Spoelstra misses game vs. Nets; assistant Quinn serves as coach

Erik Spoelstra was away from the Miami Heat on Saturday night due to what the team announced as personal reasons, with assistant Chris Quinn coaching that team against the Brooklyn Nets at FTX Arena.

The team later said the absence was due to a medical procedure for one of his two young sons.

It is the third time since Spoelstra took over as coach in 2008 that he has missed a game, twice previously away from the team for the births of his two sons.

Former Heat assistant Dan Craig, who now is a Los Angeles Clippers assistant coach, guided the Heat during those two games.

Saturday is the first time Quinn coached the team during the regular season, although the former Heat guard has coached the team during summer league and also coached with the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

“Obviously it’s only been a couple of hours since I found out,” Quinn said ahead of Saturday night’s game. “And certainly I’m not re-writing the book by any means. We have a system in place, a culture in place, and moving over a seat is just keeping that moving in the right direction.”

Quinn said his tenure under Spoelstra, as well as his work with Heat President Pat Riley, has left him with a voice similar to Spoelstra’s.

“Spo is top 15 coach of all-time,” Quinn said of the recent vote of current and past coaches as part of the NBA’s 75th-anniversary commemoration. “So any time you have a mentor of that level, and then also with Coach Riley around so much, mentors of that level, I’ve learned in my seven, eight years of coaching tremendously from Spo, so it only makes sense that my voice is sound like him at this point.”

The Heat next play Monday night against the Sacramento Kings, at the close of a fourgame homestand, before heading out for a three-game trip that opens Wednesday against the Boston Celtics.