Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat vs. Wizards
Waiters, Dragic, Whiteside are given a night off
What an exhibition: Miami wins 117-115 in buzzer-beater.
MIAMI — This certainly wasn’t a dress rehearsal, not with Okaro White opening at power forward and Wayne Ellington at shooting guard.
And it is looking more and more as if there won’t be one before the Miami Heat open the franchise’s 30th season Wednesday at the Amway Center against the Orlando Magic.
“I don’t feel it absolutely necessary,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the Heat winning 117-115 Wednesday night over the Washington Wizards at AmericanAirlines Arena in the fifth of their six exhibitions. “And actually the last few years, I’ve never done, really, a dress rehearsal.”
For Spoelstra what will matter more than games such as this or Friday’s preseason finale against the Philadelphia 76ers in Kansas City are the intervening practice sessions.
“It’s more about getting consistent to our identity, making sure the players sense how we want to play, what your role will look like, feel like, within that,” he said. “Then even those aren’t totally set or in concrete, because we want guys to evolve and grow and the team to get better as the season goes on.”
With Hassan Whiteside, Dion Waiters and Goran Dragic given the night off, the Heat were without the three players seemingly locked into the seasonopening starting lineup.
“I think Coach kind of knows what he’s going to get with me,” Whiteside said. “So I think he wants to look at some other, different options.”
As for an actual dress rehearsal with the planned starting lineup, Spoelstra appears to be on a somewhat flexible timetable.
“That may be Sunday, it may be Monday. It may be Tuesday. It may be six weeks from now,” he said, known for switching his early season lineups. “The way we do things around here, it could be four months from now. Who knows? We’ll find something that works.”
The Heat pulled it out when offseason free-agent acquisition Jordan Mickey converted a 3-pointer just before the final buzzer to close out the scoring.
Spoelstra not only opened with White and Ellington, but by the midpoint of the second period had already turned to undrafted rookie point guard Derrick Walton Jr., with first-round pick Bam Adebayo, the big man out of Kentucky, also playing with that group.
Tyler Johnson (14 points), Josh Richardson (13) and James Johnson (12) all had their moments Wednesday in limited minutes at the top of the rotation, as did Ellington, who finally regained his 3-point stroke, with a 3-of-6 showing.
Adebayo then came on to lead the way with 15 points, with Matt Williams Jr. getting an opportunity to show off the 3-point stroke that has enticed the Heat.
And while he again struggled from the field, shooting 1 of 7, Justise Winslow did close with nine assists and seven rebounds.
As a matter of perspective, the Heat were equally fluid with their starting lineups during last year’s preseason. Tyler Johnson, who did not start once in his 73 appearances last season, started the first two exhibitions last year. Willie Reed and Derrick Williams, who was gone by midseason, started the penultimate exhibition, with Ellington, Reed and Briante Webber starters for the final game of the 2016 preseason.
“I think we’ve had enough practice time that we understand each other and each others’ games,” Ellington said of the Heat’s lineup reality not coming into focus until next week. “So I don’t feel we need to show it out on the floor these last two preseason games.
“I feel like everybody understands what we want, our style of basketball, the way we need to play to be successful.”
The night off was the first of the preseason for Whiteside and Waiters. For Dragic it made it three consecutive games off after appearing in the first two exhibitions following a hectic September at EuroBasket with the Slovenian national team.
“I’ll treat him day by day. We’ll see,” Spoelstra said of the pattern continuing with Dragic on Friday. “The big key is I just want him feeling fresh, peaking by game one. He’s in great shape, great spirits. We’ll just keep moving forward.”