{"id":76467,"date":"2024-05-07T02:26:40","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T06:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=76467"},"modified":"2024-05-07T02:33:13","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T06:33:13","slug":"heat-pat-riley-offers-thoughts-terry-rozier-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/07\/heat-pat-riley-offers-thoughts-terry-rozier-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat Godfather Offers Thoughts on Starter\u2019s Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Miami Heat made a trade for Terry Rozier<\/a>, the goal was to stabilize a position in steady decline.<\/p>\n

Kyle Lowry<\/a> was at the tail end of his career, his scoring punch losing power every season. The Heat\u2019s bench was more potent than in recent seasons with Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a>\u2019s breaking out. However, the second unit backcourt hasn\u2019t been able to bring the heat since Tyler Herro<\/a> was coming off the bench in 2021-22. Herro, who has missed at least 15 games every season and missed 40 games in 2023-24, exacerbating Miami\u2019s most glaring issue.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t score.<\/p>\n

Pat Riley Offers Thoughts on Terry Rozier Injury<\/h3>\n

Over the past two seasons, Miami has been among the worst five teams in points per game, ranking 30th in 2022-23 (109.5) and 26th in 2023-24 (110.1).<\/p>\n

So, when the Heat sent Lowry and a first round pick to the Charlotte Hornets for Rozier, they were hoping to have him available for more than just 31 games. Averaging a career-high 23.2 points per game before being traded, Rozier offered Miami far more than Lowry as a scorer. However, fortune wasn\u2019t on the Heat\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

He missed the last four regular season games and the entire First Round with neck spasms. Thought to be caused by traveling and sleeping, Rozier was \u201cweek to week<\/a>\u201d with the injury. With that prognosis, it\u2019s possible he would\u2019ve returned had Miami had a longer playoff run. However, there\u2019s no certainty about that.<\/p>\n

This week, Heat president Pat Riley addressed myriad topics after Miami was eliminated from the 2024 NBA Playoffs. From Herro to Erik Spoelstra and everything in between<\/a>, no rock was left unturned.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s \u2018the Godfather\u2019s\u2019 thoughts on the injury that took Rozier down:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a process; it takes time<\/a>,\u201d Riley says, per the Miami Herald\u2019s Barry Jackson.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he feels good. When you’re dealing with a spine, you’re not going to mess around with it. It’s going to heal. Doctors convinced us and him that in time it will heal and go away… Terry was everything I expected.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Riley is a realist.<\/p>\n

Often, injuries occur that are outside of anyone\u2019s control. Furthermore, there\u2019s only so much anyone can do to accelerate a player\u2019s recovery. Lastly, as Riley notes, there are certain injuries where precautions must be taken. To that point, those involving areas such as neck and spine can be career-threatening.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, injuries undermined the Heat\u2019s highly-touted conditioning, discipline, and defense. Injuries to specific players, like Herro, Rozier, and Jimmy Butler<\/a>, limited them offensively. Regardless of whether they would have actually defeated the Boston Celtics, they never got a fair shot.<\/p>\n

Now, Miami will be focusing on finding ways to improve their player\u2019s durability.<\/p>\n

The Last Word on Terry Rozier<\/h3>\n

Two seasons remain on Rozier\u2019s contract. Consequently, he\u2019ll be around long enough to help maximize the Heat\u2019s chances of winning a championship in the Jimmy Butler Era. If Butler doesn\u2019t reach a contract extension<\/a> with Miami, his deal is set to carry him through 2026.<\/p>\n

That said, a full offseason to gel with the Heat\u2019s core will benefit Rozier heading into 2024-25. Miami\u2019s first point guard capable of scoring 20 points per game since Goran Dragic<\/a> in 2016-17, Spoelstra also gets a chance to rework his offensive playbook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Miami Heat made a trade for Terry Rozier, the goal was to stabilize a position in steady decline. Kyle Lowry was at the tail end of his career, his scoring punch losing power every season. The Heat\u2019s bench was more potent than in recent seasons with Jaime Jaquez Jr.\u2019s breaking out. However, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":76468,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1608,62,3],"tags":[4745,596,427],"class_list":["post-76467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heat","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-nba-injuries","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-terry-rozier"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76467","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\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}