Heat trip a reminder of what might have been with Holiday, Lillard, as well as the tough road ahead

MIAMI — The schedule preceded the transactions, so it’s not as if the NBA intentionally created what-might-have-been torment for the Miami Heat’s first road trip of the season.

But there they are, Jrue Holiday with the Boston Celtics for Friday night’s start of the Heat’s three-game swing. And there he awaits, Damian Lillard on the final stop on Monday night, when the Heat face the Milwaukee Bucks.

Each could be traveling in Heat colors, if only the Portland Trail Blazers picked up the phone mere weeks ago.

Instead, it will be new challenges for familiar and vanquished foes, with the Heat having eliminated the Bucks in last season’s first round and the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.

“It’s going to test us,” center Bam Adebayo said. “This is one of those road trips where you’re going into the lion’s den and seeing where you are and seeing who you are as a team and your identity.”

And who you might have been.

Lillard had requested a trade to the Heat in July; the Blazers then proceeded to ghost the Heat for two months, as if the caller ID read Spam when the calls were made from 601 Biscayne. To make matters worse for the Heat, the Blazers then flipped Holiday, who was acquired from the Bucks for Lillard, to the Celtics.

Now, even with the Bucks and Celtics having fallen to the Heat in the 2023 postseason, each is considered to have distanced themselves from Erik Spoelstra’s team.

“You really get to get tested early on with the guys that we’re about to go up against, talking about some extremely talented guys, some championship-caliber teams,” forward Jimmy Butler said. “It’ll be fun. We’ll see what we’re made of right now.”

The Heat also will see how age factors into the trip’s equation, with the middle stop of the trip a Saturday game against a Minnesota Timberwolves team that will be coming off two nights off. That will make it the first back-to-back set of the season for a Heat roster with a starting lineup that features 34-year-old Butler, 35-year-old Kevin Love and 37-year-old Kyle Lowry.

“Let’s go,” Spoelstra said. “We’re competitors. We don’t want to hide. We don’t want to dodge anybody in this league. This league is about competition, survival of the strongest, and I’m sure they’ve circled us on the calendar.

“And if you’re really all about it, that’s what you want. And we’re looking forward to getting on this road trip and getting this season going.”

Twelve of the next 16 for the Heat are on the road. The Heat finished 17-24 on the road last season.

“At the end of the day,” guard Tyler Herro said, “it’s a good test for us at the beginning of the season, going on the road with a bunch of new faces — build chemistry, go through those experiences together on the road. You can’t really simulate that at home. Being on the road is different and I think it will be good for us.”

First up are the Celtics, who went down 0-3 to the Heat in last season’s Eastern Conference finals, tied the series 3-3, only to then lose Game 7 at TD Garden, where the rivalry resumes Friday on national television.

“I mean, we’ve seen them so much the last four or five years,” Herro said of the teams’ postseason history. “It’ll be another good experience. Going into that atmosphere will be great. I’m sure they’ll definitely be looking forward to playing us after last year.”

It was the Game 7 loss, Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck said this week on a Boston radio interview, that led to a Boston overhaul that brought in Kristaps Porzingis and Holiday and sent out Marcus Smart, Robert Williams, Grant Williams and Malcolm Brogdon.

“I sat there probably the whole second half of that game starting to think about it,” Grousbeck said. “And then I took two days to let everything settle down and then went and met with (GM) Brad Stevens and (coach) Joe Mazzulla, and we formulated a plan.

“I just said, ‘We’re not bringing back the same team.’ It’s been two seasons in a row of really good play but inconsistencies and they showed in the Finals two years ago and then in the conference finals last year. It just felt inconsistent and I said, ‘I just want to change the mix so that there’s just a freshness, a fresh approach, so we made some changes this summer.’ “