PORTLAND, Ore. \u2013 Observations and other notes of interest from Thursday night\u2019s 127-110 loss to\u00a0 the Portland Trail Blazers:<\/p>\n
\u2013 There was a point Thursday when there was very real question of who was going to score for the Heat.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Tyler Herro remained back in Miami with his rib issue.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Then, at midday, Norman Powell surfaced on the injury report with recurring back pain.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That effectively would have left the Heat without their two primary wing scorers.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Powell managed to play through.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But it turned out the Heat already had their point of attack.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Bam Adebayo treating Blazers center\u00a0 Donovan Clingan like the neophyte he remains.<\/p>\n
\u2013 No, Adebayo is not a go-to scorer, doesn\u2019t have the dribble-drive game.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But he knows who he is and what he has to do when needed.<\/p>\n
\u2013 This was such an example.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Find the right perimeter talent and enough perimeter alongside, and the two-way play makes any roster better.<\/p>\n
\u2013 No, not going to happen every game or even every quarter.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But there is the confidence to do it when needed.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And the ability to bounce back as needed.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As he did from Monday night\u2019s misery against the Warriors.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Adebayo isn\u2019t the problem.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Never has been.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Just needs better alongside.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Or at least healthier.<\/p>\n
\u2013 For years, Jimmy Butler griped about a lack of Heat support.<\/p>\n
\u2013 On this night, Adebayo would have been within his rights to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That, of course, is not who he is.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Davion Mitchell missing his third game with a shoulder contusion, the Heat opened with a lineup of Adebayo, Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Pelle Larsson and Kasparas Jakucionis.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That lineup entered 1-0.<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 It was Larsson\u2019s 23rd start.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The game was the 500th career start for Adebayo.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With one more start he will tie Udonis Haslem for second on the Heat all-time list.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic again entered together first off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 After being held out for the first time this season in Tuesday night\u2019s game in Sacramento, Dru Smith was back in the mix, third off the bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Simone Fontecchio, again a rotation regular, making it nine deep.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Myron Garden then entered at the start of the second period.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That left only Keshad Johnson out of the mix among available players.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said pregame there is no choice in today\u2019s NBA but to prepare for evolving lineups due to injuries and absences.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With the Heat again without Kel\u2019el Ware and Herro.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cThis also the NBA right now,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s got guys in and out of lineups, so you have to do your diligence. On a nightly basis, particularly you get to January, you\u2019re going to have different guys playing than in November.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 For the umpteenth time before a game, Spoelstra was asked about the Heat\u2019s preference to play at pace.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cWhen we\u2019re consistent, doing what we feel we can do, we feel we can score a lot of points.,\u201d he said. \u201cDifferent guys can have a major impact depending on the night. Our guys feel good about the offense. They\u2019re getting confidence about the offense.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 He added, \u201cWe want that to continue to grow. We want this to be even better three months from now. I think on paper, I think our offense has been great and I think our defense has been really good. We\u2019re top five in defense,\u00a0 we\u2019re top five in scoring, and yet we\u2019re only two games above .500. That\u2019s the biggest issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra said the struggle is about more than statistics.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cWe\u2019ve played well enough on both ends of the floor,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about having a competitive will to figure out how to get more wins. We feel like on paper we should have more wins. We are who we are right now. We feel really good that things will click in the second half, and that\u2019s part of developing a young team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 He added, \u201cYou just have to collectively figure it out at the end of the day. Figure out how to get a win, whether it goes according to plan or not. That\u2019s our biggest area of opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Blazers played in alternate uniforms that did not feature any red.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Odd for a team from the Rose City that plays its game in the Rose Quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. \u2013 Observations and other notes of interest from Thursday night\u2019s 127-110 loss to\u00a0 the Portland Trail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,165,189,3880,6,687,471,3967,66,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-557107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-miami-heat","12":"tag-miami-heat-blog","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-portland","15":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","16":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557107","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=557107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}