Miami Heat: Goran Dragic Injury A Big Blow
The Miami Heat suffered a big blow with Goran Dragic injuring his calf and being sent home early from their road trip.
The Miami Heat are coming down the home stretch of a grueling six-game road trip. Things have not gone too well, as they have lost three consecutive games, three of their last four and are 1-3 on the West coast trip.
Things do not figure to get much easier, as they will finish the trip with visits to the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder and are in the midst of a brutal 14 out of 16 games away from American Airlines Arena.
If those games weren’t already going to be difficult enough to win, the Heat will have to do it without starting point guard Goran Dragic. Dragic injured his left calf at some point during the game against the Golden State Warriors Monday night. He missed the debacle against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday, and will now be sent home for the remainder of the road trip for an MRI on the calf.
Dragic is expected to miss about a week, though the results of those tests have not come back yet, but either way, this could not have come at a worse time for the Heat. While they still have a respectable record at 22-17, the Heat could find themselves on the outside looking in on the Eastern Conference playoffs by the time they return home; they are only 1.5 games clear of ninth place in the Eastern Conference.
This is a big blow for the Heat, as starting players are always difficult to replace, especially point guards. How much does it hurt? There are a number of ways this will impact the team.
Stalled Chemistry
A big issue throughout the season thus far for the Heat was that they weren’t coming together as quickly as they had hoped. The playing styles of Dragic and Dwyane Wade specifically do not mesh too well, so there has been some rough patches. Both players are best with the ball in their hands, so there needs to be some give and take between the two.
There seemed to finally be some breakthroughs recently. Dragic was in the midst of his best month of the season, as he was scoring 15.3 points per game on 53 percent shooting overall from the field and a scorching 52.4 from deep. This was the Dragic the Heat thought that they were getting; a super efficient scorer, especially for a point guard.
His assist numbers may have been down, but the Heat were winning; they were 4-2 in January prior to Dragic getting injured against the Warriors. That showed improvement that will now once again be stalled as Dragic faces a timetable of at least two weeks.
Who Replaces Dragic?
With Dragic sidelined, someone will have to step up as the main ball handler and initiator of the offense. This could be the first time since the trade with the Memphis Grizzlies a little over two months ago that the Heat regret moving Mario Chalmers, as they are very thin in the backcourt.
Veteran Beno Udrih was acquired in the deal, but he does not strike much fear into opposing defenses. He is also not a starting caliber point guard, which was painfully evident against the Clippers when he finished the game with a plus/minus of -27 and the Heat were embarrassed.
Some people will clamor for Tyler Johnson to assume the starting point guard role, but that does not seem feasible at this point. Moving him into the starting lineup may do more damage to the second unit than repairing for the starting five.
At this point Udrih will probably handle the point guard duties in title, but more responsibility could fall onto the shoulders of Wade. We have seen in the past that he is a capable playmaker, but at this stage of his career can the Heat expect that much from him in addition to everything he already does for the team?
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It will be something the Heat have to figure out sooner or later because the Eastern Conference is a lot more competitive this season than in years past. Two or three bad weeks without Dragic could really do some damage to their playoff hopes. It will be up to Erik Spoelstra to figure out a way to minimize the damage while Dragic is sidelined and try keeping the team afloat in the meantime.