The Miami Heat were cut down to size ahead of Sunday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers, with backup center Dewayne Dedmon ruled out due to illness.
Dedmon had been one of seven players listed as questionable by the Heat going into Game 4 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center.
“I think it’ll be taken care of after today,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the severity of Dedmon’s illness. “But we’ll see. It’ll be day to day.”
Spoelstra said Dedmon tested negative for COVID.
Dedmon had emerged as a more significant element of the Heat rotation after 76ers center Joel Embiid returned in Friday’s Game 3 from the concussion and facial fracture that had him out for the series’ first two games.
After playing four minutes in the series opener, when Embiid was away from the 76ers, Dedmon had played 11 minutes in Game 2 and 12 in Game 3.
Beyond Dedmon, the options for Spoelstra behind starting center Bam Adebayo are rookie Omer Yurtseven, or going undersized with starting power forward P.J. Tucker shifted to center.
Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers said pregame that he expected the Heat to go small.
“We talked about before we heard about Dedmon, we really believed they probably would go smaller today, anyway, against our second unit,” he said 90 minutes before tipoff.
Spoelstra said Embiid was going to present challenges regardless of who was available.
“He’s an MVP-caliber player,” he said. “He puts a tremendous amount of pressure on your team defense, his ability to attack, shoot, pass. And then obviously draw fouls, as well.”
Dedmon is on a one-year, veteran minimum contract, to become a free agent on July 1.
Good to go
Also listed as questionable by the Heat ahead of Sunday night’s game were Tyler Herro (ankle sprain), Kyle Lowry (hamstring strain), Caleb Martin (ankle sprain), Max Strus (hamstring strain), P.J. Tucker (calf strain) and Gabe Vincent (knee irritation).
All had played in Friday night’s Game 3, most similarly listed as questionable ahead of that game. All again were cleared to play Sunday.
The contrast is the approach that was taken ahead of Friday’s Game 3 when the 76ers not only had Embiid listed as out at the start of the day, but even when his status changed to “doubtful” at midday, the team never altered that delineation before Embiid went out to jump center at tipoff.
A $50,000 NBA fine to the 76ers followed for failure to correctly update his status.
Schedule update
With the Western Conference semifinals series between the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns tied 2-2 and now assured going at least six games, a possible Game 6 of Heat-76ers on Thursday in Philadelphia is now locked in as a 7 p.m. start. It would have been 8 p.m. if Suns-Mavs ended in five.
Tuesday’s Game 5 of Heat-76ers is at 7:30 p.m. at FTX Arena.
A potential Heat-76ers Game 7 at FTX Arena on Sunday will be either at 3:30 p.m., 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., depending on the lengths of other series.
Should the Heat advance, the Eastern Conference finals will begin either Sunday or May 17, depending on the length of Heat-76ers and Milwaukee Bucks-Boston Celtics, which the Bucks lead 2-1.
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