9:36: Head coach Erik Spoelstra said Lowry has a hamstring injury of unknown severity and will undergo additional testing on Saturday, per the team (Twitter link).
9:01pm: Heat point guard Kyle Lowry suffered a left leg injury in the third quarter of Game 3 against the Hawks on Friday night, which caused him to leave the game and not return, the team announced (via Twitter).
As John Hollinger of The Athletic notes (Twitter link), Atlanta forward De’Andre Hunter landed on Lowry’s foot while the two were away from the ball, causing the guard to hop off the court. It’s unclear at this time if the injury will impact his availability going forward, but the fact that he had to leave the game early isn’t a great sign.
Lowry is in his first season with Miami after a hugely successful nine-season stint with Toronto. He’s a six-time All-Star and won a championship with the Raptors in 2019.
In 63 regular season games this season (33.9 minutes), the 36-year-old averaged 13.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 1.1 steals with a .440/.377/.851 shooting slash line. Those numbers have dipped a bit through the first two games of the Miami/Atlanta playoff series, with Lowry averaging 9.5 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 5.5 APG, 1.0 SPG and 1.5 BPG on .375/.300/.800 shooting.
With Lowry potentially sidelined, Miami will likely rely on backups Tyler Herro and Gabe Vincent for additional minutes and play-making duties.
The Heat ultimately lost a nail-biter to the Hawks in Game 3, 111-110. Miami now leads the series 2-1, with Game 4 set for Sunday in Atlanta.
Hammy?
Oof, hammys come in 3s
Gaining the momentum in this series has NOT been easy at all. But now with Lowry out, Clint returning, Nate finally finding a lineup that works (Trae/Delon/Kev/Bogdan/Onyeka) & coming off an emotional W in gm3, it looks like we finally secured that precious momentum
No
Not even close
Why is Spoelstra sitting Oladipo? The guy looked great when he finally played and now we really need him, is it other players egos? Some kind of whack honor system? Do not understand this, Spo’s coaching also.lost game 3, drive the ball down by 1 Butler chucking another 3, come on!
Spo has earned the benefit of the doubt. He’s a top-3 head coach in the league. He knows more than you or I and should be trusted.
Oh OK no one is allowed to question a Coach, everyone got that? GMs too? I’m sure you did not want Luis Rojas gone either Shea Goodbye.
You said yourself that you “do not understand this” & that was the most truthful/sensible thing u said. Spo got outcoached by Nate in the 4th but it had nothing to do with Oladipo
IF and it’s a big IF,
If Joel’s thumb is just a sprain and nothing worse then this could be another bit of luck for us.
First Scottie Barnes gets injured and we make it past the Raptors. Now in the second round we have the Heat and Kyle Lowry does his hamstring.
Do they promote Herro from the bench and lose that bench impact? Or do they promote Gabe Vincent who has only had 34 career starts. In which case he has a hard assignment taking on Tyrese Maxey.
Glad the hawks took the win today cause we can study that film and find weaknesses to try exploit. It also means if we win tomorrow we get that little bit extra rest.
The one thing I love about how we match up with the Heat is without Lowry the other start that hits threes we need to worry about is Duncan Robinson. Which lets us sag a little, Joel Embiid in the paint, Thybulle getting steals, I like it.
Off the bench Herro will drop buckets on us but I believe in Danny Green will be able to atleast make him a little uncomfortable at times.
Cmon Sixers!!!
Gabe Vincent’s best games have been against Philly
That is true but in the 4 games we played the Heat this year it was 2 wins each.
Take away Kyle Lowry I’m giving us the slight edge
So much us and we for someone who has 0 impact on the game.
I’d like to see a case study on injuries and load management vs guys that play like 90% of the regular season. Lowry is always hurt somehow so he really doesn’t fit this category but you see a lot of injuries lately in the playoffs it seems and this is the era of load management.
Maybe my memory is crap but I don’t remember seeing so many key guys going my down during the playoffs each year say 10 years ago.
It might also have to do with improved recognition of injuries and higher protection of assets by teams (in other words, teams are less likely to allow players to “toughen it out” in hopes of protecting the player’s long-term future).
There could be a link between load management and likelihood of injury, but I believe there are too many external variables to control to give a definitive conclusion
Middleton has played bball continuously from Dec 2020 through the present…Reg season-NBA finals-Olympics-Reg season. That much high level competition will wear a body out.
Yeah, I’m a firm believer that there is a fine line between playing constantly and the sort of load management players like Kawhi undergo
Fans do not want their faves risking injuries to overuse. More injuries get reported, given little harm to revenue for their absence.
A case study would have to account for too many things like that to be accurate. Also it’s accepted true, so why do the expense?
Yes things have changed from when the pressure was to tolerate pain and get out there.