Heat has enough to play vs. Rockets. Butler and Lowry available, and Silva returns
Following an eventful few days, the Miami Heat is able to return to the basketball court.
Despite a COVID-19 outbreak and a long list of injuries, the Heat has more than the minimum of eight available players required by the NBA to play Friday against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. This comes two days after Wednesday’s game against the Spurs in San Antonio was postponed because Miami didn’t have enough players.
The Heat underwent another round of COVID-19 testing on Friday morning, with no additional positive cases found.
The Heat received more good news just hours before Friday’s game, when guard Kyle Lowry was cleared from health and safety protocols and wing Jimmy Butler was upgraded from questionable to available despite a sprained right ankle. Both will play against the Rockets.
“You get in a rhythm in the NBA playing every other day, and we got knocked out of that rhythm for 48 hours, and today you just feel a genuine enthusiasm from everybody in out locker room,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “One, we’re getting guys back, so it’s like people coming back from a school break. Everybody is just excited.”
Lowry, who missed the last two games while in protocols, took a morning flight from Miami to Houston to rejoin the team. His six-day quarantine came to an end Thursday since he tested positive last Friday, with players considered to have tested positive on Day 0.
Butler turned his right ankle late in Tuesday’s win over the Washington Wizards at FTX Arena, but ended up missing no time after Wednesday’s game against the Spurs was called off.
Miami also continued to bring in COVID-19 replacements to make sure it had enough available players for Friday’s game, including former Heat guard Mario Chalmers and center Chris Silva. Chalmers and Silva signed their 10-day deals with the Heat on Friday afternoon and are available to play against the Rockets.
Chalmers, who won two NBA championships as the Heat’s starting point guard in 2012 and 2013, last played in an NBA game on April 11, 2018, as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies. He tore his right Achilles tendon in March 2016 and it derailed his NBA career, as he has since played in Italy, Greece, Puerto Rico, two games in the G League this season, and even in the halfcourt three-on-three Big 3 basketball league in an effort to make his way back into the league.
“I’ve been in touch with Rio since this summer,” Spoelstra said. “He worked out with us a couple of times in August and September. He has kept himself in good shape. He was able to play a couple of games in the G League. He was in Miami. So, again, that seemed like an easy decision. ... Even just having him around today, it’s like going back in time. You just go right back into those old routines and everything.”
Silva originally signed with the Heat an an undrafted prospect out of South Carolina prior to 2019-20, averaging three points and 2.7 rebounds in 55 games over two seasons with Miami before he was traded to the Sacramento Kings in March as part of the deal that brought back Nemanja Bjelica. Silva averaged 15.1 points and 9.8 rebounds in 12 games for the G League’s Iowa Wolves this season.
“The Chris Silva one was an easy decision,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve been tracking him and following him still, even when he was away from us. It’s very seamless, his reintegration today. In the walkthrough, it feels like he never left.”
Chalmers and Silva joined guard Kyle Guy, forward Haywood Highsmith, forward/center Aric Holman and guard Nik Stauskas as players the Heat has added in recent days on 10-day deals as COVID-19 replacement players. All six have signed their contracts and are available for the Heat on Friday against the Rockets.
They are needed, as the Heat currently has seven players in the NBA’s health and safety protocols: Zylan Cheatham, Marcus Garrett, Udonis Haslem, Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, P.J. Tucker and Gabe Vincent.
Garrett and Robinson are the latest Heat players to face COVID-19 issues, entering protocols on Thursday. Robinson’s absence snapped his franchise-record streak of 182 consecutive appearances dating back to April 2019.
In addition, the Heat ruled out five players because of injuries: Bam Adebayo (thumb surgery), Dewayne Dedmon (knee sprain), Markieff Morris (whiplash), KZ Okpala (wrist sprain) and Victor Oladipo (knee injury recovery). Morris and Oladipo did not travel with the team to Houston, but the rest of Miami’s injured players are on the trip.
So, how many available players does the Heat have against the Rockets?
The Heat is expected to have 11 available players for Friday night’s game in Houston (three more than the NBA-required minimum of eight): Butler, Chalmers, Guy, Tyler Herro, Highsmith, Holman, Lowry, Caleb Martin, Silva, Stauskas and Omer Yurtseven. Five of those players (Butler, Herro, Lowry, Martin and Yurtseven) began the season on Miami’s roster.
Spoelstra is optimistic that the Heat will get more players back from protocols in the coming days.
ESPN reported on Friday that the NBA and National Basketball Players Association agreed to shorten the quarantine period from six days to five days for asymptomatic and vaccinated players to return to play if testing data shows they’re no longer at risk to be infectious.
That means Haslem and Strus’ five-day quarantine runs through Sunday; Cheatham, Tucker and Vincent’s five-day quarantine runs through Monday; and Garrett and Robinson’s five-day quarantine runs through Tuesday.
“We feel like we’re going to get guys back much sooner on this road trip than we anticipated a few days ago,” Spoelstra said.
The Heat’s coaching and training staffs are also short-handed because of COVID-19. Assistant coach Caron Butler and head athletic trainer Jay Sabol remain away from the Heat because they’re in protocols, and other personnel around the team have also tested positive in recent days.
Friday’s New Year’s Eve game in Houston marks the first of six straight road games for Miami — a trip that was originally scheduled to include seven games before Wednesday’s contest in San Antonio was postponed. The Heat continues its trip on Sunday against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.
“I think the right decisions were made, to take a pause for that one game,” Spoelstra said. “We flew in there into San Antonio, and all the way up until past our walkthrough, it was after lunch, we still had every intention to play that game. Our walkthrough was with five guys. I think that was the most responsible thing to do, in all regards. We gathered ourselves yesterday, and waited for more information. I think the league has done an outstanding job communicating with us.”
This story was originally published December 31, 2021 at 10:48 AM.
