Heat Loss to Magic Painful

8-22 now. 14 games below .500. The Heat are facing a predicament they have not faced in almost 5 years - irrelevancy.

Ever since they landed Dwyane Wade with the 5th pick in the draft, the Heat have mattered. Yet this season the Heat haven't mattered too much at all.

"It's a little demoralizing to play my most complete game yet and to really have a feeling that we were going to win this ballgame," Wade said after the game. "To lose it in overtime, it hurts."

Pain. That is what is most real to the Heat these days. Just ask Zo as his final game, possibly, in a Heat uniform was spent writhing in it. Ask Jason Williams who keeps hearing his name swirling in trade rumors but tries to push through his share with two creaky knees. Ask Shaquille O'neal whose hips and knees are bothering him and his ego is suffering from shock as well.

The only pain Wade seems to be feeling these days is the pain of losing game after game. Since dealing with shoulder and knee problems, Wade has rushed back from rehab only to guide his team as close to winning as possible only to see his efforts go unrewarded.

But this is a team. And it takes a team to win, and a team to lose.

This latest loss shouldn't be surprising. After all, it had one of the key elements of all games this season from the Heat - a valiant last ditch effort only left to be undermined by bad defense and a double digit run by the opposing team at the end of the game.

Cook bailed out the Heat with a three to send it to overtime, but the Heat had nothing in the tank. Pain.

And now, the Heat have to pick it back up and head off to Washington to try and squeeze out a win on the road.