Heat rests stars in finale, gets injury scare
With the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers just days away from beginning their first-round playoff series against each other, Friday’s game between the Heat and Pacers was anything but a true postseason preview.
Rotation players on both sides sat out even though the Eastern Conference’s No. 4 seed was on the line, with the Miami-Indiana playoff matchup already set and no real home-court advantage at Disney.
The result was a 109-92 Pacers win over the Heat to close the teams’ eightgame seeding schedule on
Friday at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami (44-29) enters the playoffs as the East’s No. 5 seed after Indiana (45-28) clinched the No. 4 seed with the victory.
It marked the Pacers’ first win over the Heat this season in four meetings. Miami won the season series 3-1.
But all of that became an afterthought once Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. suffered a scary injury and had to be taken off the court on a stretcher late in the third quarter. Jones fell to the ground after a hard collision in an attempt to run through a screen set by Pacers center Goga Bitadze with 1:05 remaining in the third quarter, as Jones’ left shoulder and neck absorbed the brunt of the contact.
Jones grabbed his neck as he laid face first on the court for more than five minutes, with Heat teammates and coaches standing and watching on with concern just a few feet away. Jones was rolled off the court on a stretcher, as he held a towel over his face.
“He got jarred in the shoulder-neck area. Obviously a little bit more than a stinger,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Following a postgame MRI, CT scan and concussion test, the Heat announced Jones suffered a neck strain and will be re-evaluated over the weekend. Considering the way Jones was wheeled off the court, this is positive news for him and the team.
The Heat held out Bam Adebayo (right knee soreness), Jimmy Butler (right foot soreness), Jae Crowder (right knee bruise), Goran Dragic (left ankle soreness), KZ Okpala (per
Takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Pacers, in which most key players sat out. Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. exited the game on a stretcher after a hard collision but was not seriously injured.
sonal reasons) and Gabe Vincent (right shoulder sprain). In addition, Andre Iguodala did not play despite being available.
The Pacers also held out some of their key players. Victor Oladipo, Myles Turner and T.J. Warren did not play, and Jeremy Lamb (torn ACL) and Domantas Sabonis (left foot plantar fasciitis) remained out.
The Heat finished its eight-game seeding schedule with a 3-5 record.
The regular season is over. The Heat now has a few practice days before opening the playoffs with Game 1 of its first-round series against the Pacers on Tuesday at 4 p.m. (Fox Sports Sun, TNT).
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Pacers on Friday at AdventHealth Arena:
While a lot of Miami’s rotation players were held out, this was an important game for rookie guard Kendrick Nunn.
It was Nunn’s lone game opportunity to find a rhythm before the start of the playoffs. After playing in each of the Heat’s first four seeding games, he missed three in a row because he was forced to leave the NBA bubble to tend to a personal matter.
But Nunn was able to play Friday in Miami’s eighth and final seeding game. He finished with 23 points while shooting 8 of 27 from the field and 1 of 9 on threes, two rebounds and four assists in 33 minutes.
It has been a struggle for Nunn to find efficient offense at Disney, as he averaged 10.8 points while shooting 31.3 percent from the field and 20.7 percent on threes in the five seeding games he played in. Miami was outscored by 46 points in the 116 minutes he played during this fivegame stretch.
“Honestly, it’s a little tough with being away from the game for so long and having COVID,” Nunn admitted, when asked if it has been a challenge to get on track. “It’s a lot of things held up against me. But I’m controlling what I can control.
“I’m back on the floor now and just trying to get in rhythm. Definitely get my conditioning up and I think I’ll be good. I felt pretty good out there today.”
Friday marked the end of an impressive streak for Adebayo. It also marked the end of Robinson’s streak.
With Adebayo held out of Friday’s game as a precaution with the start of the playoffs just days away, his streak of 158 consecutive games played came to an end. It’s the first game Adebayo has missed since sitting out an April 3, 2018 win over the Atlanta Hawks during his rookie season.
Adebayo’s streak goes down as the fourth-longest in Heat history behind
Glen Rice (174 consecutive games played), Grant Long (161 consecutive games played) and Norris Cole (160 consecutive games played).
When asked if he considered playing Adebayo for a few minutes Friday to extend the streak, Spoelstra said: “I thought about it, but we have bigger things in mind right now.”
In addition, Robinson’s impressive streak came to an end. He entered with a made three-pointer in a franchise-record 57 consecutive games, but he couldn’t extend that streak Friday with an 0-of-3 performance from deep in limited minutes.
Robinson logged just 13 minutes and did not play in the second half against the Pacers.
With so many players held out, Heat team captain Udonis Haslem made his first start of the season.
Not only did it mark Haslem’s first start, but it marked just the fourth game he has played in this season. It’s also only the second game Haslem has started since the 2015-16 season, with the other one coming in last year’s regular-season finale in Dwyane Wade’s final game on April 10, 2019 against the Brooklyn Nets.
Haslem, who is in his 17th NBA season and turned 40 on June 9, made the 500th start of his NBA career on Friday. He became the second-oldest player ever to start a game for the Heat, as Juwan Howard is the only older player who started for the team during the 2012-13 season.
Haslem finished Friday’s loss with seven points and eight rebounds in 24 minutes.
Butler is confident the Heat will have success in the playoffs.
“I guess there’s some history between Miami and the Pacers,” Butler said during an interview aired Friday on ESPN’s “The Jump.” “You inherit that the second that you put on a Miami jersey or a Pacers jersey for that matter. But we embrace it. We love it. We don’t run from it. So I think it’s going to be very, very interesting.”
What does Butler expect from the upcoming series between the Heat and Pacers?
“For the Heat to win. I do expect that,” Butler said during the ESPN interview. “I think everybody on our roster and our organization and all our coaches, all of our fans think that the Miami Heat is going to get that one.”
With the Heat completing its regular season, its draft position is locked in.
After Friday’s loss to close seeding play, 10 teams will finish with better final regular-season records than the Heat.
That means Miami will have the 20th pick in the Oct. 16 NBA Draft.
The last five players selected at No. 20: Matisse Thybulle in 2019, Josh Okogie in 2018, Harry
Giles in 2017, Caris LeVert in 2016 and Delon Wright in 2015.