Davion Mitchell missing his fifth game<\/a> with a shoulder contusion, the Heat opened for the third consecutive game with a lineup of Bam Adebayo, Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Pelle Larsson and Kasparas Jakucionis.<\/p>\n\u2013 Early in the day, only Adebayo of that first five was not on the Heat injury report.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That lineup entered 2-1.<\/p>\n
\u2013 It was Larsson\u2019s 24th start.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Devin Booker and\u00a0 Jalen Green out for Phoenix, the Suns opened with a lineup of Collin Gillespie, Grayson Allen, Dillon Brooks, Royce O\u2019Neale and Mark Williams.<\/p>\n
\u2013 They entered 1-3 when starting those five.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic entered together first off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Myron Garner then was moved up to third off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Dru Smith for nine deep.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Simone Fontecchio rounding out the 10-man rotation.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Heat team flight from Salt Lake City to Phoenix was delayed by more than three hours Saturday night\/Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 According to FlightAware,\u00a0 the team did not arrive until 4:30 a.m. local time with the game scheduled for 6 p.m. Phoenix time.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra was quick to downplay the inconvenience.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI mean, we were fortunate to save a little bit of time,\u201d he said pregame with a smile. \u201cThey just dropped us off in parachutes like Navy SEALs. We\u2019re ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Of Mitchell missing his fifth game overall and third in a row with a shoulder sprain, Spoelstra said, \u201cHe\u2019s definitely making progress, but we need to go through some kind of workout where he takes contact and then see how he responds to that. But everything else is trending in a really good way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Mitchell went through a non-contact workout 45 minutes prior to the game.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra was asked if he approached the stretch of five games in seven nights with a blueprint, with Sunday ending the run.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s tough to plan too far ahead based on things that happen during the course of the current game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Playing with one of the highest switch rates in the league, Spoelstra offered pregame insight in the absolute trust in Adebayo . . . and therefore perhaps some of the lack of trust in Ware.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cYou have to have versatile defenders,\u201d Spoelstra said of the defensive switching. \u201cBut if you don\u2019t have a five that can play multiple coverages, then you\u2019ll be pretty much stuck to one coverage. Bam has proven over the course of his career that I think he\u2019s the most versatile defender in the league because he has shown exceptional ability to defend in any coverage, whether you want to go drop, whether you want to go catch, whether you want to go trap somebody or switch. So it\u2019s the end of the discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra added, \u201cIf your center can\u2019t switch, then you\u2019re only switching one through four. But in addition to that, yeah, you have to have a group of guys that can either handle the switch when they roll down or guard on the perimeter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra also spoke pregame of Adebayo turning in recent high-volume games with his 3-point shooting.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s a very good shooter,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cI\u2019ve noticed that this year, when we\u2019ve done shooting games, he\u2019ll win games against our best 3-point shooters. So he\u2019s earned that right to launch them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra added, \u201cWe all like it. It helps our offense when he\u2019s spacing the floor. He\u2019s finding a good balance right now, spacing out there and also attacking and being the rugged guy at the rim.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Sunday night\u2019s game, the Heat are done for the season with their schedule west of the Central time zone. Sunday was the Heat\u2019s final game in the Mountain time zone this season, with Thursday night\u2019s game in Portland their last in the Pacific time zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Sunday night\u2019s 111-102 victory over the Phoenix Suns: \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561452,"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-561451","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\/115960189025020655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561451","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=561451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}