Adebayo, Butler, Herro all a no-go
Erik Spoelstra’s mantra of “we have enough” faced its ultimate coaching test Monday night, with the Miami Heat confirming two hours before their game against the Houston Rockets at American-Airlines Arena that the team’s three leading scorers, Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, all would be out.
Those absences were in addition to the ongoing absence of recently acquired guard Victor Oladipo.
“All those guys will continue just to be day to day,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t want to get fined or anything. These are legit. So I’m not getting fined by the league. These are legit injuries, but they are day to day.”
A day after converting his game-winning shot against the Brooklyn Nets, Adebayo was listed as out due to a sore right knee, with Herro out due to a sore right foot and Butler with the sprained right ankle that also had him out Sunday.
Those absences came with Oladipo already sidelined with a sore right knee.
Guard Goran Dragic (back/ knee) and forward Andre Iguodala (hip) had been listed as questionable, but were cleared to play.
“They passed their protocols and they both wanted to play,” Spoelstra said. “So each set of back to backs is treated as its own, and we’re not predetermining beforehand.”
Guard Gabe Vincent (knee), who had been listed as probable, also was cleared to play.
The injury list comes at a time when teams are attempting to navigate a particularly compacted portion of the schedule, with the Heat in the midst of a run of eight games in 12 nights. That scheduling features three sets of back-to-back games, including the Sunday-Monday coupling at AmericanAirlines Arena.
“First of all, everybody’s going through it at some point,” Spoelstra said of the compacted schedule created by the pandemic. “There’s just no way around it, the volume of games that come in a short period
of time, and we get and understand fully all the circumstances.
“Nobody from our camp is complaining about it. We want to be really smart and proactive about all of this, and just to make sure we don’t have guys with these kind of injuries that are taking steps back because of the volume of games.”
It is the second time Adebayo has been sidelined by injury this season, missing four games in March with tendinitis in his right knee. He also missed two games in January in the NBA’s health and safety protocols. The Heat went into Monday 4-2 in his absence.
Herro has battled a series of injuries in his sophomore season, missing seven games with neck spasms in January and three games in February with a right hip contusion. Factoring in a game missed in the league’s health and safety protocols, the Heat went into Monday 6-5 in Herro’s absence this season.
“This is a build-up,” Spoelstra said of the injuries to Adebayo and Herro not coming on any specific play in Sunday’s game.
With Dragic and Iguodala, it has been a case of Spoelstra attempting to manage a veteran roster that had only two months off between seasons, after falling in the 2020 NBA Finals.
Dragic, 34, for example, was held out of the second night of the Heat’s previous back-to-back set, while Iguodala, 37, was held out of Friday’s final game of the Heat’s four-game trip.
Balanced against offering rest is the Heat’s tenuous position in the Eastern Conference playoff race, facing an increased chance of falling into the play-in round, where one or two losses could keep them out of the playoffs.
“Every single day we have a meeting and just go through the checklist of where everybody is, physically,” Spoelstra said.
For Oladipo, it is now six consecutive absences since exacerbating a preexisting condition when he landed awkwardly on a dunk in the April 8 home victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Rockets, who are playing out the string ahead of the lottery, have been shorthanded for weeks, on Monday listing as out against the Heat: D.J. Augustin, Sterling Brown, Dante Exum, Eric Gordon, Danuel House Jr. and David Nwaba.