The Miami Heat are where everyone is right now, the meat of the season and dealing with player injuries. Well, there’s that as well as some health and safety protocols.
Of course, it’s never encouraging to play NBA basketball without your two best players, but the Miami Heat have found ways to survive. While you look at the contributions of the guys deeper in the rotation, as they are huge, a lot of what they’ve been able to do is because of Kyle Lowry.
In the last nine games that Bam Adebayo has missed, the Heat are 5-4.
Ironically enough and in Jimmy Butler’s last nine missed games, they are also 5-4.
It’s not amazing but it is substantial given how important those two players are. The main reason for this is Kyle Lowry.
Lowry was acquired this past offseason in a sign-and-trade deal with Toronto. He was thought to be the final piece that Miami needed to round out into a championship team.
Looking at his play thus far, that is proving to be correct, albeit not for the reasons everyone thought necessarily.
Miami Heat: Kyle Lowry At Forefront Of Keeping This Injured Team Afloat
Where Lowry is truly proving himself isn’t on the floor with the other stars, but how he performs with the bench and role players.
In the last ten games, Lowry is averaging 16.2 points and 9.4 assists, improvements from his season averages of 14.7 points and 8.1 assists.
While it is true that the stats can be viewed as supplemental due to the loss of talent on the floor, it’s up to Lowry to make that happen. His effectiveness as a bucket-getter and facilitator are shining.
Lowry is proving his ability as a versatile player that can be instrumental in any situation.
The lineups for the Heat this year have been inconsistent. The most used is still the first starting five of Jimmy, Bam, Duncan Robinson, P.J. Tucker, and Lowry with 376 possessions but after that it gets iffy.
The next two most popular lineups are without Bam or Jimmy, while they have 119 and 145 minutes together. They feature a mix of Tyler Herro, Dewayne Dedmon, and Gabe Vincent to supplement the lost minutes of the stars.
The intriguing part is that they all are positive in differential per CleaningTheGlass.com(subscription required). And they aren’t positive by a point or two, in a lineup featuring Lowry, Vincent, Robinson, Tucker, and Dedmon the Heat are plus 27.
The other lineup, replacing Vincent for Herro, is plus 8.5.
Miami Heat: Kyle Lowry Makes Everyone And Anyone Better, No Matter Who
The common thread here is Kyle Lowry.
Lowry is proving game in and game out that he was a perfect addition to this Miami team. His ability to keep the team afloat in the absence of two genuine All-Stars is impressive and vital to this team’s success.
This only gives Coach Spoelstra more to work and experiment with once the team gets its normal rotations back. With a player like Lowry driving the offense, the reserve players are getting quality reps and able to follow the flow of the system, as well as rely on themselves come playoff time.
The lineups with Lowry plus others is a quality rotation and one that will no doubt be used cleverly in the playoffs. It’s a great way to rack up points when the opponents are resting their own stars.
We all figured Lowry would fit in well next to Butler and Adebayo, making this team a real contender but the way he’s fit in next to their replacements has been, perhaps, even more remarkable.
Especially given the workload it takes off the other stars once healthy. The Heat, when healthy, are real contenders, but they need to stay alive to get there.
If they lose too many games in the interim it becomes exceedingly more difficult to claw back into the picture. Right now they are staying afloat and developing good habits, but none of that happens without Kyle Lowry.