Heat’s Erik Spoelstra reflects on tumultuous 2023-24 campaign ahead of playoffs

Spoelstra updates on injuries to Terry Rozier, Duncan Robinson

While the team is healthy for the most part, they are still dealing with key absences to Terry Rozier and Duncan Robinson who both will miss their fourth straight after being ruled out for the regular season finale. As they deal with neck and back injuries respectively, Spoelstra said that the recovery “has been good.”

“It has been good for both of those guys,” Spoelstra said. “Their bodies will let us know, they’re making progress. I know how badly both of them want to be out here right now, but we’ll just continue treating them.”

Spoelstra praises Heat’s veteran leadership

Even though injuries have been a constant trend this season where significant players miss time, the veteran leadership of the Heat has taken a front row seat and weathered the storms as much as possible. This will be extremely huge for the postseason as players like Jimmy Butler, Kevin Love, the recently acquired Patty Mills, and others have that trait which Spoelstra adores.

“Well, the experience for sure is something that’s valuable for our locker room. Everybody respects him [Mills] and his approach every single day is was world class. And you can see why he’s had the career that he’s had and why all the better teams have tried to acquire over the years,” Spoelstra said about Mills which leads to him talking about the veterans in the locker room. “I think in general, our overall experience is high. That’s one of the positives, you know, with this group, they have a lot of corporate knowledge of how we want to play and we’ve had a lot of playoff games together with our core guys. Those guys have been in a lot of big playoff moments, home and away that tends to matter in this league, doesn’t guarantee anything, obviously. But you can turn to that you know when you have a lot of moving parts during a regular season, you know that the core group has been together for a long time.”

Postseason pathway still hidden for Miami

Before the Heat look to win two straight in the final matchup against Toronto, they are 45-36 which puts them eighth in the tightly packed Eastern Conference. However, they can finish anywhere from fifth to eighth with the goal of avoiding the play-in tourney.

Besides Miami winning, they need the Orlando Magic and either the Philadelphia 76ers or Indiana Pacers to lose if they want to be sixth and sneak out of the tourney. To get fifth, every scenario needs to happen, so it will be a stressful afternoon for Heat fans.

According to Basketball Reference’s Playoff Probabilities Report, Miami has a 16.4 percent chance to get sixth and a 3.8 percent chance to get fifth. The Heat also have a 37.1 percent chance to get seventh and host a play-in game and 24.7 percent chance to stay at eighth.