For the ages: Heat’s Erik Spoelstra turns to a bench duo that is 71 years old
When it comes to depth, Erik Spoelstra has leaned on veterans throughout his Miami Heat coaching tenure, from older contributors such as Ray Allen, Shane Battier and Chris Andersen to even a pre-retirement Dwyane Wade.
At the moment, Spoelstra is bringing a duo for the ages off his bench, having moved to 37-year-old Kyle Lowry and 34-year-old Kevin Love as his first two reserves.
It has added, Spoelstra said, an element of trust.
“I mean, they’re both so highly decorated in terms of experience level and their skill level, their ability to read defenses and know how to manipulate defenses,” Spoelstra said ahead of Thursday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center. “When you get that kind of experience together you don’t have to overcoach it. They’re going to make it all work.
“And that’s been a tremendous boost for our second unit. They’ve really helped stabilize that group and helped that group be much more efficient offensively.”
Lowry and Love have both previously started for the Heat, and Caleb Martin is the lone other reserve seemingly guaranteed minutes in a rotation that typically has been shortened for the playoffs.
With Lowry, the imminent question is whether he will play in both games of the Heat’s back-to-back set that concludes Friday night against the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena. He has yet to do so since returning last month from a month off due to knee pain.
“I have not even followed up with the trainers or with Kyle about that,” Spoelstra said, with Lowry last having played both nights of a back-to-back set on Dec. 30-31. “They’ve been working on a plan.”
The tightening of the rotation has left Cody Zeller as somewhat of a swing player, the 30-year-old center over the past week both starting (Saturday night against the Dallas Mavericks) and being held out by coach’s decision (Tuesday night against the Detroit Pistons).
“These are not easy decisions,” Spoelstra said, “and these are decisions we’ve wanted to have for a long time, where we have guys available and guys playing well, and doing whatever they have to do to contribute.
“He’s very stable emotionally. He just wants to help this team win. Like everybody else, there’s a lot of guys that deserve to play and we can’t play everybody. But we’re beyond all that right now. It’s only about doing whatever we have to do to win games right now.”
Adebayo ailing
Starting center Bam Adebayo surfaced on the injury report with a strained left quadriceps tendon sustained during Tuesday night’s victory in Detroit.
“I just fell wrong,” he said Thursday of a moment early in that game against the Pistons. “It happens all the time. Dudes are beat up a lot this time, anyway. So get treatment, see how it feels.
“It was a pocket-pass foul. I got up, kind of it felt funny. But I kept going, played the rest of the half.”
Adebayo missed Saturday’s game due to a bruised right hip.
Great unknowns
The Heat find themselves at a juncture still with meaningful games but also with opponents either locked into playoff seeds (the 76ers) or keeping an eye on lottery seeding (the Wizards on Friday night and then when they host the Orlando Magic in Sunday’s season finale).
“That seems to be a little bit more normal, unfortunately, in an NBA season right now,” Spoelstra said. “You don’t know who’s playing in a lot of these circumstances. So we’ve had that mental prep for that I think.”
That, Spoelstra said, has the Heat turning inward.
“There’s only clarity with us,” he said. “We’re not dealing with anything else other than trying to get everybody available, do all we need to do.”
