Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside will miss his second game of the series with a sprained right MCL.
The Miami Heat will be without its center for at least one more game.
Hassan Whiteside will not travel with the team to Toronto for Wednesday night’s Game 5 against the Raptors, the Heat announced Tuesday.
Whiteside sat out Monday night’s win with a sprained right MCL. He was injured when he took a hard foul after going up for a rebound during the first half of a Game 3 loss Saturday.
In his absence, the Heat started Amar’e Stoudemire at center, and rotated between Udonis Haslem and Josh McRoberts before going to a super-small lineup to close Game 4 and get the win.
That super-small lineup of Goran Dragic, Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson, Justise Winslow and Luol Deng out-scored the Raptors by 14 points in nearly 10 minutes in Game 4, and will likely be something that Erik Spoelstra goes back to for another 10 or so minutes in Game 5.
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In 12 minutes as the starter, Stoudemire struggled defensively, especially to begin the second half. He was beat constantly in pick-and-roll coverage and seemed a step behind the play.
Haslem played a little better, but after playing more than 20 minutes the previous game didn’t have the energy to play more than 10 effective minutes.
McRoberts played 21 minutes and was a minus-4 but managed a pair of blocks and helped unclog the offense with his ball handling and passing (though he finished with just one assist).
The Heat will likely start with Stoudemire again and split time evenly among the trio of bigs, even if we see the super small lineup earlier in the game.
Helping Miami’s case is that the Raptors will be without their center Jonas Valanciunas for the remainder of the series with a sprained ankle. Bismack Biyombo started for Toronto and played well, finishing with 13 points and 13 rebounds and was plus-11 in 31 minutes.
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The Heat managed to get him off the floor by going small, another reason why we should see that lineup again in Game 5.