Miami Heat vs Charlotte Hornets: Recap, Notes and Quotes

First Look at Rotations

Oct 4, 2015; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Heat guard Gerald Green (14) is pressured by Charlotte Hornets guard Jeremy Lin (7) during the first half at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Dealing with a sprained right calf, Hassan Whiteside didn’t play against the Hornets. Meaning we still have yet to see the full starting unit log a minute together. Rather than play Bosh at center and start McRoberts at power forward, coach Erik Spoelstra started Udonis Haslem in Whiteside’s place in order to maintain his rotation patterns.

Gerald Green was first off the bench, spelling Wade. He was followed by McRoberts and Amar’e Stoudemire entering the game at the same time, holding off Bosh’s move to the 5 for a few more minutes. Mario Chalmers eventually replaced Goran Dragic, and finally Justise Winslow came in for Luol Deng to put the full second unit on the floor.

The second unit was fun, but not necessarily good. While they were fast and high-flying on offense, they didn’t stand up much on defense, allowing Charlotte to maintain and increase a lead until some of the starters came back in.

When Bosh came back in, he replaced Stoudemire, giving us our first look at the Bosh-McRoberts front line. While I don’t have the stats in front of me, I imagine this was Miami’s most productive unit. With two playmakers in the front court, Miami ran HORNS (both Bosh and McRoberts on the elbows) and ran action underneath to get guys like Wade, Winslow, Deng and Green open. Miami eventually took the lead.

Miami didn’t play its deep bench guys until late in the fourth quarter, which surprisingly included Tyler Johnson, who didn’t see any significant minutes in the game. Greg Whittington and Josh Richardson also played over James Ennis, who was a DNP-CD.