MIAMI -- With one towel wrapped around his waist and another draped over his shoulders, Miami Heat center Chris Bosh emerged from the showers after a recent game, carved through reporters waiting at his locker and noticed neighboring teammate Shannon Brown scrambling to get away.

Brown hurried to dress and clear out of the way so Bosh would have all the space he needed.

“Why are you rushing? It’s just the media,” Bosh said. “They’ve got questions. We’ve got answers.”

If only it were that simple for the Heat this season.

Within a span of seven days, Miami has displayed the best of its progress and potential with impressive victories at Dallas and Brooklyn. And the Heat have also shown just how painstaking the process of rebuilding on the fly can be in demoralizing home losses to Milwaukee and a depleted Indiana team.

One week, the Heat are riding high after an impressive 5-2 start in which Dwyane Wade flashed his newfound health and durability by playing six games in nine nights. And the next week, the Heat stumbled through three straight losses and a rash of injuries to three starters that included Wade missing time with a strained hamstring.

Every time it seems the Heat (6-5) are on the verge of providing answers, more questions arise.

“I guess it’s just part of what we have to go through, I guess, because we’re right in the middle of it,” Bosh said of the erratic start to the season. “You knew it was going to be a little difficult. But it comes in ways you don’t expect. You just have to stay with it until it turns. Just get on course and do better.”

There’s a significant chance to turn again with Thursday’s visit from the Los Angeles Clippers as Miami looks to distance itself from consecutive embarrassing home losses. But even that opportunity comes with its own set of questions, specifically regarding the health and availability of three key players.

After missing the past three games, Wade didn't go through shootaround Thursday and is doubtful to play against the Clippers. Luol Deng, who sprained his wrist in Sunday’s loss to the Bucks, was held out of Monday’s win against Brooklyn. Heat forward Josh McRoberts practiced Wednesday after missing Monday’s game with a bruised foot.

At a time when the Heat had hoped to gain traction and establish some early continuity, injuries and inconsistent performances have instead forced them to use four different starting lineups in 11 games.

Add in Bosh’s week-long shooting slump, and it presents a buffet of excuses that could have led to a poor performance on the second night of a back-to-back set entering Monday’s 95-83 win against the Nets. Yet, the hard-to-figure Heat turned in perhaps their most encouraging effort of the young season.

Amid Wade’s recent injury history, questions have been raised about the Heat’s depth at shooting guard after an offseason in which Ray Allen and James Jones both departed. But Mario Chalmers, who has transitioned from starting point guard the past several seasons to Wade’s primary backup this season, has thrived in his new role. He’s shot 53 percent from the field and averaged 21 points and seven assists in the three games Wade has missed.

The Heat have also relied more heavily on rookie guards Shabazz Napier and James Ennis and hope they can build on their efforts from Monday, when they combined for 21 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and two steals and saw extended time in the fourth quarter. But those productive moments guarantee absolutely nothing moving forward. So far, the trend has seen that the Heat take one huge step forward only to lose their balance the next time they’re on the court.

Maintaining progress and patience has been a challenging balancing act for the Heat.

“You have to embrace that as a competitor, really,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “The NBA season turns like this for you, for whatever reason. The ball isn’t bouncing the right way. You’re not getting the calls you think you’re going to get. There are injuries. Guys are in and out of the lineup. That’s when you reveal yourselves as a basketball team. That’s how you grow -- [through] these mini points of adversity.”

That adversity has produced some uneven moments for a team that is working with as many as six new rotation players who were around for Miami’s two championships and four straight trips to the Finals.

Settling in means there are going to be some flashes of phenomenal play, which was the case when Miami efficiently carved through Dallas on Nov. 9 with beautiful ball movement that led to a season-high 31 assists and 55.3 percent shooting in that 105-96 victory. But getting acquainted also means there will be miscommunication and frustration, which were prominent when the Heat were outrebounded by 25 boards on Nov. 12 against the Pacers and consistently blew coverage assignments two nights after in Atlanta, where the Hawks shot 56 percent and scored 114 points.

No player on the Heat’s roster understands the challenge of change more than Deng, who is with his third team this calendar year after he was traded from Chicago to Cleveland last season before he signed with the Heat as a free agent over the summer.

“It’s definitely tough ... we’re having different lineups out there,” said Deng, who fills the starting small forward spot vacated by LeBron James. “The last couple of games, there have been games we showed how good we can play together. But it’s a long season. And this is definitely a learning process. We just have to come together, see the things we’re doing great and stick to that. And the things that are beating us, we have to learn to avoid those. Hopefully we can benefit from all of this in the long run.”

Bosh has been here before.

He knows it’s impossible to endure the long run by being short on patience. That, in part, is why he isn’t too perplexed by his recent shooting woes. After getting off to one of the most productive starts of his career through the first seven games, Bosh has shot just 28.3 percent from the field in his past four outings. He’s missed 11 of 14 attempts from 3-point range and averaged just 13.4 points in that span.

Bosh held himself and his teammates accountable with a harsh message after Sunday’s loss to the Bucks -- a setback that included his 2-for-17 shooting performance.

“We’re starting to see the same mistakes over and over and we’re just going to have to have a serious talk about it,” Bosh told ESPN.com after that game. “We’re not talking on defense; we’re not even running our set plays. It just can’t happen. If we’re going to go down, let’s go down executing and playing our game. We’re going down making mental lapses and mistakes at opportune times. I can understand missed shots. That comes and goes. But if we’re not even running plays ...”

About 24 hours later, after the relative breakthrough in Brooklyn, Bosh praised Napier and Ennis for showing some resilience and talked about the boost veteran Danny Granger provided in his debut after sitting out the first 10 games with a hamstring injury.

“We’re going to need them,” Bosh said.

The next step is to put two consistent weeks together.

Playing two consistent games would be a start.

“We just have to continue discussions about where guys are supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do,” Bosh said. “We can do this. We just have to pound away until it sticks.”

Maybe that’s when the answers will start to overshadow the questions facing the Heat.