Erik Spoelstra back, Heat to play regulars vs. Hawks despite already clinching No. 1 seed
Even with the Eastern Conference’s top playoff seed already clinched, the Miami Heat will still play most of its regulars in Friday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks at FTX Arena.
And coach Erik Spoelstra is back after missing the last two games while in the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
The only two Heat players unavailable on Friday are forward P.J. Tucker (right calf straight) and center Omer Yurtseven (non-COVID illness). That means the Heat’s core four of Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Kyle Lowry will be available to play against the Hawks.
Following Friday’s game, the Heat travels to Orlando to close the regular season against the Magic on Sunday. The Heat is expected to hold out most of its rotation for the regular-season finale.
As for Spoelstra, he described his time away as “a strange week.”
Spoelstra entered the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols on Sunday, the same day the Heat was subject to a round of COVID-19 testing upon entering Canada for its matchup against the Toronto Raptors in order to return home because of U.S. restrictions. Spoelstra was able to get back home on Sunday night by driving to Buffalo, N.Y., and then taking a private flight back to Miami.
“Look, a lot of people have been hit pretty hard by COVID. Thankfully, I was not one of them,” Spoelstra said ahead of Friday’s game against the Hawks. “So that was the surprise. I really would never have had any idea if we didn’t have to test when we were in Toronto. But I’m thankful that at least I found out. So I came back, I was able to make the appropriate arrangements with my family and everything.”
Assistant coach Chris Quinn handled head coaching duties in Sunday’s win over the Raptors and Tuesday’s win over the Charlotte Hornets while Spoelstra was in protocols.
“I was able to watch the Toronto game on a laptop,” said Spoelstra, who has missed only five games in his 14 seasons as the Heat’s head coach. “Then the Charlotte game was a blast. I was watching that one by myself on a laptop and possibly a half glass of wine. But it was good to actually to take a look at things from a different view at this point of the year. I thought Quinny and the staff just did an outstanding job. It just shows you how much responsibilities he’s taken on in the last couple years. He was really able to step into that seamlessly.”
When asked why the Heat will play most of its regulars against the Hawks despite already clinching the top playoff seed in the East, Spoelstra pointed to the long break ahead between Sunday’s regular season finale and the April 17 start of its playoff run.
“It’s something we just discussed it this morning,” Spoelstra said. “It’s a little bit unusual because of the play-in that we’ll have a little bit more time off and everybody wanted to compete tonight. We won’t play our first playoff game until April 17th or whenever. But this is an opportunity to continue to compete and stay sharp.”
While Friday’s game against the Hawks doesn’t mean anything for the Heat’s playoff positioning, it could help set the seeding for the East’s play-in tournament involving the Cleveland Cavaliers, Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta and Charlotte Hornets that will determine Miami’s first-round opponent.
Those teams — the Cavaliers, Nets, Hawks and Hornets — are the Heat’s four potential first-round opponents. The East and Western Conference play-in tournaments will take place next week from Tuesday through Friday.
The Heat needs to wait until next Friday to learn its first-round matchup, which will be the team that escapes the play-in tourney as the East’s No. 8 seed.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 6:38 PM.
