MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Saturday night\u2019s 122-120 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder:<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 While Jaime Jaquez Jr. (knee) and Davion Mitchell (shoulder) again were out, the twist to the injury report was Tyler Herro being out due to a rib contusion.<\/p>\n
\u2013 It marked the 31st absence of the season for Herro, who missed the season\u2019s first 17 games following September ankle surgery and then 13 more with a toe contusion before returning last week.<\/p>\n
\u2013 He has appeared in just 11 games.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That had coach Erik Spoelstra asked before the game whether the Heat can comfortably game plan with Herro missing so much time.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cThe one at the beginning of the year, that was just something coming into the season. You can\u2019t control that,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cBut there\u2019s going to be daily stuff that happens with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra added, \u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Of the revolving rotation door, Spoelstra said absences are part of the modern NBA equation.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI just see all the possibilities,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we\u2019ll manage it regardless, and this is the NBA right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Herro, Mitchell and Jaquez out, the Heat opened with a lineup of Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell, Pelle Larsson and Kasparas Jakucionis.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Of Jakucionis earning his way in, Spoelstra said pregame, \u201cHe\u2019s relentless with his approach and I find that super unique, how ambitious he is and how relentless he is with his work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cHe can do some things offensively that I think it makes us a little bit more dynamic,\u201d Spoelstra said.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Thunder opened with a lineup of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cason Wallace, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Simone Fontecchio was first off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Dru Smith and Nikola Jovic then followed together.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Ware was fourth off the bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Shortly after entering Ware recorded both his 50th career 3-pointer and 250th career offensive rebound.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Powell\u2019s sixth point gave him 9,000 for his career.<\/p>\n
\u2013 While not the optimal rotation, it did allow Adebayo to again play with aggression.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Again paying dividends.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And Powell also thrived in the void of Herro.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Which will only further fuel that debate.<\/p>\n
\u2013 All as the lack-of-Ware debate continues.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With the minutes not only limited again for the second-year 7-footer..<\/p>\n
\u2013 But, as the box score showed, Fontecchio, Jovic and Smith all playing ahead of him in the first half.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Gardner ahead of him in the second half.<\/p>\n
\u2013 At this point, if Ware truly can\u2019t be played ahead of Adebayo, then the minutes can\u2019t be there.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Adebayo back to maximizing his minutes.<\/p>\n
\u2013 So, basically, if you play small against the Heat, you, at least at the moment, play Ware off the floor.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Ware\u2019s first minutes of the second half came with 3:42 left in the third quarter, after playing eight minutes in the first half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Saturday night\u2019s 122-120 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,144,165,295,189,3880,3881,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-544183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-heat","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miami-heat-blog","14":"tag-miamiheat","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115914403032761892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}