As the regular season winds down and cruises towards the playoffs, a lot of coaches and GM’s are bemoaning their teams’ standings by predicting that ”if “X” or “Y” hadn’t been injured” the results would have been dramatically different. Unfortunately, there are too many teams that could adopt this attitude because, as we have commented before, it seems as though more and more injuries are occurring than in years past.
This is the role the Miami Heat is playing at the moment, with Butler, Herro, Love, D. Robinson, Richardson and others having missed important contests because of personal issues or physical injuries. The positive impact of these absences is that the team was able to give meaningful playing time to rookies or near-rookies like Jaquez and Jovic, but this is more than offset by straining the team’s cohesion and losing firepower necessary to be competitive against the better teams.
In the playoffs, assuming the Heat reaches that plateau, they have to contend with the likes of the Celts, the Bucks and the Cavs. This will be a formidable task made even more difficult if the roster is not back healthy and ready to lay it on the line as they did during the early stages of this season. The team still needs more bulk up front, but even as now structured they have a chance as long as everyone is out of ER.
Photography Courtesy Of The Miami Heat