Heat face Nets, chip on shoulder?
Players: Anger over last game is gone
MIAMI — The Miami Heat needed a favor; the Brooklyn Nets decided their season was over one game before the finish line. And, with that, the Heat’s chance to make last season’s playoffs effectively vanished even before Game No. 82.
Tonight, in a preseason game with nothing at stake for either side, the Heat face the Nets at Barclays Center in the teams’ first meeting since more than a few askance glances last season over Brooklyn’s approach on April 12.
To recap: The Heat’s best path to the playoffs on the final day of the 2016-17 regular season was a victory at home over the Washington Wizards (which they achieved) and a Chicago Bulls loss at home to the Brooklyn Nets (which turned out to essentially be a forfeit victory for Chicago).
Not only did the Bulls, who had lost in Brooklyn days earlier, romp past the Nets 112-73, but Brooklyn decided to hold out Brook Lopez, Jeremy Lin and Trevor Booker, going with a lineup filled with the likes of Spencer Dinwiddie, Justin Hamilton and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
The Heat and Bulls finished
tied at 41-41. Chicago, which held the tiebreaker advantage over the Heat, went on to be ousted by the Boston Celtics in five games in the first round. The Heat were left with the draft lottery.
“It’s not as if I wasn’t disappointed by that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after Wednesday’s practice at AmericanAirlines Arena. “But every organization is different. And every organization’s methodology is different, how they go about business.
“I’m not here to judge how anybody else does it. I’m just focused on how we do it. We wouldn’t have done it that way. It doesn’t make it better or worse.” Just a lesson learned. “I’m done with that,” Spoelstra said. “We had our opportunities to take care of our own business. I don’t believe in leaving that up to other people.”
In the wake of holding out his regulars despite having no stake in the lottery (Brooklyn’s pick already was dealt to Boston) and no stake in the playoff race, Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said: “As a competitor I understand it. I understand the point of view that some of the press have, and maybe other teams. I do understand it. But we have to look at it from the Nets franchise and what’s best for us.”
Atkinson attempted to rationalize it in terms of offseason health.
“You look at some of our players,” he said in April, “they haven’t had healthy offseasons in the past. We need this group to be healthy.”
Or not. Two months later the Nets dealt Lopez to the Los Angeles Lakers.
The result of the Nets game brought a crushing end to the Heat’s season (with an Indiana Pacers victory that night also keeping the Heat out of the playoffs).
Guard Goran Dragic was one of several Heat players angered by Brooklyn’s approach that night, recalling that disgust Wednesday.
“I was mad, because if you’re a professional athlete, you need to compete. It doesn’t matter if it’s the last game of the season,” he said. “Of course, it’s a different team [than last season’s Nets roster]. A lot of players left. They have almost a completely new team.
“I’m not looking for revenge.”
Forward James Johnson said how April 12 played out is just part of this season’s fuel.
“I look myself in the mirror, our team, we look each other in the eyes and it was our own fault,” he said of rallying to a 30-11 record over the second half of the season only to lose out on a playoff berth in that tiebreaker. “We let a lot of games slip away that we should have won, and it had nothing to do with the end of the season where people were sitting.
“Their approach was their approach, however they felt.”
iwinderman@ sunsentinel.com. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ ira.winderman