INDIANAPOLIS — With Erik Spoelstra’s hand tipped before the Thursday night game against the Chicago Bulls that wasn’t, there is no turning back for the Miami Heat:

Tyler Herro is back in the starting lineup and back in an opening unit alongside Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell and Davion Mitchell.

Spoelstra had those five on his lineup card for the Thursday night game at the United Center that was postponed due to condensation on the court. The move forward with that lineup then was confirmed ahead of Saturday’s game against the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

“And we wanted to see it through before and the injuries prevented that,” Spoelstra said, with Herro returning in Tuesday night’s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves at the start of this trip, his first action since Dec. 9, after dealing with a toe contusion.

“There are a lot of important lineups,” Spoelstra said. “So we’ll look at this. There’s information gathering, but I think it has an opportunity to be a really dynamic lineup for us.

“We’ll continue to utilize the versatility of our roster and weaponize different lineups throughout the course of the game.”

The Heat went into Saturday night with only four previous games when Herro, Adebayo, Powell, Wiggins and Mitchell were available the same game, at 2-2 in those four.

“I mean, I hope it works, obviously,” Herro said, with Saturday just his eighth appearance of the season, after also missing the start of the season due to September ankle surgery. He had played off the bench in Tuesday night’s return.

“I think we all, in different ways, have to sacrifice to try to make it work, especially with that first unit. So if that’s changing up how you play a little bit, it’s a sacrifice for the greater good, including myself doing some winning things that will help the whole group as a whole, as opposed to just myself.”

The readjustment means shifting second-year center Kel’el Ware back to the bench, with Saturday his 11th bench appearance in his 38 appearances this season.

“Our young guys are so pivotal to our success and they’ll come in and off the bench and give us great energy and a boost,” Spoelstra said.

Ware spoke after the morning shootaround about the possibilities with such a second unit.

“We’re all young,” he said. “We all like to hoop, first and foremost, and we’re full of energy. We can go out there and just run up and down, play with pace, and just play together.”

And so, after talking about the freedom of playing at power forward, it’s back to center for Adebayo.

“It’s going to be fun, man,” he said, “building that chemistry and getting out there.”

The Kel’el Bowl

Ware joked after practice about watching both of his schools playing in Friday night’s national semifinal college football game, with Indiana (the second of his schools) defeating Oregon (the first) for the right to face the University of Miami for the championship.

“But it was crazy just to watch those two go against each other,” he said, “because I went to both,”

So Indiana now a football school?

“Uh, I mean, well, I haven’t really been hearing much about basketball, so I think so,” he said with a smile.

G League perfection

While the Heat were idle Friday, their G League affiliate was making history, with Sioux Falls Skyforce guard Trevor Keels shooting 12 of 12 on 3-pointers in a victory over the Portland Trail Blazers’ affiliate.

“It was incredible,” Spoelstra said of taking in the action during a coaches’ dinner. “We had it on our phone during the football game and we just kept on going and not missing.”

He compared Keels’ Friday success to that of Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza on Friday night.

“It’s kind of like Mendoza in terms of the completion rate,” Spoelstra said. “It was pretty impressive to keep your concentration all the way through like that ”

Keels, a 2022 New York Knicks second-round pick out of Duke, is free to be signed by any NBA team.