and Kasparas Jakucionis then followed<\/a> together.<\/p>\n\u2013 With Myron Gardner making it 10 deep.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Gardner playing ahead of both Dru Smith and Nikola Jovic.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And also no Simone Fontecchio in the rotation.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra ended the morning shootaround by putting an emphatic spin on what he hopes comes next.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI want them to enjoy this time of year,\u201d he said of his players. \u2018There\u2019s been all the narratives all year long, but this is what competitors want. You want to be able to fight for something, compete for something. We have an opportunity in front of us, and we\u2019re all looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 He then continued the theme pregame.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cWe have a great opportunity in front of us,\u201d he said. \u201cLook, there\u2019s been a lot of narratives around the league, a bunch of different things. We just see opportunity in front of us. We\u2019re getting healthier right now, just at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 He continued, \u201cWe feel like we have everything we need, to make a run, but we have to prove it. And that\u2019s what\u2019s exhilarating about it, is the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 He added, \u201cWe\u2019re just looking forward to this final run. It\u2019s the best time of year. The playoff picture is starting to become a little bit more clear. The games are really competitive. You can see what\u2019s about to happen in the middle of April. And I know our guys are competitors and we\u2019re looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Herro stressed he was just glad to be back.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cJust happy to be playing basketball again,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a rough couple of months going through different nicknack injuries, nothing really like super big of an injury that\u2019s going to affect my whole body, career long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Herro indicated at Friday morning\u2019s shootaround that the plan was to play both ends of the back-to-back set that concludes Saturday at home against the Hawks.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cOver the last like week or so, I really ramped up trying to get ready for tonight and tomorrow and really for the rest of the season after the break,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it responded well and just got to continue to see how it feels after I continue to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra downplayed a specific minutes limit.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cBut we\u2019ll be certainly mindful,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to play him 38 minutes. He hasn\u2019t played a game in a while. He doesn\u2019t have the build-up of a lot of games, but he always keeps himself in great condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra downplayed being whole as being a panacea.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cYou have to just manage whatever is going on,\u201d he said of his team\u2019s previous injury situation. \u201cThese are things that you can\u2019t control.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Powell didn\u2019t downplay it at all.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s something that we\u2019ve been wanting to have all year long,\u201d he said, \u201cfinally having it, and it\u2019s an important part of the season. It\u2019s really crucial for us to build chemistry and start to stack together some really important wins going down the stretch of this season.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Said Adebayo, \u201cIt\u2019s always good to go into the second half of the season fully healthy. It\u2019s time to make a push.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 The game opened the 14th of the Heat\u2019s NBA-high 17 back-to-back sets this season. The Heat are 9-4 on the second nights of such pairings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Friday night\u2019s 128-97 victory over the Atlanta Hawks: \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,677,165,189,3880,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-615837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-atlantahawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-hawks","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-miami-heat","15":"tag-miami-heat-blog","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116108895494442878","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615837","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=615837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}