Final road stop a win
Spoelstra defends his former assistant Fizdale after firing
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said this one was about trying to finally finish a trip on a high note. And perhaps it was. But it also was about a friend that Spoelstra felt was wronged, with the Memphis Grizzlies recently having fired former Spoelstra assistant coach David Fizdale as their coach. And that made it personal. In the end, Spoelstra had it all, as the Heat pushed past the Grizzlies 107-82. In the process, Spoelstra moved within one victory of tying Pat Riley for the franchise coaching win record of 454.
Guard Goran Dragic paced the Heat during the decisive stages, closing with 19 points, as the Heat closed out a 2-1 trip with mostly balanced scoring.
Both teams were shorthanded, the Heat without center Hassan Whiteside for a fifth consecutive game due to a bone bruise on his left knee, with the Grizzlies without point guard Mike Conley due to an ongoing Achilles issue.
That had the Heat, for the third consecutive game, opening with Kelly Olynyk at center and James Johnson at power forward.
The Heat had ended both of their previous extended trips with losses, one to the Detroit Pistons and then last week’s embarrassment against the New York Knicks.
That had Spoelstra going in saying, “We want to finish this trip. We’ve had opportunities to do it on other trips. We haven’t been able to close it out.”
But there was more than ending on Spoelstra’s mind.
Spoelstra had lunch Monday with Fizdale, and while he downplayed Fizdale’s recent dismissal as Grizzlies coach as motivation for the game, his pregame comments somewhat indicated otherwise.
“We’re coaching for something bigger right now, with our team, but I still feel for Fiz,” he said of his former assistant, who in the 2016 offseason took over on the Grizzlies’ bench in his first turn as an NBA head coach, “and what he ultimately had to go through here.
“You know, that’s my brother. And you want him to have a fair shot and to be able to go through some tough times, some adverse times, through a transition period that the organization is going through. That’s what the thought was, that it would be a transition and an opportunity to build a different culture.”
The Grizzlies in the offseason allowed franchise mainstays Zach Randolph and Tony Allen to depart in free agency, also now dealing with the absence of sidelined point guard Mike Conley.
Fizdale was start.
“Unfortunately,” Spoelstra said, “he wasn’t given that opportunity. Fiz is a star. He’s going to get another dismissed happy after 7-12 opportunity, in any field.
“He can choose where he wants to go. Hopefully he can spend some time in Miami with us during the spring between his pina coladas and beach time in L.A.”
It was a rough go in the foul column for the Heat’s big men, with Bam Adebayo and Kelly Olynyk both with four before the end of the third period, Olynyk limited to 14 minutes to that stage.
A 9-0 run late in the third period pushed the Heat to the game’s first double-digit lead, at 68-58, moving then to a 70-60 lead entering the fourth, with Dragic up to 19 points at that stage.
The Heat earlier used a 9-0 run to move to a 32-30 lead in the second period after falling behind by seven. They then went into the intermission up 45-42.
The Heat committed 10 turnovers in the first half, the Grizzlies 11.
The Heat used an 8-0 run to move to an early five-point lead, but trailed 23-21 at the end of the opening period.
Adebayo, who had to enter when Olynyk was forced out with his second foul with 9:01 left in the opening period, was 3 for 3 for eight points in the first quarter.
The Heat were up to six turnovers early in the second period, matching their total in Saturday’s victory over the Brooklyn Nets in Mexico City.
The two-game season series concludes Feb. 24 at AmericanAirlines Arena.
The teams entered having split the two-game series each of the preview two seasons, with the Heat without a sweep since 2006-07.