MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Wednesday night\u2019s 133-124 loss to the Orlando Magic:<\/p>\n
\u2013 As the entire league\u2019s focus turned to the potential availability of Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Heat was among the teams drawn into the debate.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Now with the NBA trade deadline a week away, on Feb. 5.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cWe don\u2019t really give it any time,\u201d coach Erik Spoelstra said. \u201cThe veteran players understand that so much of it is just conjecture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 But is it also a distraction?<\/p>\n
\u2013 One would have to wonder after this performance.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s just a bunch of BS. But it is part of our business,\u201d Spoelstra said pregame of the conjecture. \u201cThat\u2019s what we all sign up for. You have to be a professional all the way through.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 What matters, Spoelstra said, are these games ahead of the deadline.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cThe most important thing is we\u2019re at an opportunity right now,\u201d he said. \u201cWith all these games that are in front of us, it\u2019s an opportunity to play well and move up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Or there could be a second-half collapse, as there was in this one.<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 Between now and the deadline, the Heat play at the Bulls on Thursday night, at home against the Bulls on both Saturday and Sunday night, and then against the visiting Hawks on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Winnable? Sure.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But supposedly so was this one.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Davion Mitchell missed his fourth consecutive game and six overall with his shoulder sprain.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And, yes, Spoelstra said, he has been missed.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s our point-of-attack defender and our pace is great with him,\u201d Spoelstra said,<\/p>\n
\u2013 The minutes in the interim have gone to Kasparas Jakucionis and Dru Smith.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cWhile he\u2019s been out,\u201d Spoelstra said of Mitchell, \u201cI think Kas and Dru have done a very good job with both of those things. They just do it in a different way. We miss him, but we want to be smart about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jackucionis was limited in this one.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But Smith again was good.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As for where Mitchell stands with the shoulder, Spoelstra said, \u201cI think if he was just doing non-contact right now, he\u2019d be fine. So we\u2019re just going to continue to treat him and then he\u2019s doing more and more on the court. And when he\u2019s ready, he\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Of opening the stretch of four games in five nights on Wednesday night Spoelstra said, \u201cI don\u2019t want us to get ahead of ourselves. We\u2019ll manage our energy the best that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 It was almost as if they paced themselves out of the second half.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Mitchell missing his sixth game with a shoulder contusion, the Heat opened for the fourth consecutive game with a lineup of Bam Adebayo, Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Pelle Larsson and Jakucionis.<\/p>\n
\u2013 That lineup entered 3-1.<\/p>\n
\u2013 It was Larsson\u2019s 25th start.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Adebayo was good.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The rest of the starting lineup?<\/p>\n
\u2013 Not so much.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Magic opened with a lineup of\u00a0 Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black, Desmond Bane, Paolo Banchero and Wendell Carter Jr.<\/p>\n
\u2013\u00a0 Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic entered together first off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Smith followed.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Simone Fontecchio making it nine deep.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Kel\u2019el Ware as 10th man.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The limited use of Ware was curious, to say the least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Wednesday night\u2019s 133-124 loss to the Orlando Magic: \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567705,"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-567704","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\/115976370059901370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567704","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=567704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}