built up decent sized leads a number of times against the quality teams and let the deficits close up just as fast as they built them. Just recently in their loss to the Knicks, the Heat built up a 15-point lead and appeared ready to run away with it before the team began to play home run ball.

Rather than playing the style of play that got them the lead in the first place, they tried to make the game a blow out in the first half.

Following the loss, Bruce Bowen put it best when he said you want to blow out a team over time, not in the first half.

If only Miami had heard that during their games against Chicago and New York when they built up leads only to see it slip away in a matter of minutes.

Instead of playing methodically and running offensive sets, the team seems to take a breather by either going for the knockout punch three-pointer, playing lazy defense, or making careless passes that result in turnovers.

It's factors like this that championship teams only rarely make the same mistake. Miami has done it countless times already.

The next few weeks of basketball for the Heat will be the perfect way to gauge just how ready this team is ready for the postseason and if they can learn from their previous mistakes that they have yet to correct.

Even if these are regarded as just some regular season games, these are the teams that the Heat will have to eventually face if they want to fulfill their promises of winning multiple championships.

So far in the regular season Miami has done nowhere near what they should have done to prove that they are a legitimate contender.

Not to take anything away from their 43-17 record or the fact that they have beaten the Orlando Magic twice, the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder, but they need to beat the teams that have seemed to become a nuisance over the season and the past few years.

The Heat need to beat teams like the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics to prove to themselves—and the rest of the NBA—that they are capable of beating the better teams of the league and are actual championship contenders come May and June.

There is little doubt that Heat would probably flip the switch when the postseason begins and we'll see a completely different team with inspired individuals, but they still need to have a few quality next weeks just to prove it to themselves.

With two games against the NBA-best Spurs, a revenge-hungry Lakers, and a Bulls team that has beaten the Heat on their last shots twice, Miami gets their best chance to prove to their critics that they are postseason-ready.

No longer can the Heat be 15 individuals. They must be one cohesive unit if they want to take down the teams that win games on chemistry rather than talent.

Take the Spurs for example: They don't have one player averaging over 20 points, yet they still lead the NBA with 48 wins and have become the front-runner for winning the 2010-'11 championship.

They do this because they are a team that runs offensive and defensive sets to perfection while also receiving key shots from the supporting cast.

43-17 is nothing to look down upon even with the ridiculous preseason expectations, but we need to see a completely different Heat team over the next three weeks if they want to emerge as a title contender once again.

Not one game will be easy or a "gimme" as Miami begins their toughest stretch of the season Thursday at home against Orlando. They can rest when the schedule eases up to close the regular season, but they need to use March to ride momentum into the postseason.

If the team figures out how to beat a team like the Spurs or the Bulls, it will make the process of winning a championship a whole lot easier.

As an elite team, the Heat shouldn't need to worry about taking on any other team in the league. They should look towards the next opponent as only a stepping stone rather than an obstacle.

We must remember that it is only their first season together and this process does take time, but this team needs a confidence-booster by beating the league's best and elite.

Why not start trying to figure it out now before it's too late in the postseason?