Oladipo not traveling with Heat on West Coast trip; Yurtseven traveling but still out
The Miami Heat opened with the most consecutive home games to start a season in franchise history. The expectation was that would help lead to a strong start.
That didn’t happen, as the Heat closed its season-opening four-game homestand with a 1-3 record. Now, the Heat heads west to begin a three-game trip on Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center (10 p.m., Bally Sports Sun).
“I always feel like being on these trips can be an opportunity, particularly right now where we face a little bit of adversity,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I don’t think anybody would have anticipated starting out with this home stretch that we would be 1-3. That’s sometimes the nature of this league, it’s tough. You can’t just mail in victories, you have to earn them.”
But the Heat will have to find a way to get back on track while remaining without Victor Oladipo (left knee tendinosis), who has been labeled by the team as day-to-day with no definitive timetable for his return. Oladipo is the only player on the roster who did not travel with the team to the West Coast on Tuesday, as he’s now set to miss the first seven games of the season by the time the trip is over.
The Heat’s next home game is Tuesday, Nov. 1, against the Golden State Warriors.
“In a perfect world, we would be going out there 4-0,” Spoelstra said ahead of the Heat’s first road trip of the regular season. “But that’s not the case and so we have to rally around each other. There’s not going to be anybody else but us out there. This is an opportunity for us to really start to connect, face some adversity on the road and hopefully grow from that and get some wins.”
The other 15 players on the Heat’s roster, besides Oladipo, are on the trip. That list includes center Omer Yurtseven, who has not played in a game since the preseason opener and has missed the first four regular-season games because of left ankle impingement.
But along with Oladipo, Yurtseven has been ruled out for Wednesday’s game in Portland. They are the only two players on the Heat’s injury report ahead of the contest.
Forwards Caleb Martin and Nikola Jovic are expected to be available for Wednesday’s matchup against the Trail Blazers after serving their one-game suspensions in Monday’s 98-90 loss to the Toronto Raptors at FTX Arena.
“Coming into the season, we definitely didn’t think it was going to start like this,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “But it’s a long season. There’s up and downs throughout the season. A 1-3 [stretch] can happen three or four months into it. At this point, it’s just sticking together, coming together and trying to continue to get better as we move on.”
BENCH TALK
As the Heat continues to work through different bench units, the numbers haven’t been good early this season without the starting lineup on the court.
The only two Heat players with a positive plus/minus through the first four games are starters, Bam Adebayo and Martin.
The non-Adebayo minutes have been especially rough for the Heat. Opponents have outscored Miami by 30.2 points per 100 possessions without Adebayo on the court this season.
Veteran Dewayne Dedmon has been used as the Heat’s center for most of the minutes that Adebayo has been on the bench. The only other center on the Heat’s roster besides Adebayo and Dedmon is Yurtseven, who has yet to play this season but will be with the team on the upcoming trip.
In addition, opponents have outscored the Heat by 19.6 points per 100 possessions without Jimmy Butler on the court this season.
“That’s part of every season. Right now, the identity is help contribute and help us win,” Spoelstra said when asked about the process of finding productive bench lineups. “Sometimes that can be the best clarity of all. Take all the clutter out of your head, play productive minutes, really defend at a high level, share the basketball and help us win until we start to find some rhythm and a flow. That won’t necessarily happen right away, but you can still win games and you can still be productive. That’s just what we have to wrap our minds around right now.”
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 12:55 PM.
