Your team just got walloped in the opening game of the NBA Finals, with injuries to three of your stars added to the insult — what can you say?
“Right now, it doesn’t really matter what you say,” Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said after his team dropped Game 1, 116-98, a margin that doesn’t reflect how lopsided it was. “We get to work and get together tomorrow.”
The most pressing problem for the Heat has to do with personnel. Big man Bam Adebayo played only 21 minutes before he left the game with a left shoulder strain and Jimmy Butler was hobbled much of the time with a sprained left ankle.
Most concerning: Standout guard Goran Dragic reportedly suffered a torn plantar fascia in his left foot, likely when he’d dribbled into the lane looking to score. He stayed in the game for a couple minutes, and then exited for good with a little more than four minutes remaining before halftime — and with six points, three assists, two steals to his credit.
Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes reported that the 6-foot-3 Slovenian exited the arena in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, without a boot and appeared not to be favoring the foot, and the Heat aren’t ruling out a return by their leading postseason scorer (20.9 points), but he’ll likely be compromised if he can come back.
Spoelstra didn’t have much news to offer on his or the others’ conditions immediately after the game, except to say that Adebayo will be reevaluated.
“I don’t know right now,” he said of Dragic’s status. “I know he is as tough as anybody, and it’s the Finals. But I don’t have an update where he is on his foot right now.”
Butler acknowledged that his ankle is “a little bit sore,” but he was more concerned with communicating his concern for Dragic.
“Just let him know that I — and we — are here for him,” Butler said. “We know how much he wants to win, how much he wants to go to war and battle with us. Obviously we love him for that and we want him out there with us. But whatever the doc tells him to do, that’s what he’s got to do. I understand that he wants to go out there and compete and obviously we want him out there with us. But he got to take care of himself first.”
And after falling behind by as many as 32 points, allowing the Lakers to go off for 11 first-half 3-pointers, and getting outrebounded 54-36, the Heat who still are standing have to a lot to tend to on the court.
“It’s a cliché, but every single possession counts,” said Spoelstra, who said he’d have a message formulated for his team by Thursday. “There were too many possessions where it was either a poor offensive possession or a miss that led to a couple of poor possessions defensively or vice versa. Those stacked on top of each other can get away from you pretty quickly against a very good team like this.
“We’re much better than we showed tonight,” he insisted. “You have to credit the Lakers, and we’ll get to work for the next one.”
Kendrick Nunn was the lone bright spot on a dim night for Miami. The Rookie of the Year runner-up, whose playing time has been limited in the bubble after recovering from having the coronavirus and subsequently leaving the NBA campus for a personal reason unrelated to the disease.But in Dragic’s stead, he looked more comfortable than the Lakers would have liked, finishing with 18 points in 19 minutes on 8-of-11 shooting.
“Whenever his number and name’s called, he’s ready to play,” Butler said of the 25-year-old. “He knows the schemes. And it looks like he’s going to be in this rotation; I sure hope so, because he definitely showed what he can do on the big stage tonight.”
Posted by: https://anaheimsigns.comRe Goran Dragic injury
Note it's FOOT and not ankle reported. Here Dragic steps on Rondo's foot at the end of this play and there is ever so slight of some mid/forefoot shifting there side to side. Possible midfoot sprain with that movement is on differential. pic.twitter.com/P9zMtGz4dB
— Brian Sutterer, MD (@b_sutterer) October 1, 2020
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