Heat looking for solutions without Adebayo and Butler, as Lowry offers perspective

The NBA season is long. Most teams will experience incredible highs and also go through frustrating lows.

But the one constant that’s needed is perspective. Veteran point guard Kyle Lowry tried to offer some following the Miami Heat’s third straight home loss and fourth loss in five games.

“Listen, we got our butts kicked three times in a row at home,” Lowry said following the Heat’s 105-90 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies at FTX Arena on Monday night. “We won a good road game and then lost a road game. But we really just have to continue to stay with what we’re doing, believe in each other and figure it out.

“That’s the one thing about our league, it gives you opportunities to try to redo it. We have the defending champions coming into our house and that’s the great thing about our league. We have an opportunity to put these games behind us, get better and go on a run. This will just be a little bit of a, ‘Oh, you remember that time when we got the crap beat out of us a couple times in a row?’”

The Heat will try to turn things around on Wednesday night against the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks at FTX Arena (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and ESPN). The problem is Miami will be without Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler on Wednesday for the fourth time in five games.

Adebayo is expected to be out until mid-January after tearing the ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb and Butler has been ruled out for Wednesday’s game after re-aggravating his tail bone injury early in Monday’s loss to the Grizzlies. Butler, who missed the previous four games with a tail bone contusion, took a hard fall on a layup attempt just four minutes into the game and labored through the rest of his minutes until he exited the contest in the third quarter and never returned.

“I just think in general now with Bam out, with Jimmy out,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I have to do a better job getting the team organized and getting the team comfortable with where the ball is going and how we want to play offensively. I definitely have to do a better job.”

The Heat is 2-2 in games that Adebayo and Butler have both missed this season. Most teams would take a .500 record when missing its two best players.

But the Heat’s offense has been shaky without Adebayo and Butler. Miami has averaged 100.1 points on 44 percent shooting from the field — marks that would rank 28th and 24th in the NBA for the season, respectively.

Take away the Heat’s 113-point performance with the help of 16-of-34 shooting on threes in Friday’s road win over the Indiana Pacers, and Miami’s offensive numbers without Adebayo and Butler fall to 96.7 points per game on 41 percent shooting from the field.

“Obviously, those are two guys that help us get settled,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “Especially in the beginning of games, we can throw the ball to either of them and they’ll create most of the actions and most of the offense for us. Without those two, that first unit is really just Kyle is the one creating. So just going to have to continue to work through these problems, find solutions.”

Butler played on Monday, but he was clearly not 100 percent and eventually left the game early. Miami’s offense again struggled without Adebayo and a healthy Butler, totaling just 90 points while committing a season-high 23 turnovers.

Over the last four games played mostly without Adebayo and Butler, the Heat’s half-court offense has been the fourth-worst in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass. Miami has scored just 87.3 points per 100 half-court plays during that stretch, which is down from the 93 points it has averaged per 100 half-court possessions this season.

“I think, with those guys out and without Bam, I think things change,” Herro said. “Shots come from different areas, different guys and we generate good looks much different now without Bam and Jimmy.”

It’s a small sample size, but how have things change so far?

The Heat depends on its ball movement a little more without Adebayo and Butler creating offense in isolation situations. While 62.6 percent of the Heat’s made shots have come on assists this season, that number has jumped to 69.4 percent over the last four games.

The Heat is also more reliant on its outside shooting without Adebayo and Butler’s efficiency from inside the arc and ability to generate free throws. Miami shot 45 percent and 47.1 percent on threes in the two games that it has won without its two stars this season.

The usage rates (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of Herro, Lowry and Duncan Robinson spike when Adebayo and Butler are unavailable. Herro has posted a usage rate of 31.5 percent in the last four games, which is the same usage rate that Boston’s Jayson Tatum has for the season.

“It’s not hard,” Lowry said when asked how challenging it is to make tweaks to an offensive scheme in the middle of the season. “Guys are professionals. I don’t think we’re going to change it to where it’s like we’re going to run the flex offense. We’re not going to that extreme. But it will be a lot more without Bam and Jimmy, we don’t know for how long, I’m sure it will be a lot more possession basketball for us, a lot more putting the ball in the right guy’s hands at the right time and just kind of slowing it down a little bit more maybe.”

Spoelstra appreciates the challenge ahead, with Adebayo expected to miss the next four to six weeks and Butler again out.

“I love this profession and I love NBA seasons when they get like this,” Spoelstra said. “We just have to rally around where we are as a team. Our staff, we have to get to work, put together a plan and start playing some good basketball. We’re capable of it, we’ve shown it and we have enough. You don’t have to think about like playing the next six weeks. We don’t. We just have to go one game at a time and figure it out, which we will.”

▪ In addition to playing without Adebayo and Butler on Wednesday against the Bucks, the Heat has also ruled out Marcus Garrett (G League assignment), Markieff Morris (whiplash) and Victor Oladipo (right knee injury recovery).

Caleb Martin is listed as questionable because of a left knee contusion.