Heat missing Dragic, but Butler available vs. Nuggets. And examining Bam’s six-shot night

The Miami Heat will be without a few rotation players, but the good news is it will have its best player available when it takes on the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena on Wednesday night.

Star wing Jimmy Butler is available to play against the Nuggets, the team announced. Butler was listed as questionable on the Wednesday afternoon injury report with a sprained right ankle that he sustained in Tuesday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns.

But guard Goran Dragic is unavailable Wednesday, with the team resting him on the second night of a back-to-back. He also missed the back end of Miami’s last back-to-back, sitting out an April 1 win over the Golden State Warriors.

Dragic has no new injury, but the Heat wants to protect him because he’s an older player who has dealt with multiple injuries this season. After Wednesday’s game in Denver, Miami has four back-to-back sets remaining on its schedule.

Dragic, who turns 35 on May 6, is expected to be back for Friday’s game against the Timberwolves in Minnesota.

Also, guard Victor Oladipo remains out indefinitely with right knee soreness and he isn’t with the team on this trip.

As for Butler, he said following Tuesday’s loss to the Suns that he believed he would be available to play in Wednesday’s game against the Nuggets after turning his right ankle late in the defeat in Phoenix. Butler was right.

With Miami trailing by double digits, Butler went up for a midrange jump shot and turned his right ankle on the landing with 11:47 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Butler, 31, limped to the bench after Heat trainers checked on him. He managed to return to the game with 7:52 to play and finished with 18 points on 6-of-16 shooting, four rebounds, eight assists and two steals in 32 minutes.

“I rolled my ankle. But I’ll be OK,” Butler said following Tuesday’s loss in Phoenix. “... I’ll be ready to go [Wednesday].”

Butler has missed 15 games this season, with the Heat posting a 4-11 record without him. Miami is 24-15 when Butler has played.

ADEBAYO OFFENSE

The Heat’s offense struggled to consistently generate quality shots, and Bam Adebayo struggled to generate any shots at all in Tuesday night’s loss to the Suns.

The Heat scored just 52 points while shooting 31.7 percent from the field and 4 of 33 (12.1 percent) on threes during the final three periods of its 106-86 loss to the Suns at Phoenix Suns Arena. Adebayo finished with 11 points on just six shot attempts, which is the second fewest he has attempted in a game this season.

“We definitely need to get him the ball in certain spots in our normal flow,” Spoelstra said of getting Adebayo more involved in advance of Wednesday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena. “But again, they got us out of our normal actions, our normal rhythm. But we could have been much better, for sure. But let’s not discredit the type of defense that they’ve played all year. They’ve been very good on that end of the floor.”

Takeaways and reaction from the Heat’s loss to the Suns, and Jimmy Butler’s injury scare

Adebayo finished Tuesday’s 20-point loss with 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and 3-of-4 shooting from the foul line, 10 rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block in 33 minutes. All four of his makes came from inside the paint, as he missed both of his shots outside the paint.

It marked the eighth time this season that Adebayo, who’s averaging 12.7 shots per game this season, has finished a game with fewer than 10 shot attempts.

“Nobody was in a rhythm,” Adebayo said of Tuesday’s offensive struggle. “I feel like we were taking quick shots. So nobody could really get going.”

While six shot attempts isn’t enough for the Heat’s second-leading scorer, the number isn’t necessarily surprising or indicative of Adebayo’s offensive aggressiveness because he’s also one of the team’s primary facilitators and often can make an impact without scoring.

Adebayo, 23, is also not a high-volume scorer. Of the 56 NBA players who entered Wednesday averaging 18 points or more per game this season, Adebayo is doing it on the fewest shot attempts per game.

Adebayo’s true shooting percentage (a shooting percentage that factors in the value of three-point shots and free throws in addition with two-point attempts) is a reflection of that efficiency. He has a true shooting percentage of 62.5 percent this season, which ranks ninth among those averaging 19 points or more per game this season behind only Zion Williamson, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Norman Powell, Zach LaVine and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

That level of efficiency is one of the reasons Adebayo’s teammates know getting him a few additional shot attempts per game wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“It’s surprising just looking at the boxscore,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said when asked about Adebayo’s low shot total on Tuesday. “I think we all take Bam for granted at times just with how much he does for everybody on both ends of the floor. He covers up so much defensively and offensively is so willing to get other people involved. It’s definitely a responsibility on us to do the same. I have a lot of opportunities to do that, especially when coming off of handoffs. I missed him a couple times, turned the ball over once. I had an opportunity to get it to him where he could play-make. So it has gotta be a collective effort, for sure.”

How does Adebayo gauge whether he was aggressive enough?

“Was it a win or a loss,” Adebayo said matter-of-factly.