MIAMI — Observations and other notes of interest from Tuesday night’s 112-86 victory over the Golden State Warriors:
– This was a reminder.
– No, not of a certain forward who once played here.
– Fortunately, we appear to be over the Jimmy Butler overkill.
– Instead it was a reminder of what the Heat can be defensively at their locked-in best.
– We’ve seen it over the years before, the Jeremy Lin singlemindedness.
– When the Heat decide a specific player and his team will face 48 minutes of torment.
– This was another of those nights.
– Granted, the results likely would have been far different had Stephen Curry been on the receiving end of those Butler passes out of traps.
– But he wasn’t.
– So the Heat swarmed.
– Relentlessly.
– You knew Erik Spoelstra would be up for such a moment.
– And you knew there was no challenge Bam Adebayo loves better than the opportunity to put his defense under the spotlight.
– So national television audience, Butler as the defensive cover … and Adebayo activated.
– Not that he was half bad on offense, either.
– The Heat haven’t made many memories this season.
– At least of the positive variety.
– But Tuesday night showed that the defensive possibilities very much still are there.
– With Duncan Robinson out, the Heat opened with a lineup of Adebayo, Kel’el Ware, Andrew Wiggins, Tyler Herro and Alec Burks.
– Herro is now one appearance from his first 70-game season.
– It was Burks fifth start of the season.
– And left the Heat with their 24th lineup.
– The Warriors, by contrast, went small, with a starting lineup of Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Butler, Gary Payton II and Draymond Green.
– The Warriors ruled out Curry 90 minutes before the game due a pelvic contusion.
– Curry went through an extensive workout Monday at Barry University.
– “It just wasn’t quite there, and we just can’t risk it,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
– While Adebayo opened defensively against Butler, Butler opened defensively against Ware.
– Davion Mitchell was first off the Heat bench.
– Followed by Haywood Highsmith.
– And then Kyle Anderson.
– So no Jaime Jaquez Jr.
– And, again, no Terry Rozier.
– When it came to Spoelstra’s pregame interview, there was little desire to head down memory lane when it came to Butler.
– “We’re trying to focus on everything we’ve been dealing with for the last three weeks,” he said of his team’s struggles.
– Saying of Butler, “I think all the emotions were late December and early January, to be frank.”
– As in when Butler decided to begin to force his way out.
– “This is the NBA,” Spoelstra said, “so there’s a lot of things that will happen. There’s a lot of change in the NBA. I think we’re pretty far removed from that kind of emotion.”
– And, still, the questions came.
– “When, get past all of this,” Spoelstra said. “I said this the other night, this league is a league of change. It’s a league of emotion. And get past it. Years beyond you’ll look back at this chapter and that’s what it was, a five-and-a-half-year chapter. That’s equivalent to when Pat (Riley) was coaching with the Lakers, probably like a 10-year chapter.”
– Spoelstra continued, “It’s a transient league now. So that was a pretty long chapter. There were a lot of different highs and lows with that. But, yeah, I’ll look back on that fondly.”
– Asked at the morning shootaround about going against Butler, Herro said, “I’m not interested, but I’m sure other people are. It’ll be fun for the fans.”
– He added, “We’ve got to continue to worry about ourselves. No matter who comes in here, before, next game, whatever, we’ve just got to win.”
– Ware’s second 3-point attempt was the 100th of his career.
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