To make up for up-and-down start, Heat will need to overcome tough second-half schedule
.JPG "Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra confers with guard Kyle Lowry in the second half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Dec. 30, 2022, in Denver.")
If the Miami Heat is going to continue making up ground in the Eastern Conference standings after a slow start to the season, it will need to overcome what appears to be one of the toughest remaining schedules in the NBA.
Beginning with Sunday’s home matchup against the red-hot Brooklyn Nets that marks the midway point of Miami’s regular-season schedule, the Heat plays 11 of its next 15 games against teams that currently hold winning records. That stretch includes back-to-back games against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the 25-14 Milwaukee Bucks in Miami on Thursday and Saturday — the teams’ first matchups of the season.
The Heat has the second-toughest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon.com, based on the current combined winning percentage of teams left to play. The only team in the NBA with a more challenging remaining schedule than the Heat is the Los Angeles Clippers.
“I think things just take time,” Heat guard Victor Oladipo said as the team looks to make a run up the standings. “I know we have a lot of guys back, but this is a new team with a new dynamic. Guys have been in and out of the lineup. We still got guys who haven’t even dressed yet. So it’s a process, man. You just got to trust the process. We got to stick together and keep trusting our process and realize that it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
While the second half of the Heat’s schedule is one of the toughest in the NBA, its up-and-down play during the first half of the season came against one of the league’s easiest schedules. Entering Sunday, the Heat has played the second-easiest schedule in the league based on combined opponent winning percentage and not considering the home/road factor.
“It’s so competitive league-wide,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I basically counted 17 teams that are right there where we are within two or three games in the loss column. So you can either feel sorry for yourself about where you think you should be or you just deal with reality and you embrace the challenge ahead.”
Of course, with so many teams dealing with injuries, these strength of schedule rankings are only as accurate as who is available to play from night to night.
“Right now, it is extremely competitive. You just have to deal with where you are,” Spoelstra added. “We’re not happy about where we are. But there’s a great deal of parity.”
HEAT GUARANTEES HIGHSMITH
The Heat guaranteed the remaining $1.1 million due on the partially guaranteed contract of forward Haywood Highsmith by keeping him on the roster beyond Saturday’s 5 p.m. deadline.
Highsmith will now get his full $1.8 million salary for this season. His contract also includes a non-guaranteed $1.9 million salary for next season that the Heat will eventually need to make a decision on.
Players around the NBA with partial guarantees in their deals needed to be waived by 5 p.m. on Saturday to avoid their contracts becoming fully guaranteed for this season.
With Highsmith’s full salary for this season now guaranteed, the Heat remains just about $200,000 away from crossing the luxury tax threshold. That does not give Miami enough space to sign another player to a standard contract for the rest of the season without becoming a luxury tax team until late March.
Highsmith, 26, entered Sunday averaging 4.3 points on 38.3 percent shooting from the field and 31 percent shooting from three-point range, 3.7 rebounds and one steal per game in 27 appearances (five starts) this season. He went undrafted out of Wheeling University in 2018.
Highsmith was the only player on the Heat’s roster impacted by Saturday’s deadline. All other contracts were previously fully guaranteed for the season.
INJURY REPORT
The Heat will be without four players on Sunday against the Nets: Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Caleb Martin (left quadriceps strain), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (ankle surgery).
This story was originally published January 8, 2023 at 9:32 AM.
