MIAMI _ At the least, there is no lack of taking ownership. At least by those whose own play produced the success in the first place.
"My job is to help us win," Jimmy Butler said. "I haven't done that in I don't know how long."
"We have to pick ourselves up," center Bam Adebayo said.
Two weeks ago, both headed to All-Star Weekend as part of the feel-good story of the NBA season.
These days, seemingly the only feeling around the Miami Heat is one of numbness.
Blown leads.
Losses to teams that never win.
Even the seemingly home invincibility taking a hit with Wednesday night's loss to the 16-win Minnesota Timberwolves at AmericanAirlines Arena.
"This is the time we need to win," guard Goran Dragic said. "The playoffs are around the corner and it's just frustrating because it feels like we're not the same team as we were the first half of the season, and something needs to happen.
"We need to fix this ship quickly and try to figure it out."
So back to practice it was Thursday, with a bit of an exhale.
"We'll figure it out," Adebayo said, "and bring the joy back."
It was, in fact, just a week ago when Heat President Pat Riley called out skeptics about his team's chances to compete for a championship.
Wednesday night, Riley sat in a baseline riser watching his team for the third time in a week lose to a team at least 20 games below .500.
"We can fix it," Butler said. "We will fix it. The time is now."
So even in the midst of a stretch of three games in four nights, the Heat returned to the practice court ahead of a back-to-back set of home games Friday against the Dallas Mavericks and Saturday against the Brooklyn Nets.
"We need to get that smile back on our faces," Dragic said Thursday.
Going into the All-Star break, after the team seemingly was bolstered by the trading-deadline additions of Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder, the mandate was nothing less than home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Now the gap ahead of the No. 6 seed is a mere two games.
It was the very stretch of two games against the Cavaliers and one apiece against the Atlanta Hawks and Timberwolves when the Heat were supposed to get healthy after their 1-5 road trip that led into the All-Star break. Now, after this 1-3 run of infamy, there are games over the next eight days against the Mavericks, league-leading Milwaukee Bucks and resurgent Zion Williamson-led New Orleans Pelicans.
"This is the point of an 82-game season where you get tested, twisted, pulled, pushed in a lot of different directions," coach Erik Spoelstra said. "And a lot of us are getting introduced to each other for the first time this season under adversity.
"I enjoy that process, of being part of a team when it gets a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit unsure and you have to collectively find some solutions together."
The answers only can come through victory, none of which now can seem assured until the final buzzer, based on the squandering to 31 points of total fourth-quarter leads over the past two games, in the losses to the Cavaliers and 'Wolves.
"We'll get in the lab and try to figure out those things," Dragic sad. "Especially we don't feel sorry for ourselves, because we don't have a right to feel sorry for ourselves. It's on us."
Two weeks ago, Butler and Adebayo were soaking up the adulation in Chicago at All-Star Weekend, when it was all about being upstarts.
Now it's about getting started again.
"It is not on the coaching staff, it is on the 15 guys in this locker room," Adebayo said. "We have to pick ourselves up."
Or, as Dragic put it Thursday, "We just need one good game."
