Already undersized, Heat gets even smaller on this road trip. And Butler’s historic feat
Even at full strength, the Heat knew it would be at a size deficit many nights this season, with a 6-9 center (Bam Adebayo), a 6-5 power forward (Caleb Martin) and a 6-0 point guard in Kyle Lowry.
But with 6-11 centers Dwayne Dedmon and Omer Yurtseven sidelined by injuries, that deficit becomes even more pronounced.
And so you have nights like Thursday, when 6-7 Jimmy Butler was needed for key fourth-quarter minutes at center and when Golden State pounded the Heat on the boards, 50 to 31, and repeatedly grabbed misses and converted them into baskets.
That rebounding margin — and Steph Curry’s brilliance on a 33-point night — were the differences in Golden State’s 123-110 win that dropped the Heat to 2-4.
So how much is lack of size becoming a factor for the Heat?
“I don’t think so,” Butler said late Thursday, inside the visitor’s locker room at Chase Center. “If we want to go get the ball, we can go get the ball. Everybody can rebound. That’s not an excuse.”
The Heat -- which wraps up this Western swing on Saturday at Sacramento (6 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) -- actually had outrebounded opponents, 218 to 216, through the first five games.
But Thursday was demoralizing, with Golden State outscoring Miami 27-8 on second-chance points.
Andrew Wiggins, who’s 6-7, had 10 rebounds; Kevin Looney, who’s 6-9, had eight. Draymond Green, who’s 6-6, and Curry, listed at 6-3, had seven rebounds apice.
Wiggins and Looney had no size advantages against their Heat counterparts; Green and Curry had slight ones. So this wasn’t only a matter of size.
But Warriors 7-0 center James Wiseman, the second pick in the 2020 Draft, had six rebounds off the bench. Rookie Nikola Jovic, at 6-11, is 30 pounds lighter than Wiseman, who dunked over Jovic in one sequence.
“Whether it’s man or zone, it’s those extra efforts,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the rebounding issues. “I thought the last couple of games we had gotten a lot better at that. [Thursday] we just weren’t really committed to those block outs and those extra guys coming down, crackdown to rebound. It has to improve. They crashed, particularly when we were in the zone.”
So how does the Heat overcome this size deficit to rebound consistently?
“We’ve got to really box out,” said Adebayo, who had 26 points, eight rebounds and four steals on Thursday. “We’ve got to find bodies and hit bodies. That’s the biggest thing. A lot of dudes get free lanes running in. We’ve got to turn, hit our man, do what we do in drills. When we take care of that, it will be a different ball game for us.”
Martin, who had one rebound in 29 minutes, agreed that the answer is to “be more physical. They were the more physical team, initiated contact, put themselves in good position to get rebounds, like we did the first game against Toronto.”
The Heat stood 28th in the league in rebounding entering Friday’s games.
With Dedmon sidelined with plantar fasciitis in his left foot and Yurtseven back in Miami with an ankle injury, Jovic played eight minutes, finishing with four points (2 for 4 shooting), one assist and a steal but no rebounds.
Rather than going back to Jovic for a fourth brief stint, Spoelstra opted to play Butler at center when Adebayo got a breather midway through the fourth quarter. Miami outscored Golden State by one during that 2:40 stretch.
Butler shrugged off playing center, saying “I don’t pay attention [to that]. I do what coach asks me to do.”
But even Spoelstra, who usually speaks of being positionless, made a point to note Butler’s work at center.
“We played him officially at the five tonight, so he played all the positions defensively and all the positions offensively for us,” Spoelstra said. “I’ve [played him at center] occasionally, very short bursts. We have two of our centers out. It’s extreme circumstances.
“Before his career is done, I would like to start him at all five positions. I don’t want that to happen this year. At some point, I want to be able to show the world his versatility.”
Spoelstra will have a decision to make when Yurtseven is cleared to return from ankle impingement. Dedmon has struggled this season; his 5.8 rebounds per 36 minutes — albeit in a very small sample size — are easily a career low, and Miami has been outscored by 27 points in his 50 minutes.
Yurtseven has been sidelined since early in preseason.
“He is making progress,” Spoelstra said. “Hopefully when we get back [to Miami on Sunday], he’ll be able to really start to prepare to get ready to play.”
BUTLER FEATS
Butler on Thursday became the first player in team history to have a stat line of at least 27 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds and 6 steals while connecting on at least four three-point field goals and shooting 7-of-7 from the line.
It’s also the first time in his career he has registered that many points, assists, rebounds and steals during a single game.
When factoring in just his points, assists, rebounds and steals, he is only the third player in franchise to have at least those totals, joining only Dwyane Wade and Sherman Douglas.
Wade had 41 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds and 7 steals in a game against Cleveland in March of 2009.
Douglas had 31 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds, 6 steals in a 1989 game against Orlando.
Those Wade and Douglas games were in Miami; Butler is the first player in team history to have that many points, assists, rebounds and steals in a road game.
▪ The Heat will remain without Victor Oladipo (knee) and Yurtseven (ankle) on Saturday against the Sacramento Kings. In addition, Dedmon is listed as questionable because of a stomach illness.
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 10:42 AM.
