Heat’s Jimmy Butler drops truth bomb on ‘controlling destiny’ vs. Pacers

Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra mentioned before how the playoff race is a “fun” ride as it puts the team in a pre-playoff mode before they head into the postseason. It’s a challenge of balancing out all the emotions and staying “the course,” especially in the crucial game against the Pacers.

“Look,” Spoelstra said, “there’s so many teams going through this. There’s incredible lows, highs, a bunch of emotions in between and you just have to stay the course. We have five more games left in this regular season. Obviously we have a big one in Indiana.”

Butler loves how much integral games means for Heat and Pacers

While the focus is on Miami, the same reasons are valid for the Pacers as they look to protect home floor led by stars Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and others. Butler mentioned how much he loves this time of the year and what this single game means for both teams as in their last 119-104 win against the Houston Rockets, he led the team and scored 22 points.

“I love it,” Butler said. “I love what this game means to them, I love what this game means to us, I love that they play so incredibly well at home. We’ve got to go in there and play damn-near perfect basketball. We’ve got to play our style of basketball, we’ve got to play the right way, in order to take one of the road. But it’s very possible.”

Tyler Herro talks returning when the games mean a whole lot

With the regular season coming to a close, it has been a rollercoaster to say the least for Miami as they had to continually deal with injuries and inconsistencies in the lineup. However, they’ve got back some key players, including Tyler Herro who before Friday’s win in Houston, missed the last 20 games before with a nagging foot injury.

There’s no doubt that he is eager to perform in this home stretch of the season and postseason as he missed most of the playoffs last year with a broken hand. He said that this upcoming schedule is “for competitors only” and playing in these types of games is what players ask for.

“For competitors only,” Herro said via The Sun Sentinel. “That’s what we preach and that’s what we want as NBA players, to be playing in games like that, games that mean something.”

Herro came off the bench against the Rockets and scored 17 points along with recording six assists and five rebounds in 25 minutes of play. He looked like he never was injured and talked after the game about coming out along with the second unit.

“I mean look, there’s six games left,” Herro said. “I just missed 20 games. You know, it’s hard to just implement me into the starting lineup at this point. Whatever Spo (Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra) decides to do is ultimately up to him. It’s not an easy decision. Obviously, everyone knows I’m a starter in the league. But like I said, to come back with six games left it’s tough to just implement me into that lineup like that. But ultimately, I’m going to get starter minutes and that’s all that matters. You know, I’m a starter but I’ll come off the bench for now.”

Spoelstra talks about major depth advantage with team at full health

Heading into the game against Indiana and beyond, it’s possible the Heat can run a 10-man rotation which is pretty rare for the team dealing with all the injuries. Now, Miami is at full health minus Josh Richardson who was ruled out for the rest of the season earlier in the year.

“Sometimes things happen during seasons where you can’t control it,” Spoelstra said about using 10 players during the game against Houston according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “But now things look certainly brighter for us with basically our full health for the first time in a long time…It’s great, it really is. It is great, especially for this stretch run,” Spoelstra continued of the health. “Our depth, we always felt that it was one of the greatest strengths of this roster.”

“Right now, we need everybody and that’s what we talked about in the meeting,” Spoelstra continued. “This is not about role, it’s not about rhythm, it’s not about expectations. This is about pouring into the team, doing what we have to do to get wins. We all want the same thing. We want to be able to do something special in the postseason, but it takes a buy in and all-in mentality.”

Butler talks the benefits of Heat using a 10-man rotation

The Heat’s depth has always been a strength of the team this season, but has never reached its full capability because of health. Butler said that it’s a “good problem to have” when you have this amount of functional players on a team.

“It’s a good thing that we can go 10 people into the rotation and everybody feels comfortable,” Butler said. “Everybody knows the plays and everybody knows where they’re supposed to be at. … That’s a good problem to have whenever you’re going into the playoffs. It’s a good problem to have whenever you’re trying to be as deep as possible.”

The Heat are 43-34 which puts them seventh in the East for now but could change depending on the result of Sunday’s game as they take on the Pacers in the fight for the sixth seed Sunday.