Heat Forced to Test Unproven Bench

Filed under: Heat, NBA Injuries

MIAMI -- Halfway through the NBA season, the Miami Heat find themselves at a crossroads. Their coach Erik Spoelstra was content with winning games utilizing conventional lineups and allowing his superstar trio of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh to do the heavy lifting, but now recent injuries have forced him to experiment with new lineups and give more minutes to bench players such as Eddie House and Juwan Howard.

During their 9-8 start to the season, the results were mixed since the team had just started playing together. At this point of the season, however, the team has no choice but to see what they really have on their bench in order to gauge what production they can get out of it in time for the playoffs.

"These are lineups we envisioned we'd go to eventually," Spoelstra explained. "Early on, every time we tried to play conventional it was haphazard for us. It really created some chaos. But now with UD (Udonis Haslem) and Chris (Bosh) out, obviously we've had to tweak our rotation and part of the last two games is searching for lineups that look comfortable out there."

Source: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2011/01/20/heat-forced-to-test-unproven-bench/

Phil Knight Sean McManus Rupert Murdoch Michael Jordan Scott Boras