IN THE LANE

STAN VAN FLEXIBLE: When the Heat end their six-game trip Sunday, they’ll face a decidedly new-look Detroit Pistons team when it comes to approach. Grudgingly, Stan Van Gundy has moved away from the pick-and-roll offense that has defined most of his coaching career, including with the Heat, for more of a motion approach. Among those who have advocated the style are former Heat players Tim Hardaway and Rex Walters, who now serve as Van Gundy assistants. “That’s what’s working in today’s NBA,” Hardaway told the Detroit News. “Everything is motion, moving the ball and moving the defense from side to side.” Said Van Gundy, “I’ve never really played like this as a coach. I’ve been pick-and-roll 90 percent of the time. It’s a little bit out of my comfort zone.” WAKE-UP CALL: Last Sunday’s 12:30 p.m. tipoff against the Los Angeles Clippers was the first of four consecutive Sunday early starts for the Heat, with a 4 p.m. road game this weekend against the Pistons, a 5 p.m. home game Nov. 19 against the Indiana Pacers and then a 2:30 p.m. Nov. 26 road game against the Chicago Bulls. To Clippers coach Doc Rivers, early starts, albeit earlier than what the Heat next face, don’t quite mesh with an NBA body clock. “We’re creatures of habit,”’ he said. “And you have the whole day to kind of get your habits down. When you throw that afternoon game in, all your habits are gone. You wake up in the morning, you’re at the game. You wake up, you can be having a bad day and you can get through the day and get your head right to get ready for the game. If you have an afternoon game and you start off bad, it usually ends bad as far as the game goes.” STILL WAITING: The Heat’s July trade of Josh McRoberts to the Dallas Mavericks was always about cap space, namely the Heat opening the room needed to retain Wayne Ellington at the cost of a 2023 second-round pick. From a basketball perspective, the score is 0-0, with A.J. Hammons with the Heat’s developmental-league affiliate and McRoberts yet to be activated by the Mavericks amid his ongoing foot issues. “He is making significant improvements,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle recently offered to the Dallas Morning News. “Our guys are doing some great things with him. So there’s a chance he’ll see real court time. But that’s a different timetable. There’s nothing coming over the Brooklyn Bridge on that one.” THE DENG DEAL: It did not take the Heat long to pass when Luol Deng informed them in the 2016 offseason that he had a four-year, $72 million free-agency deal on the table from the Los Angeles Lakers. Two years into that deal, Deng is looking to move on, shuffled off the Lakers’ active roster amid their youth movement. The problem is that Deng still has $36 million over two years left on his contract beyond this season. Even if the Lakers were to “stretch” the remainder of his deal, that would be an offseason move. The Lakers got out of a similar misguided deal with Timofey Mozgov by throwing D’Angelo Russell into their deal with the Brooklyn Nets. The question now is whether they would part with another prospect to part with Deng. At stake could be clearing the cap space needed for a potential run at LeBron James in the offseason.