Erik Spoelstra grows into role coaching LeBron James, Heat

• Erik Spoelstra was criticized entering 2010-11 for inexperience
• Coach has guided Heat's Big Three to consecutive NBA Finals, winning last season
• He's figured out how to best use all the tools at his disposal with three superstars

MIAMI — For a coach who repeats his aphorisms so often they become clichés — those around his team call them Spo-isms — the Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra avoided one of the all-time coaching clichés.

So many coaches after winning a championship say they are the same coach today as they were the day before they won a title.

Not Spoelstra.

Coaching for a Hall of Famer in Heat President Pat Riley and coaching future Hall of Famers in LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Ray Allen and possibly Chris Bosh, Spoelstra knows he cannot be the same coach he was last season — just as he knew last season he could not be the same coach as in 2010-11.

As Spoelstra asks his players to evolve, he will do the same. After the 2010-11 season, he met with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, Indiana coach Tom Crean, Florida coach Billy Donovan, Oregon football coach Chip Kelly and now-Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer.

This past offseason, he met with Donovan again and spoke to Cincinnati football coach Butch Jones, Oregon women's basketball coach and former NBA coach Paul Westhead and Vance Walberg, who is credited with creating the dribble-drive offense.

"We still have to find a way to get better as a staff, to be better for our team and then to push our players to do the same," Spoelstra told USA TODAY Sports.

It wasn't winning a championship that pushed Spoelstra into that philosophy. Losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals did it.

"That experience definitely motivated me to become a better coach and for our staff to become better and more equipped that hopefully, if we ever got in that situation again, that we would have learned from that painful experience," he said. "I use that all the time all year long with our team. Experience is the best teacher.

"Painful experiences can be the most powerful teacher. Success can be a horrible teacher."

For all of the criticism Spoelstra took in the first few months of the first season with James, Wade and Bosh, he has shaped a championship team. Anxiety surrounded the Heat in 2010-11. They started 9-8, and Spoelstra quickly was on the hot seat.

But there's one factor that's not mentioned enough. Spoelstra is a good coach who has the respect of his peers and probably doesn't get the credit he deserves. It's great to have all of these stars on one team, but that doesn't mean it's easy to coach them.

Spoelstra clearly has the backing of Riley, and his deliberate approach has worked — two Finals appearances, an NBA title and a great chance to repeat. The first season with the Big Three, Miami mastered its defense and Spoelstra resisted temptation to play mad scientist. The second season, the Heat refined their offense.

Now, entering the third season with the defensive and offensive principles mastered, Spoelstra plans to hit the accelerator. Spoelstra wants Miami to push the ball more frequently and increase its pace, a measure of possessions per game.

Imagine the Heat with more scoring opportunities, and they will need them. Not only do James, Wade and Bosh need their shots, so do guards Allen and Mario Chalmers and forwards Mike Miller, Shane Battier and Rashard Lewis.

"Ideally, yes, I would like this team to play faster and to push ourselves a little out of the comfort zone initially in terms of pace," Spoelstra said.

Remember that phrase "push ourselves out of our comfort zone." That is a definite Spoelstra coaching philosophy. He does not like the idea of settling into the same routine, believing change pushes players to become better.

Spoelstra is doing his best to distance players from last season's title. He is not using the word "repeat" and is simply calling it "an opportunity to win another title." Last season might as well be 20 seasons ago for Spoelstra.

"The result of success can poison a lot of things — poison your perception, poison your motivation, poison your sense of urgency," Spoelstra said.

"We have to put that success in its proper box and commit to the process of continuing to get better — specifically, the process of building from the beginning of camp. Everything does matter."

He has a very keen sense of how fragile the difference is between winning a title and not winning. About two months ago, Spoelstra watched the Heat's entire playoff run from last season. He said two aspects stood out.

"One, how small a margin of error there really was," Spoelstra said. "All of us, from the inside and out, have started to develop a little bit of a revisionist history, that it probably wasn't as difficult and there probably weren't so many momentum swings in each — swings that could have gone either way.

"We were the only team down three straight series and win it. That Indiana series easily could have gone the other way. We know Boston. Game 7, we were down 14 on our home court. It took an incredible amount of character and perseverance to stay the course. That's the first thing, just to realize how close it was that it could have gone either way."

On the second point, when Spoelstra rewatched the title-clinching Finals Game 5 against the Oklahoma City Thunder, he didn't remember parts of the game.

"It was surreal watching it, because I don't even know how or why, but as I watched it, it was like I was watching it for the first time. I didn't remember all the events and details of that game," he said.

There is another area in which Spoelstra is a different coach. He says other coaches now return his calls.

"They used to say, 'Who's he? I thought Pat Riley is the coach of the Miami Heat,' " Spoelstra said.

"It's easier now to talk to some of these coaches, which is great. That's the one thing I love about this profession. You always have an opportunity to get better and to learn from people."