Spoelstra flew in August to Los Angeles, where he lunched with Wade and barbecued with Bosh, because he didn’t want his first meeting with them to be in his office. “
It was an exhilarating four years and an exhausting four years,” he says. “We had to close the book and open a new one.” For so long, Spoelstra had asked Wade and Bosh to accept lesser roles.
Suddenly, he was asking the opposite, challenging them to recapture the responsibility they had grudgingly surrendered. “There were a lot of reasons I didn’t want to leave Miami, and my relationship with Spo was one of them,” Bosh says. “He told me, ‘This is an opportunity for all of us to fill the gap.’ Before, I could afford to step back a little bit at times. Now, I’m excited to step up and be more aggressive, more of a leader.” Sports Illustrated
There is much they will miss about the era gone by, from the packed arenas to the omnipresent cameras, keeping them consistently on guard and on point. “That electric feeling,” Spoelstra says. “It wasn’t a life less ordinary.” Sometime, early in the season and late in the shot clock, they will find themselves looking feverishly for number 6. Of course, they will miss him too. But during the meals with Wade and Bosh a familiar defiance returned, which Spoelstra described better than anyone in that address before camp last fall: “It is a relentless, relentless competitiveness to do whatever you have to do to win. You have to develop this mentality. This is who you guys are. This will forever be who the Miami Heat is. There will always be motherf------ in this Miami Heat jersey.” Sports Illustrated
Sometimes Spoelstra won’t remember what he wrote after a game. “When I was a player I’d black out and shoot for hours,” he says. “Now I’ll work through the night until the next afternoon when I see the team.” His assistant Dan Craig will tell him, “I really like the talk you just gave the guys.” Spoelstra looks at him with a blank expression. “I have no idea what I just did,” he replies.
The Heat sense when he is entering a spiral. After a last-second loss in Indiana last March, James spotted Spoelstra typing furiously on the plane.
Spoelstra had used James as a decoy on the final play, a decision that backfired. “You’re not still worried about that, are you?” James asked. “Yeah, I’m pissed,” Spoelstra groaned. “I’m good,” James said. “We’re good.” Likewise, after the team dropped Game 1 to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals, Bosh knocked on the door of Spoelstra’s hotel suite. He was holding two beers. “Just checking on you,” Bosh said. “I know you’ll get it right. You’ll get us right.” Sports Illustrated
- See more at:
http://hoopshype.com/rumors/tag/miami_heat#sthash.AajTaDMz.dpuf
http://www.si.com/nba/2014/09/26/erik-spoelstra-miami-heat
Very good piece about Spoelstra in Sports Illustrated
making shots and throwing down oops like a monster.
Maybe Wade will be good go some old school Wade scoring games. When he just goes off. But mostly we are going to be a team that is so so on offense but plays tough defense. 
You answered the bell
