Shorthanded Heat looking for solutions with stars Adebayo, Butler injured
The NBA season is long. Most teams will experience incredible highs and also go through frustrating lows.
But the one constant that’s needed is perspective. Point guard Kyle Lowry tried to offer some following the Heat’s third straight home loss and fourth loss in five games.
“Listen, we got our butts kicked three times in a row at home,” he said following the Heat’s 10590 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies at FTX Arena on Monday night. “We won a good road game and then lost a road game. But we really just have to continue to stay with what we’re doing, believe in each other and figure it out.
“That’s the one thing about our league, it gives you opportunities to try to redo it. We have the defending champions coming into our house and that’s the great thing about our league. We have an opportunity to put these games behind us, get better and go on a run. This will just be a little bit of a, ‘Oh, you remember that time when we got the crap beat out of us a couple times in a row?’ ”
The Heat will try to turn things around Wednesday against the defending
NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks (7:30 p.m.,
Bally Sports Sun, ESPN). The problem is Miami will be without Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler for the fourth time in five games.
Adebayo underwent successful surgery Monday on a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb and is expected to be out until mid-January, and Butler has already been ruled out for Wednesday’s game after re-aggravating his tailbone injury early in Monday’s loss to the Grizzlies.
Butler, who missed the previous four games, took a hard fall on a layup attempt just four minutes into the game and labored through the rest of his minutes until he exited in the third quarter and never returned.
“I just think in general now with Bam out, with Jimmy out,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “I have to do a better job getting the team organized and getting the team comfortable with where the ball is going and how we want to play offensively.”
The Heat is 2-2 in games that Adebayo and Butler have both missed this season. Most teams would take a .500 record when missing its two best players.
But the Heat’s offense has been shaky without Adebayo and Butler. Miami has averaged 100.1 points on 44 percent shooting from the field — marks that would rank 28th and 24th in the NBA for the year, respectively.
Take away the Heat’s 113-point performance with the help of 16-of-34 shooting on threes in Friday’s road win over the Indiana Pacers, and Miami’s offensive numbers without Adebayo and Butler fall to 96.7 points per game on 41 percent shooting from the field.
“Obviously, those are two guys that help us get settled,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “Especially in the beginning of games, we can throw the ball to either of them and they’ll create most of the actions and most of the offense for us. Without those two, that first unit is really just Kyle is the one creating. So just going to have to continue to work through these problems, find solutions.”
Butler played on Monday, but he was clearly not 100 percent. Miami’s offense again struggled without him and Adebayo, totaling just 90 points while committing a season-high 23 turnovers.
Over the past four games, the Heat’s halfcourt offense has been the fourth-worst in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass. Miami has scored just 87.3 points per 100 half-court plays during that stretch, down from the 93 points it has averaged per 100 half-court possessions this season.
“I think, with those guys out and without Bam, I think things change,” Herro said. “Shots come from different areas, different guys, and we generate good looks much different now without Bam and Jimmy.”
The usage rates (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of Herro, Lowry and Duncan Robinson spike when Adebayo and Butler are unavailable. Herro has posted a usage rate of 31.5 percent in the past four games, which is the same usage rate that Boston’s Jayson Tatum has for the season.
“It’s not hard,” Lowry said when asked how challenging it is to make tweaks to an offensive scheme in the middle of the season. “Guys are professionals. I don’t think we’re going to change it to where it’s like we’re going to run the flex offense. We’re not going to that extreme. But it will be a lot more without Bam and Jimmy, we don’t know for how long, I’m sure it will
be a lot more possession basketball for us, a lot more putting the ball in the right guy’s hands at the right time and just kind of slowing it down a little bit more maybe.”
Spoelstra appreciates the challenge ahead, with Adebayo expected to miss the next four to six weeks and Butler again out.
“I love this profession and I love NBA seasons when they get like this,” Spoelstra said. “We just have to rally around where we are as a team. Our staff, we have to get to work, put together a plan and start playing some good basketball. We’re capable of it, we’ve shown it and we have enough. …We just have to go one game at a time and figure it out, which we will.”
For Wednesday, the Heat has also ruled out Marcus Garrett (G League assignment), Markieff Morris (whiplash) and Victor Oladipo (right knee injury recovery).