Seasoned neophytes spicing playoff mix
MIAMI – By age or experience, they could be considered neophytes.
But in terms of postseason exposure, the Miami Heat are all grown up.
That, to coach Erik Spoelstra, is among the reasons his team has been so competitive during this playoff run that delivered his team to Sunday’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
At 25, center Bam Adebayo, entered Sunday with 59 games of postseason experience, almost all of it as a leading man.
“The thing about it is Bam is a young player,” Spoelstra said, “but he has as much playoff experience as anybody in this league. He’s contributed to a lot of playoff wins.
“There’s probably not a lot of 25-year-olds that have as many wins as he does in the playoffs.”
Then there is point guard Gabe Vincent, who at 26 has been with the Heat since the team’s run to the NBA Finals in the pandemic 2020 quarantine bubble at Disney World.
“That experience is invaluable, it’s priceless,” Vincent said, “so definitely thankful for that. And we’re going to try to use and most importantly learn from our mistakes we made in the past and move it forward.”
Forward Max Strus joined the Heat in the immediate wake of the Disney bubble, now in his second deep playoff run in his third Heat season.
“It’s been big,” Strus, 27, said of being around so many meaningful moments in his brief NBA tenure. “We know what we’re capable of, we know what we all do well and what we’re all good at. We’ve been here before. Everybody has been in these playoff moments.
“So that just helps us grow and be able to understand situations and understand it’s one game at a time and just take it one day at a time.”
In a perfect world, the seasoning also would have further groomed guard Tyler Herro. Instead, Herro, 23, remains out with a broken hand, but has continued to travel with the team to take in all the playoff moments.
Without the neophytes, this playoff run might not have endured to this degree.
Instead, short on NBA tenure but long on playoff exposure.
“They get it,” Spoelstra said. “They have so much playoff experience. We need a lot of guys coming and contributing.”
Perhaps most significantly, the learning curve has been expedited with players who also are quick studies.
“That experience is invaluable, it’s priceless,” Vincent said of what came before. “So definitely thankful for that and we’re going to try to use and most importantly learn from our mistakes we made in the past and move it forward.”
All with plenty of mentorship and guidance in place from veterans such as 37-yearold point guard Kyle Lowry and 34-year-old Kevin Love.
“It is so important,” Spoelstra said of that aspect. “They’re pros, and I think it’s really a credit to them, to embrace everything that we’re about, first and foremost. That they just want to fit in, they want to help, they want to make sure that people feel comfortable. And they both have said the same thing, just lay out a role, I just want to complement, I just want to help, I want to help this thing work, and ultimately help the team win. And that is unique.
“A lot of times for veteran players that have championship pedigree, you can’t emphasize that enough. But their experiences really show out even more so in the playoffs than in the regular season, and on the road, that they’re able to stabilize the team, stabilize those skirmishes and just bring a great deal of confidence and stability to their units. Because they’ve been in these situations time and time again.”
Love said the 20-somethings have made mentorship easy.
“Guys have been in the Finals, won the Finals, UD (Udonis Haslem) playing 20 years, me and Kyle winning one,” Love said of their NBA championships. “I think we impart some things on guys throughout our entire lineup. But still we have guys that are hungry.” Hungry … but experienced.
Which is why Spoelstra said it is time to back off the untested, unproved and undrafted narrative.
“Yeah, that’s kind of played out,” he said. “That’s so disrespectful to keep on talking about that that way. Like, Gabe has been with us; he’s a veteran. He’s a seasoned veteran. I have not even bothered to look at the playoff experience.
“That storyline is over. These guys have proven themselves as competitors and winning players.”