How did Heat’s new starting lineup fare? And what the switch means for the rest of rotation
Consider this in a vacuum.
An NBA team has a starting lineup that has posted the fifth-best plus/minus in the league for the season. But that NBA team decides to go away from that lineup — even with every player on the roster healthy and available — to start a group that has played just 24 minutes together.
Hard to believe?
That’s the decision coach Erik Spoelstra made when he replaced center Meyers Leonard with forward Jae Crowder in the Miami Heat’s starting lineup for Saturday’s seeding game against the Denver Nuggets. The results were positive, as the Heat opened its eight-game seeding schedule with a 125-105 win over the Nuggets at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista.
The Heat’s new starting lineup featuring Crowder alongside Kendrick Nunn, Jimmy Butler, Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo finished Saturday’s victory with a plus/minus of plus-three in 15 minutes. For the season, this five-man combination has started two games together and has outscored opponents by nine points in 38 minutes.
“Coach made a call. We talked about it. Who knows what we’ll have moving forward,” Butler said Saturday of the new starting look, with the Heat continuing its eight-game seeding schedule Monday against the Toronto Raptors at 1:30 p.m. (Fox Sports Sun). “But right now, I think that’s what we’re going with. I trust coach, I trust Jae and I trust Meyers. [Leonard] took it really, really well and I think he’s in a position that he still wants to help us win.”
Spoelstra said Saturday that Miami will “likely” use the starting lineup with Crowder for at least the next two games — a challenging back-to-back set that begins Monday against the Raptors and ends Tuesday against the Boston Celtics. Butler missed Sunday’s practice with an “excused absence,” but the All-Star wing is expected to play Monday, barring something unforeseen.
The Nunn-Butler-Robinson-Crowder-Adebayo lineup was especially efficient offensively Saturday, shooting 13 of 21 from the field and 2 of 4 on threes with the help of eight assists. Miami scored 38 points in 15 minutes with this group on the court against the Nuggets, posting an impressive offensive rating of 126.7.
“I think [this lineup] has a good mixture of perimeter shooting and threats at the rim,” said Crowder, who finished Saturday’s win with nine points on 3-of-4 shooting on threes and seven rebounds in 29 minutes. “Obviously, Bam and Jimmy do a great job of getting into the paint and putting pressure on the defense within the paint. If me and Duncan are able to knock down shots, it will definitely be a good combination of us five on the court.”
Moving Crowder into the starting lineup also allows the Heat to play as a more versatile defensive team in hopes of improving a defense that has been statistically mediocre this season. But Denver’s offense did find some success against this group Saturday, scoring 35 points 53.8 percent shooting against this Miami lineup.
“We can switch a lot with that group of guys that we have on the floor,” Butler said. “I think with Meyers out there, too, we’re still a really, really, really good team.”
Robinson said Crowder is “like a Swiss Army knife” because of “his versatility on offense and on defense, the ability to switch multiple positions and muck things up defensively and also dribble, pass and shoot on offense.”
It’s also about the rest of the rotation. Inserting Crowder into the starting group allowed Miami to prioritize its smaller lineups, while opening up playing time for reserve wings Andre Iguodala (15) and Derrick Jones Jr. (12) to both log double-digit minutes against Denver.
The Heat went with a 10-man rotation, using Goran Dragic, Iguodala, Kelly Olynyk, Tyler Herro and Jones as its primary reserves until Solomon Hill entered in the final minutes of Miami’s blowout win against Denver. Udonis Haslem and Leonard were the two active players on the roster who did not play Saturday.
Miami’s four healthy inactives against Denver, with only 13 of its 17 players allowed to be made active each game: Kyle Alexander, Gabe Vincent, KZ Okpala and Chris Silva.
“We need everybody and we need our depth,” Spoelstra said. “Just when you think that this will be the way that it’s going to be, we may have to pivot based on matchups or the competition. But Jae has had a very good camp. He has played well. It’s not necessarily that or how well you play, it’s how well you complement other guys. Our starting lineup at the beginning of the year was one of the best lineups in the league. So I haven’t written that one off. But for this game and likely the next two, we felt like this would be the best way to go.”
The starting lineup featuring Leonard is one of the best lineups in the league, which is why Saturday’s switch was unexpected. It marked Leonard’s first game with the Heat as a reserve, as he started his first 49 games with the team this season before missing 16 consecutive games prior to the league shutdown because of a sprained left ankle.
The Nunn-Butler-Robinson-Adebayo-Leonard lineup, which has been used by Miami to start 38 games, has posted an impressive plus/minus of plus-121 in 488 minutes this season. That’s, by far, the best plus/minus for any Heat lineup and the fifth-best plus/minus among all NBA lineups.
But on Saturday, the Heat made a switch and it worked. With seven more seeding games to play and the start of the playoffs just two weeks away, there’s more than enough time for Miami’s rotation to keep changing.
“Look, this is one game. I have not forgotten about Meyers,” Spoelstra said. “He’s fully in our mix and it was just the way the game went tonight. I still had him on my card.”
This story was originally published August 2, 2020 at 2:02 PM.
