MIAMI — Ill to the degree that he could not make it to the arena for Sunday night’s road loss to the Indiana Pacers, Heat guard Norman Powell was ruled out at midday Monday for Monday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers at Kaseya Center.

It is the 21st game Powell has missed this season, including the 10th in the last 16, as the Heat have dropped to the bottom of the Eastern Conference play-in race.

Among the reasons the Heat considered this a reset season with the offseason acquisition of Powell from the Los Angeles Clippers was to move past the cycle of absences with Jimmy Butler during his tenure with the team. Instead, Powell is on pace to play fewer games than Butler did in his final three full seasons with the Heat, before Butler was dealt to the Golden State Warriors at the February 2025 NBA trade deadline. Butler played 57, 64 and 60 games in his final three full Heat seasons.

In the wake of Friday night’s record-setting road loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, when the Heat allowed 149 points, the most by an opponent in the team’s 38 seasons, Powell had been listed as questionable due to back spasms,

Those back spasms also were an issue amid Powell’s absence from Sunday’s loss to the Pacers, but there was no such listing on Monday’s injury report.

With Monday’s absence, it left the Heat still at only eight games this season with the entire standard roster available (outside of guard Terry Rozier, who is on NBA leave as he awaits trial in the FBI gambling investigation.

In the wake of Powell’s Sunday absence, guard Tyler Herro thrived offensively against the Pacers with 31 points, two points off his season high.

Among those who have played more than Powell’s 55 games this season on the Heat roster are fringe rotation players Simone Fontecchio and Dru Smith.

Through it all, the Heat went into Monday night’s start of a three-game homestand that continues Wednesday night against the Boston Celtics with Powell with their leading scoring average, at 22.1 points per game, just ahead of Herro’s 21.3 and Bam Adebayo’s 83-point-boosted 20.1.

Powell has been extension eligible this season, otherwise to become a free agent in the offseason.

Back up

With the season over for the Heat’s G League affiliate before those playoffs, two-way players Vlad Goldin, Jahmir Young and Trevor Keels have returned from the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

Spoelstra credited Skyforce coach Dan Bissacio for the development of those sent to Sioux Falls this season, including standard-roster players such as Kasparas Jakucionis, Myron Gardner and Keshad Johnson.

“What we talk about all the time with the G League is that’s the pipeline for our player development, and from that aspect, all the guys that played in the program this year got significantly better,” Spoelstra said.

“You talk about Kas and his eight games there, those were really important for him to be able to be prepared for that next step, to make it into our rotation. KJ’s had some really good minutes there, Trevor being able to earn the two-way, Myron played great minutes there, which led to him having an impact when he had his rotation minutes with us. Even though KJ hasn’t had a lot of minutes with us, his minutes there were really important and Vlad, his minutes have been great there.”