{"id":71048,"date":"2024-03-29T12:06:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T16:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=71048"},"modified":"2024-03-29T12:06:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T16:06:17","slug":"heat-key-reserve-likely-back-after-missing-a-month-kevin-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/29\/heat-key-reserve-likely-back-after-missing-a-month-kevin-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat Key Reserve Likely Back After Missing a Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/27\/heat-tyler-herro-claps-back-erroneous-injury-update\/\" target=\"_self\">Miami Heat<\/a> made a surprise run to the NBA Finals last season as the eight seed. They could find themselves in a similar predicament entering this year\u2019s playoffs as they are currently seventh in the Eastern Conference standings. They have dealt with a bunch of injuries, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/loveke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Love<\/a> is expected to return Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Miami has a home game Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers. Following that is a road game on Sunday against the lowly Washington Wizards. The Heat should be heavily favored in both contests, and they are hoping to see Love contribute.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">in my conversation with Kevin Love, i asked him about the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiamiHEAT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@MiamiHEAT<\/a>\u2019s recent struggles and how this team can close things out on a high note in their remaining 10 games:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cmore than anything, we need bodies back.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/HeatCulture?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#HeatCulture<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBSSports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@CBSSports<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBSSportsNet?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@CBSSportsNet<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vvBOoO28j4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/vvBOoO28j4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ashley Nicole Moss (@AshNicoleMoss) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AshNicoleMoss\/status\/1773522238341312681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nLove has missed the previous 14 games with a heel injury. Miami went 6-8 in his absence. A strong finish is needed to not have to take part in the Play-In Tournament for the second straight season.<\/p>\n<h2>Heat Key Reserve Likely Back After Missing a Month<\/h2>\n<h3>How Love Has Fared This Season<\/h3>\n<p>The 35-year-old Kevin Love is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/fantasy\/basketball\/news\/heats-kevin-love-officially-probable\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">now being listed as probable for Friday\u2019s game<\/a>. He has not appeared on the court since February 27.<\/p>\n<p>Now in his 16th season, Love obviously isn\u2019t the player he was in his prime. He has been named to five All-Star teams, was the third-best player on a championship Cleveland Cavaliers team (behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a>), and won the rebounding title in 2010-11.<\/p>\n<p>Love still played a large role in helping the Heat reach the NBA Finals last season. He started 17 of his 21 regular season appearances after joining the team last season. Love was also in the starting lineup for 18 of his 20 postseason outings.<\/p>\n<p>This season, the two-time All-NBA player has mostly been utilized off the bench. He has appeared in 47 games with just five coming as a starter. In 17.5 minutes per outing, Love has averaged 9.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.2 assists. He has attempted 4.5 threes per game, connecting on 34.9% of them.<\/p>\n<p>For his career, Love has averaged 16.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 2.3 assists. He has made 36.9% of his three-point tries.<\/p>\n<h3>Love and the Heat are Trying to Avoid the Play-In Tournament<\/h3>\n<p>At 39-33, the Heat have just 10 regular season games remaining. As already mentioned, they currently sit seventh in the Eastern Conference standings. A top-six seed is needed to avoid the Play-In Tournament which houses seeds 7-10.<\/p>\n<p>Miami is just a game back of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/23\/pacers-center-breaks-career-franchise-record-myles-turner\/\" target=\"_self\">Indiana Pacers<\/a> for that coveted sixth seed. The two teams are even in the loss column as the Pacers have played two more games. They will match up on April 7th in Indiana, a game that could potentially decide who avoids the Play-In Tournament. Miami and Indiana have split their first two meetings, so the winner will own the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n<p>Miami is also just a half-game ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers who occupy the eighth seed. The seventh seed notably gets home court in their Play-In Tournament matchup with the eighth seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Miami Heat made a surprise run to the NBA Finals last season as the eight seed. They could find themselves in a similar predicament entering this year\u2019s playoffs as they are currently seventh in the Eastern Conference standings. They have dealt with a bunch of injuries, but Kevin Love is expected to return Friday. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":71090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1608,62,3],"tags":[227,4745],"class_list":["post-71048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heat","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-kevin-love","tag-nba-injuries"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}