There have been plenty of Heat performances worthy of criticism this season. This 106-87 loss to Washington wasn't necessarily one of them, even if it was frequently unwatchable. Miami is teetering now, at 23-20, but it's not really because of games like this -- on the road without Dwyane Wade (shoulders), Goran Dragic (calf), Beno Udrih (neck), Josh McRoberts (knee), Chris Andersen (knee) and then, in Wednesday's second half Hassan Whiteside (hip, oblique). It's because of all those games they blew at home while healthy, to teams like the Nets and Wolves and Knicks.

Anyway, on a night in which Luol Deng didn't escape unscathed either, without getting poked in the eye, Erik Spoelstra looked like he wanted to shut his, upon speaking to reporters. He looked exhausted and exasperated.

(Full disclosure: I watched this on Fox Sports Sun; I'm flying to Toronto on Thursday to cover Friday's Heat-Raptors game.)

Spoelstra quipped that, sometimes, he had to laugh when he looked down at the shortage of available bodies on his bench. But, as is his custom, he refrained from making excuses.

"Nobody's waiting for us, and we don't expect them to wait for us," Spoelstra said.

Nobody.

Especially not the team's president.

The Heat's current situation reminded me of a conversation that I had with Pat Riley last February, and then his end-of-2014-15-season press conference in April.

In both settings, Riley ranted about the modern player's inability to stay on the court.

Barry Jackson, my current colleague, captured Riley's comments in a column.

Can he chalk the year up as an anomaly? Riley said "I have a sciatic nerve [problem]. But I’m not going to talk about it." Meaning injuries can't be such a point of emphasis. "The narrative was set in October. The narrative about injuries, which were real. Indiana, Oklahoma City and Miami all had major losses to key players and they didn’t make it. Losing a transcendent player is going to be difficult. And losing others along the way for indefinite periods of time makes it even more difficult. "There was a lot of patience with this team. The fans understand what we were going through. The narrative of constant writing, reading, talking [about injuries]… is totally out of hand. That has to be stopped. If somebody would ask Kobe Bryant or any other player of his ilk, he would probably tell them to go F themselves. I’m fine. This is a league-wide problem. It’s not a media problem. "I want to change the narrative of our team and getting back to what being a professional athlete is all about. You might not always feel well. You might be at 90 percent, you might be at 80 percent. I don’t think the modern day athlete has that state of mind."

These sentiments extended to his thoughts about Dwyane Wade.

"There is no doubt we are going to need Dwyane every single night that he is available. He’s a great, great, great player. He has been the one truly great player, along with Alonzo (Mourning), that has been the bedrock of this team. To answer the question, yes, we are going to need him. "Dwyane has to change the narrative about his body, his injuries, his missing games. We’ve had a discussion about that. Night in, night out, there’s always a question of whether he can or cannot [play]. I’d like to see him do whatever he has to do to get himself ready to practice and play every single night. He’s got five months. This is not just a Dwyane Wade problem. It’s throughout the league. “The player can control that if he chooses to. We are going to help him become the Dwyane Wade we know we can always depend on in the fourth quarter. This could be great challenge of his career. Everybody makes you older than you think you are. I’m 70, but they’re always trying to make me older. We are making him older than he is [he's 33]. We are going to help him get strong and have one of those career years.”

Wade, by any measure, has responded to that challenge. He missed 25 percent of the Heat's regular season games over the four seasons prior to this one, but had missed just one due to his own injury -- and one due to attending to his son's injury -- prior to Wednesday night. Even now, he's on a pace to play in 76 games, which is more than anyone projected.

McRoberts, of course, has not. He's played in just 37 games since Riley signed him in the summer of 2014, after which McRoberts did not arrive in ideal shape. Whiteside is learning the standard in Miami. He seemed to be peer pressured back on the court after bruising his knee, and missing a game, last week, and has played well since. Certainly, the Heat is cautious with injuries -- it's one reason why day-to-day becomes week-to-week and, sometimes, month-to-month. Some injuries truly are perilous; play through them, and they'll get worse. Others aren't really injuries, not the way Riley sees it. They're nuisances.

Riley, at 70 and trying to rally off the mat after LeBron James floored him, has plenty of cause to be acutely impatient these days. And you can't think he'll be pleased with the recent developments, as his players keep stumbling to the sideline.

He wanted to change the narrative of this team.

If he can't, it's fairly likely he'll change the team.