Jimmy Butler will miss his second straight game when the Miami Heat face the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night.
Butler sprained his right ankle early in Friday’s road loss to the Denver Nuggets and was sidelined for Sunday’s road win against the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was the first game Butler missed this regular season.
Jimmy Butler will miss his second straight game with a sprained right ankle.
There is no timeline for his return but Butler has remained with the team on the road instead of returning to Miami, leaving open the possibility for a return before the end of the trip.
After Tuesday’s game in Detroit, the Heat will wrap up a six-game trip with two games against the Indiana Pacers on Friday and Sunday.
“He’s just focused on treatment and doing whatever he has to do to get back out there,” Spoelstra said. “We don’t have a timeline right now.”
Starting lineup decisions
Everyone else on the Heat roster is healthy, including Kevin Love, who made his first appearance of the season in Sunday’s win after missing the start of the year because of personal reasons. Jaime Jaquez Jr. also returned from a stomach illness in that game.
Without Butler, the Heat went with a reshaped starting lineup of Terry Rozier, Tyler Herro, Haywood Highsmith, Love and Bam Adebayo. It’s unclear if Spoelstra will use the same lineup in back to back games on Tuesday, or if he’ll determine his starting group based on matchups.
It made sense to start Adebayo and Love against Minnesota’s bigger lineup, but the Pistons start games smaller, so Nikola Jovic could see a return to the starting lineup after playing well off the bench on Sunday.