Heat’s Kyle Lowry thriving in bench role: ‘I’m doing whatever it takes for my team to win games’

Kyle Lowry has been a starter for most of his NBA career and now the veteran point guard is playing as a reserve. But the goal remains the same.

Win games.

“I’m playing to help my team win and that’s all that really matters,” Lowry said ahead of Game 5 of the Heat’s second-round playoff series against the New York Knicks on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. “If it’s a high level, low level, as long as we win basketball games, I really don’t care.”

But there’s no denying that this is a new role for Lowry, who has played as a reserve since returning two months ago on March 11 from a 15-game absence due to left knee soreness. This stretch is the first time Lowry, 37, has been used off the bench since the 2012-13 season with the Toronto Raptors a decade ago.

The initial thinking behind the Heat’s decision to move Lowry to the bench and start Gabe Vincent in his place was to keep Lowry’s minutes down upon his return from left knee pain. Lowry began missing time because of his troublesome left knee in December but returned to play through the pain before missing five weeks of game action to focus on rehabbing and treating his knee.

In part because Lowry returned from his extended absence with just about a month left in the regular season, the Heat has carried that plan into the playoffs.

“He’s the ultimate winner, so what drives him more than anything is winning,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And there were just unfortunate circumstances how we got to this. His injury shutting him down for five weeks and the plan — as we’ve talked about quite a bit — it just made the most sense initially to bring them off the bench. That was to protect him, to protect me and just to get him ready for this time. And then it just got so late [in the season], we didn’t have a lot of time, we just stayed with it. He’s been fantastic about it.”

In turn, the results have been fantastic for Lowry this postseason.

With a six-time NBA All-Star and 2019 NBA champion in Lowry leading the bench unit, Miami’s reserves entered Wednesday averaging 34.6 points per game in the playoffs, which is the most among the eight teams still alive this postseason. This comes after the Heat closed the regular season with the sixth-lowest scoring bench in the league at 29.8 points per game.

More importantly, the Heat is winning the minutes its bench is on the court. Miami’s reserves combined to post a negative plus-minus of minus-53 in the regular season but they entered Wednesday as a plus-34 in the playoffs.

“One of the things that we’ve found is you’re bringing a Hall of Fame mind off the bench, and our second unit was struggling for much of the year,” Spoelstra said. “You shift him into there, a lot of these things that we were working on endlessly just kind of get taken care of. And he’s playing starter’s minutes, and he’s smart enough and experienced enough to get it.”

Lowry entered Wednesday averaging 10.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and four assists in 24.2 minutes per game while shooting 44.9 percent shooting from the field and 37.5 percent from beyond the arc in nine games during this year’s playoffs. He has also been a force defensively, recording at least one steal in seven games and blocking four shots in the Heat’s Game 1 win over the Knicks during the playoffs.

“I think I just kind of fell into it and it’s been working for us as a group and for me,” Lowry said of his new bench role. “I think we’ve just all have been on the same page and we’re on the same page. We all have one common goal and that’s the most important thing. I think that’s where we are right now.”

Lowry, who is in the second season of a three-year contract worth $85 million, was at the center of trade rumors ahead of the Feb. 9 trade deadline. He ended up staying with the Heat and he’s now at the center of Miami’s emerging bench unit.

“At this point, it’s all about the team and figuring out what the team needs and what’s best for us,” Lowry said. “At the end of the day, we’re trying to get a total amount of wins to win a championship. But we got to worry about the next day, the next game. For me, I’m doing whatever it takes for my team to win games and that’s all that really matters.”

NOT SATISFIED

With the NBA announcing the All-Defensive teams on Tuesday, Heat center Bam Adebayo learned he made the All-Defensive Second Team for the fourth consecutive season.

Adebayo joined LeBron James as the only two players in franchise history to be named to one of the league’s All-Defensive teams in four consecutive seasons while with the Heat. But Adebayo isn’t satisfied because he still wants to make the All-Defensive First Team and win the Defensive Player of the Year award one day.

“Still work to be done,” Adebayo said. “I still want the DPOY and First Team,” Adebayo said following the Heat’s Wednesday morning shootaround session at Madison Square Garden.

Does Adebayo feel like his defensive ability is still underappreciated?

“I feel like it doesn’t really get noticed until the playoffs,” Adebayo said. “That’s when people really start to see who I am, what I can do and how special I am.”

▪ The only Heat players ruled out for Game 5 on Wednesday are Tyler Herro (broken right hand) and Victor Oladipo (torn patellar tendon).

The only rotation player on the Knicks’ injury report is guard Immanuel Quickley, who will not play in Game 5 because of a sprained left ankle. Quickley also missed Game 4 because of the injury.