As the Miami Heat have 10 games left in the regular season, they are still dealing with the injuries to crucial players like Tyler Herro, Kevin Love, Duncan Robinson, and even Jimmy Butler who missed their last game with an illness. However, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke after Thursday's practice gives an encouraging update on the mentioned players with some news released from the team revealing their status for Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers.

It was announced by the Heat on their X (previously known as Twitter) account that Tyler Herro will miss his 17th straight game as he is still dealing with right foot medial tendinitis along with Duncan Robinson, missing his fifth with left facet syndrome. However, there is positive news as Kevin Love who has missed the last 14 outings is listed as “probable” with a right heel bruise along with Butler.

Spoelstra talks about Herro's progression through injury

Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro (14) shoots a jump shot against the New Orleans Pelicans during the first half at Smoothie King Center.
Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

Herro has been having arguably a career-best season with Miami but has been hit by the injury bug once again as he has missed the last 17 contests including Friday as previously said. He has been averaging 20.8 points and 4.4 assists per game which are season-bests for the University of Kentucky product, but while he's dealing with an injury, he was present after Thursday's practice shooting the ball.

Spoelstra touched on seeing Herro back on the floor being active again, mentioning how encouraging it is as even besides the current injury, he missed most of November with an ankle sprain. He said to the media after practice that Herro is on “that next phase of return,” but there isn't a timetable yet.

“He’s on that next phase of his return,” Spoelstra said. “We don’t have a timeline, but yeah it’s definitely encouraging that he’s able to get on the wood and start to get ready. This is part of the ramp up, this is part of the plan and there is a lot of encouraging things with guys that have been out, everybody has been making really good progress.”

As for Love, the Heat have missed him desperately as he was the true backup center to star Bam Adebayo and also provided some spacing and veteran leadership. He did miss practice Thursday, but Spoelstra said it was for “personal reasons” since the team announced he was probable for Friday as said before.

“He was out today for personal reasons, but he has made tremendous progress,” Spoelstra said. “His status will be upgraded tomorrow and we'll see how he feels.”

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Spoelstra on the injured players' mental state with Heat

While the focus is on the physical status of the players that have missed time, an aspect that gets overlooked is the mental state. Spoelstra said to ClutchPoints that there has to be a “balance” of wanting to be out there with your teammates, but also not wanting to rush an injury.

“You have to balance like all of this, right now it's it has to be this idea of all hands on deck, but it has to be in an intelligent way. We're trying to get back guys out there as quickly as we possibly can,” Spoelstra said. “They're doing whatever they have to do around the clock to make themselves available. Ultimately, all this becomes about committing to something bigger than yourself to the team, whatever you can get at this time of year and then each case is different. Everybody's body is different. Everybody's rehab is different, the ramp up is different. And we have to treat that accordingly. But we're getting guys back, we're encouraged by the progress and in the meantine, we just have to do whatever we have to do to get wins. We know how to do that.”

The Heat are 39-33 on the season which puts them seventh in the tightly packed Eastern Conference as not only are these last 10 remaining games vital, but the the performances of the team around their seeding. There is no excuses as their next two games are against teams with exposable records as they close out the home stand Friday against Portland and go on the road to take on the Washington Wizards Sunday.