{"id":696280,"date":"2026-04-03T17:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/696280\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T17:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:51:13","slug":"miami-heat-norman-powell-to-miss-23rd-game-on-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/696280\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Heat Norman Powell to miss 23rd game on Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI \u2014 Norman Powell was back around his Heat teammates on Friday for the first time in nearly a week, but will remain sidelined Saturday when the Heat host the Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n

Powell has been listed out the past three games due to an upper-respiratory illness, to be listed as out Saturday due to return-to-conditioning protocol.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s absence will be Powell\u2019s 23rd of the season, his 12th over the last 18 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling better,\u201d Powell said after Friday\u2019s practice at Kaseya Center<\/a>. \u201cIt was a long week of being sick, out of it, fatigue, body aches, not really being able to move or get out of bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m feeling better now. You can still hear me, I\u2019m a little congested and stuff. But it feels good to be back in here and get some work in and trying to get back as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just not on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill got to do the return-to-play process,\u201d he said. \u201cI still got to get my conditioning and body feeling ready to go up and play a full, fast-paced game, don\u2019t want to come back from sickness and rush it and get a soft-tissue injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I got to take the next couple of days just to get back in playing shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Saturday, the Heat next play on Tuesday and Thursday nights in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Powell previously had been listed as questionable due to back spasms, prior to being listed as out due to illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not an issue,\u201d he said of the spasms. \u201cBut my back is tight here and there. It was me feeling like I got hit by a semi-truck and everything like that. So back spasms cleared up, but yeah, I just got hit with some type of bug and that took me out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The missed time comes with Powell, 32, having been eligible for an extension this season, otherwise to be an unrestricted free agent this summer.<\/p>\n

The latest absences comes in the wake of Powell\u2019s first All-Star selection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, very frustrating, wanting to continue to build, wanting to help the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said it was particularly tough being out during this current run of eight losses in 10 games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just looking at how I can get back, focus on the road to recovery and hopefully get back in these games in Toronto and finish out the season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While Powell practiced Friday, guard Tyler Herro was held out due to a sore right foot, but is listed as probable for Saturday.<\/p>\n

Defensive component<\/p>\n

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Friday that the Heat\u2019s move to more zone defense factored in going with veteran point guard Dru Smith over rookie point guard Kasparas Jakucionis the past two games.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that\u2019s not even like anything against Kas,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cIn some of these games, we\u2019re trying to do whatever we need to do. And in these cases, we\u2019re playing a little bit more of the zone, and Dru is one of our best zone guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also like Kas out there, too. He gives us a scoring punch. And right now it\u2019s just by any means necessary. Our players understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playoff tickets<\/p>\n

Despite uncertainty of whether there even will be a home postseason game, the Heat on Friday announced ticket sales for all rounds of the postseason, from the play-in round through the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Should the Heat finish as the No. 10 East seed, they would not host a game in the play-in round, regardless of those results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Norman Powell was back around his Heat teammates on Friday for the first time in nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328881,"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-696280","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\/116342048902215974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696280","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=696280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}