Heat’s Adebayo hopeful about playing on Tuesday. And lineup decision, playoff update
Heat center Bam Adebayo, who missed Saturday’s game with a right hip contusion, said he has “good intentions of playing” in Tuesday’s game at Detroit (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun).
Adebayo practiced with the team on Monday, though Erik Spoelstra said it wasn’t a grueling “hunger games” practice.
Spoelstra said Adebayo could barely move Saturday. Adebayo said he has improved “a lot” since then.
“I’m one of those people that tries to fight through it,” Adebayo said. “The fact that I could barely walk was obviously a problem. Biggest thing was getting healthy, getting my body right.”
He said he’s not 100 percent “but nobody is 100 percent at this time of the year. I’m going to give my team what I got.”
The Heat listed Adebayo and Kyle Lowry (knee soreness) as questionable.
With Adebayo sidelined, Cody Zeller started and had 20 points and eight rebounds in a 129-122 win against Dallas. Kevin Love came off the bench for the first time in his brief Heat career and had 18 points and five rebounds.
Asked if Love will return to the starting lineup when Adebayo plays, Spoelstra said he would make that decision when the team arrived in Michigan on Monday afternoon.
Love said was he very comfortable coming off the bench but is fine either starting or playing as a reserve. He said the Heat used a couple of lineup with Adebayo in practice on Monday and Love was a part of one of those lineups.
A lineup with Adebayo and Zeller seems unlikely, because neither has consistent three-point range.
If Spoelstra doesn’t resume starting Love alongside Adebayo, he could go small with Max Strus or Caleb Martin starting at power forward alongside Adebayo.
Martin started 49 games earlier this season but has thrived off the bench, and Spoelstra might not want to disrupt that.
“I’ve got to get my mind ready for whatever he needs,” Love said of Spoelstra. “No preference [starting or coming off the bench]. I felt like myself last game because I was able to pick and roll a little more, play a little in the post, 15 feet as well as play outside. That felt good. If I could get a mix of that in both lineups, that’s great.
“The way we played with that second unit [on Saturday], the ball movement, the ball was popping, we were screening for each other, playing for each other. Regardless I do think [that Love and Adebayo] see minutes together whether we’re starting together or not.”
Spoelstra said “it was a good day to have Bam back out here. I know how much he was pushing the last three days with his treatment. He was trying to do everything he could to be available.”
PLAYOFF UPDATE
While the Heat has an outside chance of moving from seventh to sixth, that’s unlikely. Miami is two games back of No. 6 Brooklyn, which owns the tiebreaker with Miami and has a fairly easy remaining schedule — Minnesota, at Detroit, Orlando and Philadelphia. The Heat’s remaining schedule: at Detroit, at Philadelphia, at Washington and home to Orlando.
The Heat remains two games ahead of No. 8 Atlanta and No. 9 Toronto. The Heat would win a tiebreaker with Atlanta, would lose a tiebreaker to the Raptors and would win a three-team tiebreaker with the Hawks and Toronto.
The team that finishes seventh in the East hosts the team that finishes eighth in a play-in game, with the winner claiming the seventh seed in the playoffs and the loser hosting the winner of the game between the ninth and 10th seeds.
The Hawks’ remaining schedule isn’t easy: at Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, at Boston.
Toronto’s schedule, beyond a game at Charlotte, also is difficult: two games at Boston and a home game against Milwaukee.
Tenth-seeded Chicago (38-40), which owns the tiebreaker with Miami, can rise as high as seventh. The Bulls — who are one game back of Atlanta and Toronto and three behind the Heat — finish the season at home against Atlanta, at Milwaukee, at Dallas and then home to Detroit.
▪ Forward Jamal Cain and center Orlando Robinson are expected to rejoin the team in Detroit after the G League Sioux Falls Skyforce lost in the Western Conference Finals. Nikola Jovic (back spasms) remains out.
This story was originally published April 3, 2023 at 2:09 PM.
