The Miami Heat are in a win-or-go-home situation, and they will have to earn a victory over the Chicago Bulls on Friday if they want their season to continue.
With everything on the line, it looks like Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is considering some changes to the team’s rotation.
Erik Spoelstra said the Heat’s rotation “could be a little bit different” tomorrow vs. Bulls. Heat’s rotation has been fluid for most of the season.
— Anthony Chiang (@Anthony_Chiang) April 13, 2023
Arguably, the most obvious change would be at the point guard position. Spoelstra could be tempted to swap out Gabe Vincent for former All-Star guard Kyle Lowry.
After all, Vincent was essentially a nonfactor in the Heat’s first play-in loss to the Atlanta Hawks earlier this week. He finished the game with just six points, three rebounds and two assists.
As for Lowry, he was electric off the bench, adding 33 points, four boards and five assists. Though Lowry outplayed Vincent from a minutes perspective (33 to 24), he came off the bench.
Another change Spoelstra could make would be to move Caleb Martin into the starting lineup. Max Strus started in the team’s loss to the Hawks and finished with just three points, five boards and one assist.
Martin didn’t fare much better coming off the bench, but he has started plenty of games during the current campaign and spent a decent amount of the regular season as the team’s starting power forward. He started in 49 of his 71 regular season appearances.
Strus started in 33 of his 80 regular season appearances.
Whatever lineup Spoelstra ends up going with in the upcoming game, it’s likely that a lot of Heat fans are not going to feel super confident. The Heat have had arguably the worst offense in the entire league this season and were the only team to average below 110 points per game in the regular season.
As for the Bulls, they’re riding high after a big comeback win over the Toronto Raptors in their first play-in game. DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine led the way for the team in that game, scoring 23 and 39 points, respectively.
If the Heat want a chance of keeping pace with those elite scorers, all of their shooters are going to have to be locked in and ready to go.
