January was a great month for Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters, hitting two game winners in back to back games including one against the Golden State Warriors.
See below:
The next night against Brooklyn, Waiters did it again with another game winning three.
With his confidence soaring, Waiters explained to South Florida Sun Sentinel reporter Shandel Richardson that he's playing with a "philly cheese swag" and then channelled his inner Kobe Bryant when discussing his mindset on the court.
“I’d rather go 0 for 30 than 0 for 9 because you go 0 for 9 that means you stopped shooting. That means you lost confidence.”
If that quote rings a bell it's because Kobe once said something very similar during a feature with Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard. Here's the Black Mamba's direct quote from that piece:
“Deron Williams went like 0-for-9. I was like, ‘Can you believe Deron Williams went 0-9?’ Kobe was like, ‘I would go 0-for-30 before I would go 0-for-9. 0-for-9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game, because Deron Williams can get more shots in the game. The only reason is because you’ve just now lost confidence in yourself.'”
Thanks to Dion Waiters' Black Mamba mentality, the Heat are currently riding an eight game winning streak as they head into tonight's matchup against the Atlanta Hawks.
