AmericanAirlines Arena is nearly empty. The staff is ready to call it a day. Outside the locker room, Jennifer Ellis waits patiently. There have been many nights like this.

Amid that solitude, coach Pat Riley after one game turned to the wife of veteran forward LaPhonso Ellis and said, "I don't know what takes Fonz so long to come out of the locker room."

It is the losing, the losing that has become all too common this season, the losing the Heat hopes to exorcise before the season becomes one of calculating lottery logarithms.

Having enjoyed abundant regular-season success during Riley's first six seasons with the franchise, the Heat finds itself probing the other side of NBA life. For some it torments. For others, it is tolerated, just as it was tolerated at previous NBA stops.

"If you noticed, when we're winning, I'm out a lot more quickly than when we're losing," Ellis said. "I like to sit there and think about, just in terms of our new scheme, what could I have done to make it better? So I take a little while."

It is a fine line the Heat walks these days, with its 2-10 record. Injuries and illness have sapped the locker room of some of its spirit. Yet it remains early. Milwaukee last season bounced back from a 3-9 start to make it to the Eastern Conference finals.

"We've got to believe," said guard Eddie Jones, who plays amid the disbelief of what could be his first losing season. "We've got to believe in what we're capable of doing.