"This is an absolute mess," Pat Riley said last week of his Heat.

"I just think we stink," Michael Jordan said Tuesday night of his Washington Wizards.

"I think we'll win another game," Riley said Tuesday after losing his ninth straight game, the most in his coaching career.

"If my shot's not falling, it's going to be a long night for us," Jordan said last week amid an eight-game losing streak, the longest in his playing career.

"It's time to grow up, be professional basketball players, stop succumbing to the pressure," Riley was saying on the phone Thursday afternoon from Chicago before the Heat succumbed again, losing No. 10 in a row to the lowly Bulls. "This is not about pushing X's and O's around. It's about playing at the end.

"We've been there five times at the end in the nine [straight] losses and either choked or felt pressure or made a mistake. I'm going to keep leaning on them. I'm not going to allow them to wimp out on this and succumb to pressure. The pressure is more from the consequences.

"What's the consequence, that people think poorly of you, people boo you, the media writes bad about you? Who the hell cares? This is more of an individual thing of going out and keeping composed at the end."