MIAMI — For nearly two hours Friday, Erik Spoelstra and several of his Miami Heat players participated in exit interviews with the media at Kaseya Center.
But there also were several notable absences.
In many ways, that made it a microcosm of the just-completed season that concluded with a first-round playoff ouster as a No. 8 seed.
In the wake of having to utilize a franchise-record 37 lineups, and in the wake of routinely being without key players, Spoelstra took on the topic at the top of his Friday comments.
“We’re going to look at everything, But to say we did not philosophically take the regular season seriously, that’s totally off base,” Spoelstra emphasized. “And I can see why people would point to that, because of the missed games.
“We’re not a load-management team. There are things that happened, and sometimes you can’t control that. And I think there were still opportunities to find ways to win a handful more games.”
Only the Heat didn’t win more than 46 during the regular season, leaving them, at 46-36, in the first round of the playoffs to face the wrecking ball that proved to be the Boston Celtics.
During that playoff series, the Heat were without Jimmy Butler, Terry Rozier and, at the finish, Jaime Jaquez Jr., after previously losing Josh Richardson. They also went through that series with an injury-limited Duncan Robinson.
“And I think what’s good right now is this is becoming a leaguewide thing,” Spoelstra said of teams being shorthanded. “Everybody knows that this is a challenge. Everybody knows that this is an issue. You’re paid and everybody wants guys available all across the board, league wide. And if you don’t have guys available, it does affect (you).
“We don’t want to make excuses for that. So, regardless, you have to find different ways to win. It’s on topic. I get it.”
As Spoelstra’s players addressed the season, a common theme was the lack of continuity, the constant adjustments. As it was, the core of Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro played just 27 games and 499 total minutes together this season.
Adebayo on Friday mentioned the constant adjustments to lineups. Butler and Herro were among those bypassing Friday’s interview session, with Herro previously having made himself available for each media session throughout the playoffs. Butler still has not addressed the media since spraining the MCL in his right knee in the April 17 play-in road loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
“We’re going to look at everything,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s revolving door of 2023-24 absences, “because it’s not all apples to apples. I think what we do in terms of getting guys ready and in shape helps with soft-tissue stuff. It’s the other stuff that we have to take a dive into.
“Two seasons ago we were good. The last two seasons are a little bit skewed on the guys that missed the entire season that weren’t fully in our rotation. But that doesn’t also absolve. We want to look at all the different angles on this.”
For now, Spoelstra said, there is pain of a different sort, of being done at the start of May after advancing to a Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in 2022 and making it to last season’s NBA Finals.
“Once we get away from all of this,” Spoelstra said, “we’ll spend a great deal of time figuring out how we can be better than we were this season. Our goal is not to fight for the play-in every year. We know the deal here. This league has a lot of parity. It is not easy. And then the reality is, you spend the majority of your seasons striving for that, at least us, in this building, we’re striving for the ultimate prize.
“But the reality is the majority of the time, eventually you’re answering your season in a loss and that sometimes can send you into a maddening state, because you don’t want to accept it. We won’t accept it. We’re going to keep on striving for that. But we just have to work and find ways we can improve all across the board.”
