Simone Fontecchio (groin)<\/a> all out Thursday night.<\/p>\n\u2013 \u201cWe have some competitive, tough-minded guys in the locker room,\u201d Spoelstra said of his players attempting to shorten timelines for absences. \u201cWe do want to be responsible. That was the case with Norm and Timo (Fontecchio).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 So Spoelstra said a measured, proactive approach with rehab.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cHopefully, if you get to things early and you really attack it with the rehab, it can be shorter term,\u201d he said of the two groin strains,<\/p>\n
\u2013 But no, not necessarily monitoring minutes amid this stretch when every game matters for the Heat.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cThere\u2019s going to be other cases that we just have to go for it and play bigger minutes for our main guys,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been starting to do that, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cIt gives an opportunity for other guys to step up,\u201d Spoelstra said of the current absences. \u201cHopefully, a seamless thing that won\u2019t be long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra warned not to overstate 3-point shooters such as Powell and Fontecchio being out.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cOur game isn\u2019t solely built on the three-point ball,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re a paint-attacking team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Powell still out, the Heat for the third consecutive game opened with Davion Mitchell, Tyler Herro, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins and Bam Adebayo.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Nets opened with Nolan Traore, Terance Mann, Michael Porter Jr. , Noah Clowney and Nic Claxton.<\/p>\n
\u2013Kel\u2019el Ware and Jaime Jaquez Jr. entered first off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013Followed by Kasparas Jakucionis and then Dru Smith.<\/p>\n
\u2013With Smith returning to the rotation with Fontecchio out.<\/p>\n
\u2013 In the wake of his team being blown out Tuesday by the Heat, Nets coach Jordi Fernandez was asked pregame what he would like to see differently Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI want to see more winning plays defensively,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously our ball pressure has to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Fernandez had high praise for the work assistant coach Juwan Howard, the former Heat player and assistant coach, has put in with the Nets\u2019 big men.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cThey have that voice right there that helps them every day,\u201d Fernandez said of Howard. \u201cBut the most important thing, it holds them accountable and it challenges them every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Nets again were without first-round pick Egor Demin.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s struggled with plantar fasciitis,\u201d Fernandez said, \u201cand the soreness has increased lately. So we\u2019re being cautious and trying to figure out what\u2019s the best way for him moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 After these consecutive games against the Nets at Kaseya Center, the Heat have a pair of such consecutive games remaining against the same opponent, on March 25 and March 27 in Cleveland, and on April 7 and April 9 in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The game opened the 15th of the Heat\u2019s NBA-high 17 back-to-back sets, with a Friday night game in Charlotte<\/a> to follow.<\/p>\nThe Heat go into Charlotte 10-4 on the second nights of such pairings, up 2-0 on the Hornets in the four-game season series that concludes March 17 in Charlotte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Thursday night\u2019s 126-110 victory over the Brooklyn Nets: \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,165,189,3880,6,671,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-643684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-miami-heat","14":"tag-miami-heat-blog","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nets","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116183611819711798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643684","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=643684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}