Erik Spoelstra on NBA restart plan and how Heat will adjust. Also, an injury update
The NBA took a big step forward this week in its attempt to resume the 2019-20 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
NBA owners and players approved a 22-team plan that will restart the season starting on July 31 at a fan-less quarantine-type environment at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex and will include regular-season, which the NBA is calling “seeding games,” and possible play-in games to compete for playoff berths in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference.
“I think our team is extremely motivated to get back at this,” Spoelstra said in a teleconference with local reporters Saturday. “These have been extreme circumstances these last two months-plus. And our guys have done a really commendable job of staying physically fit. But it is a challenge when you don’t know whether we’re going to start back up or not, or you don’t necessarily know what date that it could be. Well, now, this gives us a little bit of specificity, and I think everybody is starting to get excited. And you’re able to wrap your mind around a concept of replaying.”
The NBA’s return-to-play plan calls for the 22 teams to play eight “seeding games” at the Disney site that will be added to current regular-season records to determine the final standings entering the playoffs. The eight-game schedule for each team has yet to be announced.
With the NBA season suspended on the night of March 11, teams will play their first game at the Disney complex coming off of a four-month hiatus. It’s an unprecedented situation that calls for an unprecedented solution, as The Athletic reported that players will not be permitted to leave the “Disney bubble” and there will be COVID-19 testing every day.
“Will it be different? Yes. It’s also exciting, I think,” Spoelstra said. “A lot of people could use sports right now, NBA basketball and competition on TV. You know, I’ve heard it probably like anybody else, ‘Well, does this mean the World Championship this year, there will be an asterisk next to it?’ Yeah, I think, if you can make it through all of this and be worthy of winning that championship and really earning it, this will be one that’ll probably be remembered more than any other. It has been that kind of year, this year.”
The Heat owns the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference at 41-24, with the eight-game regular-season format assuring it a Southeast Division title for the second time in three seasons and a spot in the playoffs for just the third time in six seasons.
But the Heat’s playoff seed is still to be determined, with the eight-game format making it possible for Miami to finish anywhere between second and sixth place in the East — although second place is very likely out of reach with the No. 2 Toronto Raptors 5.5 games ahead of the Heat. Miami is 2.5 games behind the third-place Boston Celtics and two games ahead of the fifth-place Indiana Pacers and sixth-place Philadelphia 76ers.
Once the 16-team playoff field is set, the NBA said the playoffs will proceed “in a traditional conference-based format with four rounds and best-of-7 series in each round.”
While part of the NBA’s restart plan is in place, the protocols for keeping those within the “Disney bubble” safe and healthy remain largely unknown. The Associated Press reported last week that the National Basketball Players Association and the NBA are working on a “lengthy” medical protocols document for the season’s resumption and the details will be shared with teams once those discussions are completed.
Teams will be allowed to begin training camp practices on June 30.
“It will not be like a normal end-of-September training camp, where you have your preseason and gear up for the regular season and get prepared for an eight-month marathon,” Spoelstra said. “That is physically, mentally and emotionally different than this preparation. This will be much more of a sprint prep and you’ll have to fast track. Thankfully, we have a group that had a lot of built-in chemistry and enjoyed playing with each other.
“A lot of the nuances of our success were not necessarily Xs and Os, it was the ability of the guys to read and react off of each other and bring the best off of each other. I don’t think that goes away with two-and-a-half, three months off and away from each other. I think we’ll be able to build off that quickly again, but we’ll have to have a different preparation and a different time line, certainly.”
Here are other basketball topics Spoelstra touched on during Saturday’s call with reporters:
▪ The NBA is reportedly expected to allow each team to have 35 members in its traveling party. The Heat said Friday that no decisions have been made about who will be part of the team’s traveling party beyond, obviously, the players and Spoelstra and his top assistants. Heat president Pat Riley, 75, has not indicated if he will attend.
“The only thing I’ll say about that is I don’t want to term anything essential or nonessential staff,” Spoelstra said when asked about those decisions. “That’s not fair to any of our staff members. These are extreme circumstances. We will plan and act accordingly when we get to that point.”
▪ Spoelstra said Heat center Meyers Leonard is “feeling great.” Leonard, who started the first 49 games of the season, missed 16 games prior to the league shutdown because of a sprained left ankle.
“I think you can say that in many ways that time off was really good for his body,” Spoelstra said. “It would’ve been a tight squeeze to get him ready if it was normal playoff time. But this has served his body well. He has been able to rest and then also do treatment and rehab, which was important.”
