Heat clean up issues
Spoelstra, referees shed light on closing minutes
TORONTO— Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday was about maintaining perspective and maintaining health for his team in advance of Thursday’s Game 2 against the Toronto Raptors in this best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series.
After a harrowing Tuesday night that saw the Heat forced into overtime before escaping with a 102-96 victory at Air Canada Centre, Spoelstra took measure of the series and his team following Wednesday’s practice.
“A seven-game series, by its nature, is a long series,” Spoelstra said. “And we’ve been in their locker room, where you’re down in a series and understand the urgency and desperation that they’ll be bringing.
“It is so tough to win a game in a playoff series. And one game does not necessarily, and oftentimes doesn’t, indicate any kind of momentum to a second game.”
The Heat exited Tuesday’s victory with guard Dwyane Wade dealing with a bruised left knee and center Hassan Whiteside with a strained right knee, with both taking treatment Wednesday and listed as probable for Thursday.
“It’s therapy, icing, getting a certain kind of medicine in it. And I’ll be fine,” Wade said. “It didn’t swell up, because it’s the inside. So it’s just the bone over there. But it’s not as bad as I thought it was with the pain I felt when it first happened.”
Whiteside was injured early in Tuesday’s victory.
“They did some compression so it wouldn’t swell up on me. It’s sore, but I’m going to be OK, though,” he said. “It was hurting me and I played through it. I still managed to get all the rebounds I could.”
Frantic finish
Spoelstra said the Heat spent Wednesday cleaning up some of the issues that led to Tuesday’s harrowing finish after his team had built a 10-point fourthquarter lead.
But he said fouling Raptors guard Kyle Lowry before he could loft his 39-foot game-tying 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer was not one of them.
Spoelstra, though, said the plan was not to allow such a running start for Lowry.
“I told Justise [Winslow] we don’t want a team to be able to roll the ball and get momentum. And that was probably our error there,” he said. “We’re a team that will play it out, but we would like to put more pressure and make a turn of the ball happen. But I’ve seen too many Kyle Lowry late-game situations where he somehow finds away to turn that into a bail-out foul.”
While it appeared Lowry may have stepped on the sideline before draining his shot, the NBA’s officiating report issued Wednesday noted, “Upon reviewing all available video feeds, there is no evidence that Lowry (TOR) stepped out of bounds.”
Spoelstra said he did not request a review.
“I think our bench did. I did not at that point,” he said. “It just happened so quickly. And I was focused on getting our huddle right from there.”
The NBA ruled there were six incorrect rulings in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter as well as the five minutes of the overtime, with five that should have gone against the Raptors, including a foul on what turned into one of the Heat’s errant inbound passes.
Confidence remains
Raptors coach Dwane Casey said Wednesday he is confident Lowry can shoot himself out of a shooting slump that has been weeks in the making.
“We’re not going to change the offense or anything like that,” he said. “We believe in him. I think situations like that — went through a similar thing with a guy like Ray Allen, Hersey Hawkins — shooters they go through droughts, just like a baseball hitter. And the only thing that’s going to help that is to see that ball go through the hole a couple times.
“And that’s all a guy like that needs. He’s not going to forget how to shoot, and you don’t want him to.”