blowout loss to the Boston Celtics<\/a> at Kaseya Center, coach Erik Spoelstra seemingly only had\u00a0 trust in six.<\/p>\nWith the Heat, having chosen, as is their wont, to live in the moment, the developmental program seemingly has been placed on hold \u2013 at least on game nights.<\/p>\n
With Nikola Jovic already out of the rotation, the latest to be put on hold is 2025 first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis, who for the second consecutive game on Wednesday night gave way to veteran Dru Smith in the rotation. In addition, limited action continued for 2024 first-round pick Kel\u2019el Ware.<\/p>\n
With a loss that almost assuredly locked the Heat into the play-in portion of the postseason schedule, Spoelstra showed a degree of faith limited to his starting lineup and sixth man Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/p>\n
The upshot is the team\u2019s core being pushed to its late-season limit.<\/p>\n
To wit, in Wednesday night\u2019s loss, from a coach who all season stressed a depth of talent, Spoelstra played:<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Davion Mitchell 40:23.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Tyler Herro 40:20.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Bam Adebayo 37:51.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Pelle Larsson 37:51.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Andrew Wiggins 32:07.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Jaime Jaquez Jr. 29:46.<\/p>\n
That in the third game in four nights.<\/p>\n
Beyond that scraps:<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Kel\u2019el Ware 12:52.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Simone Fontecchio 4:57.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Dru Smith 3:53.<\/p>\n
And in the second half, no Smith, no Fontecchio and 7:31 for Ware, with Adebayo playing all but 2:38 of the final two periods.<\/p>\n
Granted, Norman Powell missed his third consecutive game due to an upper-respiratory illness, but still a compact mix in the wake of success when Spoelstra went 10 or even further deep during the best of times.<\/p>\n
Over the last three games, Jakucionis has logged a total of 12:31 of action.<\/p>\n
Over the last six games, Smith has logged a total of 14:03 of playing time.<\/p>\n
Over the last six, Fontecchio has not gone more than 9:54 in any, after starting the previous two games.<\/p>\n
And over the last three games, Ware has not exceeded 15:03 in any outing, after playing 20 or more minutes in each of the previous three.<\/p>\n
As for Jovic, no action over the last six, despite being cleared to return from his back issue.<\/p>\n
And those minutes come with Powell having missed the past three, his status in question for Saturday\u2019s Heat return to action against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center, in their penultimate regular-season home game.<\/p>\n
With the Heat 2-8 over their last 10, these assuredly are not the best of times, the loss to the Celtics dropping them to No. 10 in the East, the final play-in berth, one that requires two wins, both on the road, without a loss just to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The long and short of it is that it could be a short rotation to end what already has felt like an unduly long season.<\/p>\n
So now limited rotation and limited opportunity with five games left in the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee if we can win all five, and then figure out whatever happens after that,\u201d Adebayo said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to take it one game at a time and whatever happens, happens at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
So not good enough to set up a better finish when whole, and now going with something less when the games could mean even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to play better,\u201d Spoelstra understated ahead of the loss to the Celtics. \u201cWe understand that. We understand where we are. We understand what\u2019s happened. We\u2019re not oblivious to things.\u201d<\/p>\n
So now going with those he trusts most.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have great competitors,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cSo look, there are some disappointing games of late, and you want your guys having that level of care factor and frustration and even anger, all of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means our guys really care about this. And we weren\u2019t able to take advantage of a couple opportunities that we wanted to, but we still have an opportunity where we are. And we have to focus now on compartmentalizing and really just taking each game as an opportunity to take another step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a bad misstep back, allowing 53 first-quarter points to the Celtics in the 147-129 loss<\/a> that represented the second-highest opponent total in the Heat\u2019s 38 seasons.<\/p>\n\u201cSome nights are just not your night,\u201d Herro said. \u201cRight now is not the best time to not have nights that aren\u2019t our night, so it\u2019s not really an excuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWin or lose, we still have to stay in the fight, stay in the saddle, and understand that we\u2019ve got another game in a day. So we\u2019ve got to be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 At times, such as these, when it\u2019s either pull further together or fall further apart, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,144,165,295,189,3881,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-694183","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-miamiheat","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116336036848533201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694183","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=694183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}