Bam Adebayo

After missing the Heat‘s last seven games due to a right groin strain, All-Star wing Norman Powell suited up on Saturday’s four-point loss to Orlando, finishing with 21 points (on 7-of-15 shooting) and three assists in 31 minutes.

Powell’s return came with a twist, however, as he came off the bench for the first time in nearly two years, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. The Heat won all seven of the games Powell missed and coaches told him they didn’t want to “mess the flow up.”

Tyler Herro, who had played well in place of Powell for the first five games of that winning streak, also returned to action on Saturday after missing two games with left quad soreness. He started at shooting guard alongside Davion Mitchell, Pelle Larsson, Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware.

“Look, these are not easy decisions right now,” head coach Erik Spoelstra said of moving Powell to the bench. “He’s going to play a lot of minutes. Tyler is going to play a lot of minutes. Right now, we just need to focus on winning games and pouring into the team right now. We want to be healthy. We want our guys out there. We want our firepower. We want our options. With that comes some way of sacrifice.”

Backup guard Dru Smith received his fourth DNP-CD of the season with Powell and Herro active, Chiang notes.

Here’s more on the Heat:

• Star big man Adebayo was not happy with the officiating crew following Saturday’s game, Chiang adds in the same story. With Miami down four and 36.6 seconds remaining, Larsson was called for five-second inbounding violation, which the team disagreed with. Then with 18.5 seconds left and Miami trailing by two, the Heat felt Orlando should have been called for the same violation, but the referees granted the Magic a timeout. “That altered the game,” Adebayo said of the five-second violation called on Larsson. “When you alter the game, you should have to, like, stand on that. Because when we mess up, when we make mistakes, when we miss stuff, all hell breaks loose on us. We got people blaming us for everything. And then on the other side, I felt like they had a five-second call that wasn’t called. That altered the game. So you see what I’m getting at? They affect the game in a way where sometimes it does have an effect, and they get to go home and sleep peacefully. And we’re up here talking about a call that you feel like should have been called or not called.” For what it’s worth, the last two minute report said both calls were correct.
• Mitchell’s place in the starting lineup seems secure based on Spoelstra’s recent comments, according to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. The longtime coach referred to the 27-year-old point guard as “one of our most important guys” and an “elite on-ball defender.” He also complimented Mitchell’s offensive contributions, Winderman writes. “He’s, in many ways, the engine of when we run and we’re at our best and our pace,” Spoelstra said. “Oftentimes, it’s him that’s igniting it and pitching the ball ahead.”
• Fourth-year forward Nikola Jovic, who has been sidelined for 11 consecutive games due to a lower back injury, has been upgraded to probable ahead of Tuesday’s matchup at Charlotte, per Chiang (Twitter link). Andrew Wiggins, who is dealing with sesamoiditis in his left big toe, will miss his sixth straight contest.
• Miami’s recent upswing will be put to the test with a difficult schedule over the next six games, Chiang writes for The Herald. The Heat play at Charlotte, vs. the Lakers, at Houston, vs. San Antonio, and have a pair of road games in Cleveland during that stretch. “Everybody knows what time it is right now. You have to make moves,” Spoelstra said of the race to avoid the play-in tournament. “You have to do something. And we knew that coming out of All-Star break.”