It was an awkward play Saturday night — Cleveland’s Alonzo Gee was driving the lane and Miami’s Udonis Haslem stepped in to take the charge. Haslem was knocked backwards and fell into Shane Battier’s right knee, and Battier went to the ground grabbing it.
Battier left the game and did not return. He tweeted out the result and a vague reference to when he will be back.Thanks for all the notes peeps, I will be alright. My knee got caught in a weird position as I got tangled up. Mild sprain. Be back in a few
— Shane Battier (@ShaneBattier) November 25, 2012
Not sure if Battier means a few games or a few days. Or both.
Battier has started all 13 Heat games this season, playing really as a stretch-four (he defends the opposing four most of the time) allowing LeBron James to head to the post in the Heat’s position-less offense. Most of what Battier does is move the ball and stretch the floor on offense by shooting the corner three — 4.5 of his 5.2 shot attempts per games are threes, and he is shooting 45.8 percent from deep.
Miami will miss that because Battier is smart about it and does it well. The most logical option is to go with Rashard Lewis as the stretch four, but he has fallen out of favor in Miami and is not currently part of the rotation. However, if I were a betting man I’d think Haslem will move into the starting spot, even though he doesn’t space the floor the same way.
Tom Haberstroh at ESPN’s Heat Index put out an interesting idea — move Joel Anthony back into the starting five, sliding Chris Bosh to the four and Lebron to the three. Anthony brings great defense and no offense, and coach Erik Spoelstra moved away from that trade off in the playoffs. But in the short term here this would be an interesting call.
