No, he wasn’t cooling his capturing hand, as he soaked it in an ice bucket late Wednesday night time within the locker room at Barclays Center, not after a 2-of-7 night time from the sphere.
Instead, it truly was a part of Duncan Robinson’s try to heat again to the sport, after six weeks and 20 video games out of the Miami Heat combine.
That, if not the ultimate rating within the 116-105 loss to the Brooklyn Nets, was a heartening facet of the Heat’s last sport earlier than their eight-day All-Star break.
Out since Jan. 2, Robinson not solely was within the Heat combine, however performed 23:21, his presence wanted amid the damage absences of Tyler Herro, Victor Oladipo and Kyle Lowry.
And he felt it afterward.
The surgical procedure on the second finger on his proper hand was deemed a hit however truly stays a piece in progress.
“I mean,” he mentioned, “the reality of it is it doesn’t get better for a while, completely better. It’s repaired, so that’s what’s most important. So it’s definitely enough to be out there and be effective.”
All seven of Robinson’s Wednesday makes an attempt had been 3-pointers, the specialty that led to the five-year, $90 million contract he signed within the 2021 offseason. It is a side the place the Heat have been severely missing this season.
“I believe in my ability to make shots,” he mentioned. “I’ve been doing it for a little while. So it’s whatever this team needs, honestly. If that’s it, for sure. I want to fill my role to the best of my ability. I feel like I’m capable for sure of making shots at a high level. So it’s a matter of time.”
But it’s additionally not as if time has totally healed this wound, with the ache lingering.
“I mean, just a little bit,” he mentioned. “That’s not going to go wherever anytime quickly. That was one of many issues I knew after I elected to do the process, is that there was going to be ache. But it’s considerably lower than it was earlier than.
“It functioned better than it was before. So, like I said, it felt good, it really did.”
The preliminary plan, Robinson acknowledged, was a return after the All-Star break. Then the crew’s accidents altered the timetable.
“I wanted to try to play as soon as possible,” the fifth-year guard mentioned. “It was type of a backwards and forwards with the coaching employees. To be sincere with you, for almost all of it, it was at all times going to be after All-Star [break]. That was type of what was communicated.
“Especially with us being down the way we are, just numbers wise, and these guys are playing super heavy minutes, I felt like I was good enough to go. And we just kind of ramped it up at the last second, and felt good enough, and it was tolerating everything. So I wanted to come back, get one underneath the belt, and obviously now there’s the break. A little bit of a weird situation, but I just really wanted to be there for everybody.”
The timetables of Herro, Oladipo and Lowry probably will have an effect on what comes subsequent for Robinson, who had been largely shuffled out of the rotation previous to his surgical procedure.
But at the very least the choice of the franchise’s all-time 3-point chief is again in place.
“That was probably one of the highlights of [Wednesday night],” coach Erik Spoelstra mentioned. “He actually pushed to get on the market. I feel that can assist him after the break, as nicely.
“It was just good to have him back in the mix.”
A relentless with Robinson, 28, had been that he doesn’t miss video games as a consequence of accidents. Prior to this layoff, he had not missed greater than three video games in a season past a rookie season spent largely within the G League.
“I always want to be available,” he mentioned. “I satisfaction myself on being accessible, being somebody who’s dependable. And it was a very robust resolution, one which weighed on me for some time, a part of the rationale I took some time to really elect to get the process.
“But I knew it was ultimately the right one I had to make. But definitely a challenge watching these guys play some great basketball through some really tough stretches, so I just want to try to come back and help in any way I can.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com