Game vs. Nuggets carries extra meaning for Heat and not just because it’s an NBA Finals rematch

With the Miami Heat battling to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament, each of the 18 remaining games on its regular-season schedule carries significant meaning.

But Wednesday’s matchup against the Denver Nuggets at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and ESPN) carries a little more weight than the others and not just because it’s a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals that the Nuggets won. It’s also one of the Heat’s final opportunities to earn a rare win over one of the NBA’s elite teams.

The Heat is just 14-20 this season against teams currently with a winning record and is 0-10 (0-3 vs. Boston Celtics, 0-2 vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, 0-1 vs. Nuggets, 0-2 vs. Minnesota Timberwolves and 0-2 vs. Los Angeles Clippers) this season against the teams currently with the NBA’s top five records. The Nuggets entered Tuesday with the league’s third-best record at 45-20 and have won nine of their last 10 games.

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“It definitely does,” Heat forward Caleb Martin said following Tuesday’s practice when asked if Wednesday’s game against the Nuggets carries more significance. “Just because we haven’t done that great with the top teams in the league right now and having a rematch like that.”

The Heat (35-29) will again face the Nuggets while missing a few important rotation players. In addition to reserve guard Josh Richardson being ruled out for the rest of the season after recently undergoing surgery on his right shoulder, the Heat remains without starting guard Tyler Herro (right foot medial tendinitis) and backup center Kevin Love (bruised right heel) for Wednesday’s game against the Nuggets.

It will mark the ninth straight game that Herro has missed and the seventh straight game that Love has missed with their respective injuries. The Heat will also be without two-way contract players Jamal Cain and Alondes Williams, who are both currently playing in the G League.

Heat star Jimmy Butler missed Tuesday’s practice because of an illness, but there’s optimism that he will be able to play on Wednesday against the Nuggets.

Injuries have been a season-long issue for the Heat, which entered Tuesday with the fourth-most missed games in the NBA this season due to injury at 215 games, according to Spotrac’s injury tracker. Those absences make up one of the factors behind the Heat’s lack of quality wins this season.

“This year, we’ve had a lot of guys out, including myself, early on against top teams,” said Heat forward Caleb Martin, who has missed 17 games this season because of injuries. “So you can try to look at how those games have played out. But if you go down the list of who has been available, who just returned, there’s a lot of type of different stuff. That is the reality of the year, people are going to be out. But that’s just what it is and I’m not one of the ones who likes to make excuses and say, ‘Guys have been out, guys have been hurt.’ We can still win games.”

In the Heat’s first of two regular-season matchups against the Nuggets this season just a few weeks ago on Feb. 29, the Heat was also without Herro, Love and Richardson because of their injuries.

The Nuggets won that game in Denver, 103-97, behind a 23-9 run that turned a two-point lead midway through the third quarter into a 16-point lead early in the fourth quarter. While Nuggets star Nikola Jokic had an inefficient shooting night with 18 points on 15 field-goal attempts, Michael Porter Jr. totaled 30 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks to lead Denver to the win.

“What they know how to do is in those key moments of games, how to take control,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the Nuggets. “A lot of times that ends up being end of quarter, end of half or the swing moments in the second half. The real pivotal skirmishes, as Pat [Riley] likes to call them, they tend to know how to win those.

“That’s usually what championship-caliber teams that are coming off of a title run, they might not play the most consistent basketball all the way through the regular season. But in those pockets, they know how to win those moments and ultimately that just helps them win games, even if they’re not playing at the super highest level that they can get to.”

Wednesday also represents an opportunity for the Heat to end a three-game skid and bounce back from arguably its worst loss of the season after falling to the struggling Washington Wizards at home on Sunday.

The Heat has dropped 16 of its last 19 games against the Nuggets, including last season’s NBA Finals. The last time the Heat defeated the Nuggets in Miami was six years ago with a double-overtime home win on March 19, 2018.

“That we’re a championship-caliber team,” Martin said when asked what the Heat is looking to prove to itself in the final weeks of the regular season. “At the end of the day, it’s a tremendous accomplishment with what we’ve been able to do [in past seasons], especially with the type of team that we put together and the injuries we had during those important times.

“But ultimately, we all know we’re not going to be satisfied until we’re the last team standing. So I think that’s how we all think. I know that’s how they feel, I know that’s how coach feels and that’s how our leaders feel. So until we do that, I think that’s what we want to be able to prove to ourselves.”

Heat captain Bam Adebayo definitely feels that way.

“For us, we still have something to prove because we haven’t won anything,” Adebayo said. “For us, our ultimate goal is getting to that championship and winning it. Nobody wants to say we got this far and it was a great run. Because at the end of the day, you still have that bad stomach feeling of we didn’t get it done.”