Observations and other notes of interest from Tuesday night\u2019s 130-117 victory over the Sacramento Kings:<\/p>\n
\u2013 There\u2019s something about Pelle Larsson.<\/p>\n
\u2013 There just is.<\/p>\n
\u2013 It\u2019s not just sticking his nose in there.<\/p>\n
\u2013 It\u2019s adding a degree of toughness and pushback in a Heat season that could use some toughness and pushback.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Recall all those times DeMar DeRozan had punked the Heat over the years, no matter the uniform?<\/p>\n
\u2013 Then consider Larsson twice stepping up against DeRozan in this one.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With it getting to the point where DeRozan, driven to distraction, committed his first flagrant foul of the season against Larsson in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But this wasn\u2019t just tough-guy stuff.<\/p>\n
\u2013 This was Larsson establishing a career-high in assists in this one, with nine.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Pelle Larsson as point forward.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Who knew?<\/p>\n
\u2013 While also filling out the rest of the box score.<\/p>\n
\u2013 In another of the night\u2019s storylines, to his credit, through all the ups and downs of playing time, Kel\u2019el Ware showed up every night for work.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Until Tuesday night he and Dru Smith were the only Heat players to appear in every game.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Ware missing Tuesday night\u2019s game against the Kings with hamstring tightness.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Which happens.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But it also showed how thin the Heat stand in their power rotation.<\/p>\n
\u2013 So from the deep freeze, Nikola Jovic moved back into the rotation.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Vlad Goldin remained in the G League, clearly not ready for NBA action.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The irony is that lined up against the Heat starters on Tuesday night was Precious Achiuwa, who was waived by the Heat at the end of camp.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Granted, it\u2019s not as if the Heat stood an Achiuwa away at the end of camp.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But since that move with Precious, the Heat have remained with an open roster spot, now for over a month with enough room to sign a player and remain under the punitive luxury tax.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Jovic again struggled on Tuesday night, there seemingly would be something to be said about another big body.<\/p>\n
\u2013 For now? A waiting game.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Perhaps that extra tax space is being saved for a bigger move.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Perhaps not having another big body is management\u2019s way of making sure Ware plays.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But for as set as the Heat are at the wing and in the backcourt, another big seemingly could provide insurance.<\/p>\n
\u2013 For nights such as Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u2013 In case the other center, in Tuesday\u2019s case Bam Adebayo, is injured or in foul trouble.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Or if there have been harsher sanctions from Tuesday night\u2019s Adebayo dustup with DeRozan in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Where have you gone Kevin Love?<\/p>\n
\u2013 (And, no, the Heat cannot reacquire him directly from the Jazz.)<\/p>\n
\u2013 So for now, still a vacant roster spot.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Still space under the tax to sign an additional player.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Still a holding pattern.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Heat for the second consecutive night opened with a lineup of Adebayo, Larsson, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell and Davion Mitchell.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That lineup is now 3-2.<\/p>\n
\u2013 It was Larsson\u2019s 23rd start.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The start was the 499th of Adebayo\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
\u2013 He is now two starts from tying Udonis Haslem for the second most starts in franchise history.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Kings opened with a lineup of\u00a0 Russell Westbrook, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan\u2009, Precious Achiuwa\u2009\u2009and Maxime Raynaud.<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 Jovic and Jaime Jaquez Jr. entered together in the Heat\u2019s first substitution.<\/p>\n
\u2013 After Jovic was limited to four minutes of mop-up duty in Monday\u2019s blowout loss to the Warriors.<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 Simone Fontecchio and Kasparas Jakucionis followed together, for nine deep.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Myron Gardner ahead of Dru Smith.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The game completed the night of the Heat\u2019s NBA-high 17 back-to-back sets. The Heat entered 5-3 on the second nights of such pairings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Observations and other notes of interest from Tuesday night\u2019s 130-117 victory over the Sacramento Kings: \u2013 There\u2019s something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550857,"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-550856","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\/115932825092059383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550856","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=550856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}