MIAMI — The pace race has proven a winnable commodity for the Miami Heat . . . but at what cost to the league and even to those who might choose to run in the other direction?
On the eve of his team facing the Heat on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr spoke of a common thread between the NBA’s uptick in injuries and the league’s uptick in pace.
The Heat not only went into Wednesday night as the league leaders in pace (106.28 possessions per 48 minutes), but by a considerable margin over the next-fastest Portland Trail Blazers (103.98).
“I think across the league, and everybody understands now that it’s just easier to score if you can beat the opponent down the floor, get out in transition,” Kerr said. “But when everybody’s doing that, the games are much higher paced, faster paced, and then everyone has to cover out to 25 feet, because everybody can shoot threes.
“We have all the data. Players are running faster, further than ever before. So we’re trying to do the best we can to protect them, but basically have a game every other night, and not an easy thing to do.”
To that end, with Wednesday night the Warriors’ third game in five nights, having lost Tuesday night to the Orlando Magic, Golden State ruled out Stephen Curry at midday for Wednesday night’s game, with Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green listed as questionable.
Curry was listed with ankle soreness, with Butler listed with a lower-back strain and Green with an illness.
Considering the Heat’s pace, it’s not exactly the preferred landing spot on the second night of a back-to-back set.
Of the spate of injuries across the league, Kerr said his team’s training staff has found direct correlation to the uptick in pace.
“They believe that the wear and tear, the speed, the pace, the mileage, it’s all factoring into these injuries,” he said.
For the Warriors, the schedule to start the season has been particularly grueling, with Wednesday night their 17th game, completing their fifth back-to-back set. By comparison, the Heat have had two fewer games and just two back-to-back sets.
Kerr acknowledged the schedule as a complex puzzle of mashing together 82 regular-season games, while also conforming the schedule to accommodate the NBA Cup in-season tournament and a weeklong All-Star break.
“I bring it up. I bring it up a lot,” Kerr said of his messaging to the NBA hierarchy of the grueling nature of the schedule. “I just think if we’re actually focused on the product, it would be great. We literally have not had a single practice on this road trip, not one, we’ve gone a week, longer, eight days, not one practice — ’cause it’s just game, game, game.
“So not only is there no recovery time, there’s no practice time. What was different back in the day, you did have like four in five nights, which was not great. But then you’d have four days before your next game. So you’d take a day off and you’d actually have a couple of good practices, scrimmage.”
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Kerr acknowledged some things have been done, but perhaps not enough.
“So there’s no easy answer here,” he said. “The league has done a great job of trying to protect players by not overloading the schedule with four in five nights. But now it’s basically we’re playing every other night and the other side of that is we’re not getting any practice time and the wear and tear is there, anyway, because it’s the accumulation of all those games and the speed and the pace and mileage and everything else.”
Then there is the cash reality.
“I mean the tricky part is all the constituents would have to agree to take less revenue,” Kerr said of a short, less-compact schedule. “And 2025 in America, good luck, in any industry, to agree. Yeah, imagine some big company saying, ‘You know what, we’re not as concerned about our stock price. We’re actually concerned with employing people and giving people a stable job and making our product better.’
“Come on, that’s not happening, we know that.”
