A Heat injury update. And why avoiding play-in tourney would be ‘huge deal’
The Miami Heat will have most of its roster available for Wednesday night’s game against the San Antonio Spurs at AmericanAirlines Arena, but two rotation players remain out.
Second-year guard Tyler Herro, who was listed as questionable, will miss his third consecutive game Wednesday because of a sore right foot. Coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday that an MRI on Herro’s foot showed no structural damage.
The Heat also remains without guard Victor Oladipo, who will miss his 11th consecutive game with right knee soreness. The team has not offered a timetable for his return.
The Heat’s other 14 players will be available against the Spurs. That includes guard Kendrick Nunn, who missed Monday’s loss to the Chicago Bulls because of a neck spasm.
Forward Duncan Robinson will also be available Wednesday despite surfacing on the injury report with a stomach illness that also forced him to exit Monday’s loss early.
Both Nunn and Robinson are in the starting lineup against the Spurs.
The Spurs ruled out Trey Lyles (right ankle sprain) and Derrick White (right ankle sprain) for Wednesday’s contest.
A UNIQUE PLAYOFF RACE
Goran Dragic has been a part of all different kinds of playoff races and runs during his time with the Heat.
In his first season with the Heat in 2014-15, the team missed the playoffs by just one game. The following season in 2015-16, the Heat won a four-team tiebreaker to enter the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 3 seed.
Dragic was part of the 2016-17 Heat that closed the regular season on a 30-11 run but just missed the playoffs because of a head-to-head tiebreaker it lost to the Chicago Bulls.
The veteran guard also played a big role in last season’s unique playoff run to the NBA Finals in the Walt Disney World bubble as the East’s No. 5 seed. It marked the first time since 1999 that a team seeded fifth or lower made it to the Finals.
But this season’s playoff race is different than the others because the Heat has never faced the possibility of ending up in a play-in tournament that would decide its playoff fate.
“We don’t want to be in that,” Dragic said of the play-in possibility before Wednesday’s game against the Spurs. “We want to be safe and play hopefully at home. That’s our goal, so we still have 10 games left. Like I said before, every game counts. If we can avoid that play-in tournament, that would be a huge deal for us.”
How does the play-in tournament work?
It will take place after the regular season and before the first round of the playoffs, and it will include the teams with the seventh-highest through the tenth-highest winning percentages in each conference.
With less than three weeks remaining in the regular season, the Heat entered Wednesday in seventh place in the East despite owning the same record as the sixth-place Boston Celtics because of the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The teams with the seventh-highest and eighth-highest winning percentages in each conference will each have two opportunities to win one game to earn a playoff spot. The teams with the ninth-highest and tenth-highest winning percentages in each conference will each have to win two consecutive games to earn a playoff spot.
At the end of the regular season, the team with the seventh-highest winning percentage in each conference will host the team with the eighth-highest winning percentage in its conference in a play-in game. The winner of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 matchup will be the seventh seed in the playoffs for its conference.
The team with the ninth-highest winning percentage in each conference will host the team with the tenth-highest winning percentage in its conference in a play-in game.
The loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 game will host the winner of the No. 9 vs. No. 10 game, and the winner of that game will be the eighth seed in the playoffs for its conference.
Those play-in games would be May 18-21, a short turnaround from the Heat’s regular-season finale on May 16 against the Pistons in Detroit. The playoffs begin May 22.
“Every game is important,” Dragic said. “This is already the playoffs for us. It’s a bunch of teams together close fighting for these last few spots. Every game counts. Every game, preparation is more detailed, the team needs to play at a higher level and that’s what is expected from us.”
FOURTH-QUARTER STRUGGLES
The fourth quarter has been an adventure for the Heat. Sometimes a good adventure, but lately a bad one.
Entering Wednesday, opponents had combined to outscore Miami by 36 points in fourth quarters this season. The advanced metrics say the Heat has been outscored by three points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter, which is the league’s seventh-worst net rating in the final period.
The Heat’s recent late-game struggles have tilted the numbers in the wrong direction, as it has been outscored by 35 points just in the past three fourth quarters alone leading up to Wednesday’s matchup against the Spurs. Opponents have averaged 31.7 fourth-quarter points on 56.5 percent shooting from the field and 40.6 percent shooting on threes during this three-game stretch.
The Chicago Bulls scored 34 points on 63.2 percent shooting from the field in Monday’s fourth quarter to rally for a win over the Heat.
What’s the reason for Miami’s recent late-game issues — its own defensive slippage or effective opponent adjustments?
“I just think it’s a combination of both,” Heat veteran Trevor Ariza said following Monday’s loss to the Bulls. “When you give a team a steady diet of something, these are professional players with IQs. They make adjustments and they figure things out. And playing in a situation as such, we just played them Saturday. They were pretty prepared for what we do. They had an idea for what we were going to do and they made adjustments.”
It doesn’t help that the Heat has averaged just 20 points on 32.2 percent shooting from the field and 15.4 percent shooting on threes in the last three fourth quarters before Wednesday’s game.
“There was that stretch of games where we were doing incredible in the second half,” Spoelstra said. “So it’s a matter of consistency and putting together 48 minutes.”
BUTLER-LOWRY CONNECTION
The Heat pursued Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry up until last month’s trade deadline, but the two teams could not strike a deal.
While Heat star Jimmy Butler and Lowry didn’t end up as teammates this season, they are still close friends. How close?
“Probably Kyle Lowry,” Butler said when asked who he enjoys playing against most during a podcast appearance on The Artist and The Athlete with Lindsay Czarniak. “Just because he’s one of my absolute best friends. He’s the godfather of my daughter. It’s just like as competitive as it is, we’re always laughing, we’re always joking around. I would say something else, but then the NBA is gonna look at this and be like, ‘Oh my god, he’s tampering.’”
The Heat will have another chance to pursue Lowry this upcoming offseason when he becomes a free agent.
This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 12:49 PM.
