NEW YORK – Observations and other notes of interest from Friday night’s 100-98 loss to the New York Knicks:
– Here is how the Heat’s reality has changed:
– They missed Duncan Robinson in this one.
– Desperately.
– On a night the Knicks kept on coming, what the Heat needed was one more 3-point dagger.
– The type of dagger that a rejuvenated Duncan Robinson has been providing.
– And then came the thumb injury that kept him out Friday night.
– And then the Heat shot 3 of 21 in the fourth quarter.
– Yes, 3 of 21, including 1 of 8 on 3-pointers.
– No, Cole Swider wasn’t a replacement.
– Or an answer.
– It reached the point where Jimmy Butler was the best 3-point threat.
– Which says plenty.
– So a loss on what still can be a winning trip with a victory Saturday in Brooklyn.
– And a reminder of how much Duncan Robinson has come to mean.
– Especially this season.
– Especially with Tyler Herro still out.
– The wheel of lineups this time landed on Josh Richardson, who filled in for sidelined Robinson.
– The other four Heat starters remained Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Haywood Highsmith and Kyle Lowry.
– The choice of Richardson to start was interesting because with Dru Smith (knee) out for the season, Richardson also stands as the de facto backup point guard.
– Richardson’s first 3-pointer tied Wayne Ellington for 10th on the Heat all-time list.
– Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said pregame not to get caught up in the delineation of point guard.
– “We feel fine about it,” he said. “We’re speaking different languages. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole of saying positionless and then people say it’s a Spoism. I don’t feel like wasting time on that. But yeah, we have enough. We’re playing a different way. So it’s hard for me to explain. But we feel comfortable with what we have.”
– Kevin Love, back after missing Wednesday’s game in Cleveland due to personal reasons, entered along with Jaime Jaquez Jr. as the Heat first reserves.
– Caleb Martin followed.
– It left the Heat playing bigger rotations than typical, including Love alongside Adebayo.
– Cole Swider then entered at the start of the second period to make it nine deep for the Heat.
– That left Jamal Cain and Thomas Bryant as the lone players not to see action.
– With Robinson playing some of his best ball, Spoelstra did not minimize the absence,
– “But we’ve played some lineups without him, and this will be a short-term thing,” he said. “How long that will be, I don’t know. But we can wrap our minds around coming up with a gameplan to put up enough points on the board and do it a slightly different way.”
– As Martin works his way back from preseason knee pain, Spoelstra said the results have been encouraging.
– “We are specifically not using a minutes-restriction term,” he said. “But he’s making tremendous progress and we want to keep him going that way. I’m not going to play him, I won’t say what kind of minutes. But he was able to play 25 minutes the other night and he was fine (Thursday). That was a great sign.”
– Spoelstra added, “We just have to keep him going in this kind of direction. You can see what he provides for us, which is so much of an X-factor dynamic on both sides of the floor.”
– Martin said there was some residual pain coming out of Wednesday night, but nothing major.
– As for the knee pain that has sidelined guard R.J. Hampton, who is on a two-way contract, Spoelstra said, “I don’t have a timetable on him. But I actually just talked to Jeff Ruiz, our physical therapist who’s working with him in Miami. And he’s making really good progress. He’s doing more and he’s doing stuff on the court. But there’s not a specific timetable on when he’ll be back. But it’s all encouraging, not only for R.J. but for Tyler (Herro).”
– With Saturday in Brooklyn ending a Heat run of 9 of 10 on the road, as well as the season-opening stretch of 12 of 17 away from Kaseya Center, Spoelstra was asked at the morning shootaround about road fatigue.
– “No,” he said, “this has been a great opportunity for our team. We said that going into the first part of this road trip that these next three weeks would be an opportunity for us to try to get our team to a different level. We’re starting to get more consistent to our identity, we’re playing more consistent basketball.”
– He added, “It’s been good for us and we’ve been able to bond and we’ve had a lot of good experiences so far on the road.”
– He did note an exception.
– “The only time probably any of us felt it was yesterday for Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving meal,” he said, “for those of us who did not have our families come up.”
– He then invoked Heat President Pat Riley.
– “But as Pat says, if you want to be in professional sports and particularly at this kind of level and live our dreams, especially if you’re a good team,” he said, “you’re going to be playing on a lot of the holidays and that’s part of the deal and we’re grateful for that.”
– Friday was the third of four pool-play games for the Heat in the NBA In-Season Tournament.
– “We wanted to be open to it,” Spoelstra said. “I think we thought early on that this was good for the league and you don’t know what to expect until you’re actually in it.”
– He added, “It’s definitely peaking everybody’s interest. It was a reminder today that we’re only two weeks away. That’s when that first championship can happen. That would be exciting to be a part of it.”
– Friday meant a reunion for Spoelstra with Knicks guards Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, who were part of the USA Basketball roster at this past summer’s World Cup, where Spoelstra worked as an assistant for Team USA under Steve Kerr.
– “They are high-quality people,” Spoelstra said of Brunson and Hart. “That’s why they’ve had so much success in college and in the pros. They’re winning players, but winning people off the court. I really enjoyed my time with them.”
– Spoelstra later noted that he and Hart live in the same Miami neighborhood.