Erik Spoelstra gets brutally honest on Heat’s bountiful injury woes from 2023-24 campaign

Adebayo praises Heat’s defense, but doesn’t think it reached full potential

While injuries plagued the Heat throughout the season, it hit them at the worst part during the postseason where they were missing the likes of Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier. Still though with all the push back, the Heat finished top five in defensive rating and when Adebayo was asked if he saw the full potential in that unit, he couldn’t answer it definitely since he mentioned that “we didn’t have everybody healthy.”

“I mean that is a shaky line to go along. Just because we didn’t have everybody healthy. You know we got different lineups, different guys being out. We had the most starting lineups [in franchise history]. Yeah. I can’t really give you an answer if that makes sense,” Adebayo said. “But I feel like through all the adjustments and how we had to adapt and how we had to make things work and make something out of nothing,I feel like everybody handled that well. Just because it’s on the fly, there’s no guarantee that somebody’s gonna start, no guarantee that he’s gonna be he’s gonna be out. We made something out of nothing on defense. I feel like that was that’s a special thing for a group to do.”

Spoelstra says Miami will “find solutions” on player availability

Besides the playoffs, the Heat were unable to find consistency throughout the regular season, especially when it came to their current big three of Butler, Adebayo, and Tyler Herro as they only played 27 games together. Spoelstra understands that the point of player availability is a “hot topic” at the moment for the team and promised that they will “as an organization to find solutions in that department.”

“Everybody wants guys available all across the board league-wide,” Spoelstra continued. “If you don’t have guys available, it does affect things. We don’t want to make excuses for that. So regardless, you have to find different ways to win. But it’s a hot topic right now, I get it. So we’re going to get away from it, we’ll have clear minds when we get back to it and we’re going to do everything we possibly can as an organization to find solutions in that department.”

Miami heads into another fascinating off-season where they look to bolster the roster while also looking to keep major pieces like Butler and Adebayo. The Heat finished 46-36 this season with their second straight eighth seed finish as they were eliminated in the first round by the Boston Celtics.