Miami Heat's Lebron James Admits the three-Peat chase is exhausting the team. With loses to teams fans say they should have beat, will the Miami Heat become champions again this season?
That much was clear during the second overtime period in the January 10 loss to the Brooklyn Nets, as the two-time defending champs were outscored 15-6 in what quickly became a heart-breaking overtime loss.
According to an interview with CBS Sports, Miami Heat's LeBron James said the entire season is going to be fatiguing.
"It's a long and grueling season for all of us, not just us because we're the champs. We've played a lot of basketball in our four years together. It's taken a lot of wear and tear on all our bodies. It's mentally fatiguing. And you just try to find the motivation the best way you can as an individual and as a collective group."
According to Adam Fromal of Bleacher Report, "This type of sentiment can't be a reaction stemming from one disappointing loss, even if LeBron played 49 minutes before fouling out during the first overtime period. It's clearly something that the NBA's premier superstar has been weighing for quite some time, and it's a thought that makes a great deal of sense."
From a numbers perspective, the Miami Heat has played more basketball than any other team in the NBA since LeBron James took his talents to South Beach.
They've played in each of the last three NBA Finals. Twenty-one playoff games were added to the regular-season total in 2010-11. Another 23 were played during the 2012 postseason, and it took Miami 23 more to hoist up the Larry O'Brien Trophy last year. That's an additional 67 games, which is more than many guys play throughout the length of an entire regular season.
According to Basketball-Reference.com only 200 of the 469 players last season hit the 67-game mark.
Fighting this exhaustion and remaining healthy is priority No. 1 for the Miami Heat. Exhaustion, after all, is one of the few things that can keep Miami Heat from the much coveted three-peat.
