Heat back at practice in advance of East finals. How will the time off help? And much more
The Miami Heat has eliminated the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers and the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs. But the fifth-seeded Heat has been battling against another opponent for the past two months, and the fight continues.
“Just beat the bubble,” forward Jae Crowder said Friday following the Heat’s first practice since winning its second-round series over the Bucks on Tuesday night. “That’s a good saying. I think it doesn’t get any simpler than that.”
As the Heat prepares for its first Eastern Conference finals appearance since 2014, finding a way to perform at a consistently high level while living in the league’s quarantine bubble has been one of team’s top priorities since it arrived at Disney on July 8.
“I just feel like since Day 1 when we got here, we talked about it,” Crowder said. “We put it all out on the table. It’s not an easy task and it’s not for everybody. We knew that. But once we could lock in mentally around the whole thing of us being here as a group and fighting each game for one goal to win a championship, I think it helped put everything in perspective for our purpose here and trying to do what we have to do to win games. ... You’re going to have days where it’s just tougher than others. But for the most part, we’ve been sticking together and trying to have that same mentality throughout.”
Miami has opened the playoffs with an 8-1 record, with the next-best postseason record belonging to the 7-2 Los Angeles Lakers.
“I think it requires some level of structure, or discipline and routine and a unique amount of camaraderie to help each other get through this,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of overcoming the bubble. “Nobody’s complaining about it. Nobody’s making any excuses about it. We’re grateful for this opportunity. But it is different, and you do need each other to lift each other up on certain days when you’re not feeling 100 percent.”
It also helps to have time off to spend away from the court. Postseason games have been played using an every-other-day format that can wear on teams, but the Heat had a six-day break in between series following its first-round sweep of the Pacers and it’s expected to have another six-day break before beginning the East finals.
Miami will face the winner of the second-round series between the second-seeded Toronto Raptors and third-seeded Boston Celtics, which is tied 3-3 with Game 7 to be played Friday at 9 p.m. The expectation is the East finals will not begin until Tuesday, although the schedule has not been formally set yet.
“[The time off] obviously helps,” said Crowder, who added that he took Wednesday off before getting a workout in Thursday. “But at the same time, you’re just in a gauntlet of a battle right now. It definitely helps. I can’t take it away, days in between games that you can just stay off your body as much as possible. But at the same time, you just want to continue to have the same rhythm. So it’s a balancing act between the two at this stage.”
Spoelstra said the idle time helps to “build our reserves with our emotional and mental and physical energy, as well. Going through a seven-game series requires a lot of that. So we’re building that back up.”
The time off also gives Heat players and coaches an opportunity to scout their upcoming opponent.
“One hundred percent watching it,” Crowder said of the Raptors-Celtics series. “They had a heck of a Game 6. Two teams that are fighting on the court like I’ve been talking about. Just man up, who wants it. It has been two good teams fighting it out. I think not only myself, but my teammates, we’re watching it together and separately. But we’re definitely tuned in to what those guys are doing and what our next opponent’s tendencies are. We know that these two teams are our next opponent, so we’re just watching it as a fan and watching it as an upcoming opponent just trying to see tendencies and see game plan schemes for both teams.”
ADEBAYO WEIGHS IN
▪ After shooting just 21 of 94 (22.3 percent) on midrange shots in the regular season, Adebayo is 10 of 19 (52.6 percent) on those shots in the playoffs. He was 8 of 14 on midrange opportunities in the Heat’s second-round series against the Bucks.
That development has been satisfying because “coach wants people to guard me because it makes our team better,” Adebayo said Friday. “I wanted to get better and that was one of my main, I wouldn’t say weaknesses, but one of the main things people didn’t scout for. Just knocking down a shot, making them think I can’t make it, it makes our team better because it opens up driving lanes for other people or back cuts for somebody like Duncan that can get a layup.”
But Adebayo said: “Me personally, I feel I can get better taking care of the ball. I feel like in Game 5, I was too careless with the ball a little bit. That’s my 1 percent to get better on in the next series.”
▪ Adebayo is relishing the fact the Heat is surprising those who didn’t expect much from them in postseason.
“Nobody had the intentions of the Heat [beating] the Milwaukee Bucks. Nobody thought we were going to win. When you win like that, it starts to put people in shock, because now people are wondering how we’re winning, what type of way are we winning. We’re just out there hooping and playing together. That’s a confidence builder, proving the doubters wrong.”
What makes it especially satisfying is “we’re doing it together. We have guys who have big nights but the end goal, all we care about is winning. It’s fun to win so our team doesn’t care who scores as long as we have more points than the other team and come up with the W. It doesn’t matter who scores.”
▪ Asked to explain why the Heat seems built to thrive in the bubble, Adebayo said: “Heat culture. You can only understand [if] you’re in it. For people trying to figure out the secret, you’ve got to be a part of it to figure it out.”
▪ The Heat has finished in the top of six of multiple individual awards but hasn’t won any. “We brush it off,” Adebayo said. “The end goal is what we all want. We want that trophy. If we get a trophy, I don’t care [about awards] if we win [awards].... I feel like [a championship ring] is more important because that’s a team thing, not an individual accolade.”
▪ Even though reaching a conference finals is new to several of the team’s rotation players, “I don’t feel like it’s a nervousness with this team,” Adebayo said. “It’s an anxiousness because we are ready to play. We just want to go out there and produce. We want this for each other. I don’t feel there’s any nervousness because everyone’s got each other’s back including the coaching staff. We’re all a unit and together. We’re ready to take on this task.”
▪ Adebayo, on the growth of fellow former Kentucky player Tyler Herro: “When you go to Kentucky, the way you’re supposed to be built, you can make it anywhere in this Association. Going from Kentucky to Miami are similar to each other. Obviously, different levels.”
▪ Adebayo said he intended to watch Game 7 of the Boston-Toronto series, with the winner advancing to play Miami:
“I want to see who our opponent is. I want to actually watch the game. You start to see some of their tendencies as you watch the game, so you get a head start in scouting.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 3:00 PM.
