Little convenience

Waiters’ difficulty with ankle has 7-11 combo struggling this season

MIAMI — Apparently 7-Eleven is always open — except when it’s not.

Because it hasn’t been that easy to find late-night Dion Waiters this past week, with the Miami Heat guard held out for the final 15 minutes, 23 seconds of Saturday’s loss to the Boston Celtics, after being held out for most of the fourth quarter of Monday’s victory over the Atlanta Hawks.

While a troublesome ankle remains an ongoing issue with Waiters, this is not the 7 (Goran Dragic)-Eleven (Waiters) chemistry that created comparisons last season to the 24-hour convenience chain because of their jersey numbers.

Little has come as a convenience for the Heat this season, taking a 2-3 record into tonight’s fifth game of this season-longest six-game homestand, against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Coach Erik Spoelstra said after Sunday’s practice at AmericanAirlines Arena that he limited Waiters’ minutes against the Celtics because of the struggles of the starting unit.

“That group wasn’t going,” he said. “It’s not an indictment on anything. It was clear, at the beginning of the first and third [quarters], that group was flat. We found a group that got us back into the game, made a couple of different subs. We went with that group down the stretch and we weren’t able to get it done.

“That’s why you have 15 guys on the roster. Different nights call for different things. But Dion is fully in the mix.”

Waiters, who has been dealing with a balky ankle since the end of last season, was not available to the media following Sunday’s practice.

Spoelstra again downplayed, but did not dismiss, the impact of the ankle issue.

“He wouldn’t want me to make that excuse for him, and he won’t make that excuse,” Spoelstra said. “You have to adjust in this league. It’s not the first time that he has dealt with something. And just like the majority of the guys in the league, as the season goes on, you’re not feeling 100 percent and you’ve got to find different ways to get back to winning.

“You could see in some games it looks like he has the step and in some games he doesn’t. But his treatment is going really well. He’s getting better. He’s getting healthier. The pain and all that is clearing up. So he just has to stick with the process.”

Forward James Johnson said teammates appreciate that Waiters is making it to the court every night.

“I don’t feel sorry for that man. He’s also a dog,” Johnson said of Waiters’ pit bull nature. “And we also need him. He knows that we need him. So for him to sacrifice like that is just part of the game, part of the character, part of building something bigger than you.”

MIKE EHRMANN/GETTY IMAGES Though no one on the Heat is using it as an excuse, Dion Waiters’ balky ankle has been an issue through the first five games this season.