Heat go on road trip without Whiteside
Bone bruise will keep center out until at least Dec. 13.
MIAMI — The Heat will have to continue to find ways to compete without starting center Hassan Whiteside.
Whiteside will not travel on the three-game road trip, which begins tonight in San Antonio against the Spurs, as he continues to recover from a bone bruise in his left knee. The earliest Whiteside can return will be when the Heat face the Trail Blazers in Miami on Dec. 13.
“He’ll do a lot of treatment, a lot of conditioning and whatever corrective strength exercises he can do,” coach Erik Spoelstra said Tuesday when asked about the plan for Whiteside while the Heat are on the road.
Whiteside already has missed the Heat’s past three games. Miami announced Thursday that its $98 million center would miss one to two weeks as he goes througha rehabilitation program for the bone bruise.
Whiteside seemed less sure about a timeline for his return when asked about the injury on Friday.
“Just wait until it’s totally healed,” said Whiteside, who missed five games in October with a different bone bruise on his left knee. “I think I kind of rushed it before, so just wait until I’m totally 100 percent. So I don’t want to come back and be a watereddown Hassan and people looking at you crazy like, ‘What’s wrong with Hassan? Why is he not playing at this level?’ Or whatever. I don’t even want to risk that.”
The Heat are 3-5 without Whiteside this season.
According to the statistics, Miami misses the 7-footer most on the defensive end. The Heat have allowed 99.3 points per 100 possessions when Whiteside has been on the court, compared to 107.7 points per 100 possessions when he’s not playing.
Over the past three games without Whiteside, the Heat have posted the league’s third-worst defensive rating (114.9 points per 100 possessions).
Spoelstra said the Heat have to adjust defensively without Whiteside.
“That’s the bottom line,” he said. “Certainly Hassan brings a tremendous amount to our defense, even our philosophy of how we defend. But we’re better than what we have been and we sim- ply have to be more committed to it. Hassan will not be with us this road trip, so we have enough principles, we have enough habits. It’s about doing it consistently.”
Rookie Bam Adebayo has started in place of Whiteside at center while he’s been out. Also, Kelly Olynyk is averaging 27.7 minutes of playing time during this three-game stretch, up from his season average of 19.9 minutes.
Vegas’ oddsmaker down on Heat: Off to an 11-12 start, the Heat are among the teams whose odds to win the championship and their conference have increased, according to Bovada.
Miami was at 100-to-1 odds to win the title one month ago. That number has risen to 200-to-1. The Heat’s odds of winning the Eastern Conference have gone from 40-to-1 to 66-to-1.
The schedule, though, has been difficult with the next three road games concluding a stretch in which Miami will have played 14 of 19 games away and home games against the two best teams in the league, Boston and Golden State. Miami starts a stretch of nine of 13 games at home on Dec. 13.
Excluding six teams who were taken off the board, the Heat are one of 11 teams who have longer odds of winning the title than a month ago. Only Orlando’s increased more among those in the East, going from 250-to-1 to 500-to-1.