Family, friends return to AA Arena, but Heat has no plans for fans yet
The Miami Heat hopes to allow fans back inside AmericanAirlines Arena at some point in 2021. The team just doesn’t know when that will be yet.
But the Heat took a step forward in that direction Tuesday when it allowed about 100 family members, and team and player guests attend its home loss to the Milwaukee Bucks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those in attendance were scattered around the lower bowl and socially distanced from other groups, and they were required to wear masks while at their seats.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said his wife, Nikki, was among those in attendance Tuesday. It marked the first time family and friends have been allowed inside the arena to watch a Heat home game this season.
Family and friends were also permitted to attend Wednesday’s home game against the Bucks, the back end of the teams’ back-toback two-game “series” in Miami designed to reduce travel during the pandemic.
“We’ve been planning on this for a long time,” Spoelstra said. “We just want to make sure that we get all of the protocols right, and the health and safety is still the priority. We think we know we can do this in a safe way. It’s great to have some of our loved ones in the stands.”
Nothing official has been announced yet on whether fans will be allowed to attend games at AmericanAirlines Arena beyond the end of 2020. The
Heat’s first home game in 2021 is Monday against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I think it’s a boost for the family just to be able to have some normalcy and have a real opportunity to support their loved ones,” Spoelstra said of having family at games. “That’s probably been the hardest part, the family not being able to see us work.”
Playing games inside a fan-less AmericanAirlines Arena, which has a capacity of 21,000, has been an
adjustment for players.
“It just doesn’t seem right hearing our commentators and looking across and seeing Micky [ Arison] and those guys sitting at the scorer’s table with nobody behind them and nobody around,” Heat veteran forward Udonis Haslem said. “It just didn’t seem right. For me personally, I got way more acclimated to the bubble setting than I am to the arena. Our first game at home with no fans was weird for me. I think that’s just because of my familiarity to the AAA and just the memories that I have there. That’s just what I’m used to. I crack jokes with the people on baseline. I try to make it an enjoyable experience for the people that come to the game, as well as making sure I stay locked in with everything that’s going on.”
There are just six NBA teams that have begun the season with some amount of fans in attendance for home games: the Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, New Orleans Pelicans, Orlando Magic, Toronto Raptors (temporarily relocated to Tampa) and Utah Jazz.
The Heat’s hope is to host some amount of fans at AmericanAirlines Arena this season, and the organization has been working for months to create and implement health and safety protocols to make it as safe as possible whenever it has the opportunity to open the arena’s doors to fans.
The last Heat home game at AmericanAirlines Arena that was played with fans in attendance was a March 11 loss to the Hornets, the night the NBA suspended the season before play resumed inside a quarantine bubble on July 30 at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista.
Heat president of business operations Eric Woolworth said in an email earlier this month that season-ticket holders “will be credited accordingly for any home games missed until we decide to host fans at AmericanAirlines Arena in 2020-21.”
Season-ticket holders are asked to call 786-777-1400 or email SeasonTicket Memberships@Heat.com with any questions.
THIS AND THAT
●When asked if he needs to look for his own offense more after taking seven shots in Tuesday’s loss to the Bucks, Bam Adebayo said: “My job is to get my teammates involved. I’m not the type of player that wants to take ‘X’ amount of shots. It’s one of those things that I got to figure out when to be aggressive, but also just trying to get in a flow.”
Adebayo, 23, attempted 11.6 shots and 6.1 free throws per game during last season’s playoff run. The Heat’s All-Star center entered Wednesday averaging 10.7 shot attempts and 4.7 free-throw attempts in the first three games of this
season.
●
The Bucks set a singlegame NBA record with 29 made threes in Tuesday’s blowout win over the Heat. Milwaukee shot 29 of 51 (56.9 percent) from threepoint range.
According to NBA tracking stats, 27 of the 29 threes the Bucks made were classified as either open or wide open based on how far the closest Heat defender was to the shooter.
“Probably the first 15 or so, that felt like they were right in their wheelhouse, open shots in rhythm, where they didn’t feel us or we’re not making that extra effort to make them put the ball on the floor,” Spoelstra said Tuesday of the Bucks’ three-point shooting display. “Then they got on a roll. It was a heck of a shooting performance. Yeah, they hit some that were contested in the second half. But they had enough that were right in rhythm, or that were either off of good execution or a good extra pass, good offense, and they made us pay.”
●The 144 points the Heat allowed Tuesday is the second-most points it has allowed in a game in franchise history. Miami gave up 148 points in a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1991.