An essential player to the Miami Heat even at the age of 37-years old has been point guard Kyle Lowry. The former Toronto Raptor who won a championship with them in 2019 has been a staple to the team as he's been Miami's starting point guard so far this season with questions about his regressing play.

While his averages will not turn any heads as he averages 9.8 points, 4.1 assists, and 4.0 rebounds per game, he's been significant as of recent due to the immense amount of injuries the Heat face. For someone at his aforementioned age, one would expect to participate in less minutes, but it is the exact opposite as he's played around 30 minutes per game.

Even looking at the most recent outing where the Heat lost to the Chicago Bulls Thursday night, he played in a season-high 39 minutes where he scored 17 points. Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke about Lowry and acknowledged he understands the term “father time” and how to adapt from it according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald.

“He put in the time during the offseason,” Spoelstra said. “He was healthy going into the offseason, so he was really able to train and prepare for this season and he understands as well as anybody that Father Time is the ultimate opponent and you do have to adapt as you get older. The instinct is to do less and you actually have to do more to prepare for this. So I think if he was trying to fast track everything once the season started, he would not have been in a position to be able to handle these kinds of minutes early on.”

Lowry cites his love for the game

Kyle Lowry, Miami Heat

Just from watching any Heat game, one could see how hard, physical, and tough Lowry plays, even at his age. His simple motivation for playing the way he does is that he loves playing the game of basketball.

“I think at the end of the day, I like to play basketball,” Lowry said to the media. “I love to play basketball. I’ve taken pride in being able to try to be available. Throughout my career, I’ve had a lot of different type of injuries, freak injuries, that take me out. But if I have an opportunity to be healthy enough to play, I take pride in that.”

As mentioned before, the team needs Lowry more than ever at this point with Miami missing key players in the back-court like Tyler Herro and recently in Josh Richardson. Spoelstra said that the former Raptor understands the assignment because he's a proven “winner.”

“Kyle is just a winner,” Spoelstra continued. “So he understands that we have guys out and we need him, we need our guys. Anybody that can play, we need them right now. Nobody waits in this league. You don’t want to make any excuses. If we’re constantly saying, ‘Hey, we have enough to get the job done,’ you have to have guys that actually live it and breathe that. Kyle is one of those kinds of guys.”

Lowry stepping up with injuries running rampant for Miami

Lowry has injury history of his own as last season, he missed a significant chunk due to a left knee injury. Playing the way he does, Lowry admits it might not be “the smartest idea,” but helping the team as much as he can takes top priority from him.

“It’s not sometimes the smartest idea,” Lowry said. “But I think in this situation that we’ve been beat up so much this season, I think just trying to be available and help and play basketball games and do my job at the highest level where I can do that. I take pride in being able to be on the floor.”

Especially how the second unit of the Heat this season consists of a ton of young players, Lowry is the exact type of veteran presence that is needed to help develop the core. Spoelstra agrees with that notion and said to the media that he “complements different lineups.”

“He’s finding more consistent ways to do that and to complement different lineups,” Spoelstra said. “Hopefully that will continue to be something that we can count on even as we start to get other guys back. We always want Kyle to be aggressive.”

The Heat are 14-11 on the season to start which puts them at seventh in the Eastern Conference. They face the Bulls for the second time in a row Saturday night, trying to bounce back from a brutal loss Thursday.