Finally, it looks like the hammer might be meeting the nail a little bit. On message boards and on the radio, fans have been drilling young Heat coach Erik Spoelstra for the team’s inconsistency and failures.

It looks like Wade also may be taking umbrage with his coach.

As per Ira Winderman’s article,

“Wade said predictability has contributed to the team’s series of late-game struggles.

“We’ve got to find a way also to mix it up, stop being a team that everybody knows exactly what we’re going to do and they just play us the same way,” the seventh-year guard said.

While this season never has been cast as one of championship contention, it has been cast as a bridge to this summer’s free agency, with Wade’s future in the balance.

For the moment, the foundation of support between player and team appears to be fractured.

“We should be much better,” Wade said. “I’m not going to say we should be number one in the East, but we should be a little better.”

I’d like to see them play more up-tempo and perhaps replace Quentin Richardson in the starting lineup with Dorell Wright. Beasley has proven he deserves as many minutes as he can physically handle, in my mind, all the way through the fourth quarter.

No one else on the roster, other than Wade, can get his own shot, and we need him out there.

Again, the focus remains the 2010 offseason and it almost seems like the team knows its zombies – walking dead who more than likely won’t be here next year and if they are, they ain’t getting paid like they think they should (I think there’s a chance guys like Q, Jermaine O’Neal, Rafer Alston may be back at minimal salaries, but if they expect paydays, it won’t be down here).

Is replacing Spoelstra the answer? Not this season, to me. I don’t think having Ron Rothstein (or one of the other assistants) at the helm would make an impact.

Riley isn’t coming down from the front office to coach a 6th-8th seeded team.

My own feeling on coaching is it is SO overrated: Doc Rivers coached an Orlando team that lost 20 games in a row, then became a genius in Boston, something tells me he didn’t get smarter as much as his players were better. We had Riley coach a 15 win team down here. However, coaches can be replaced and the 8 guys on the roster who don’t play well can’t, easily.

That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Spo isn’t the coach here next year, when we get our max player(s) to go along with Wade. I could see Riley disciple Byron Scott or even close ally Mike Fratello coming in if Wade and company don’t see Spo as the person to lead them when we expect a legit run.