Antetokounmpo drawing the expected attention<\/a>, he had three assists in the opening 4:44.<\/p>\nAntetokounmpo also thrived in the Heat\u2019s up-tempo approach, often advancing the ball at speed and kicking out for open jumpers, including Wiggins\u2019 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiannis, his gravitational pull, it\u2019s crazy,\u201d Wiggins said.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo\u2019s play had Spoelstra reflecting on Magic Johnson did for the Los Angeles Lakers when he was coached by current Heat President Pat Riley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the size and the vision and his ability just to put it on the numbers to your shooters is really impressive,\u201d Spoelstra said of Antetokounmpo\u2019s passing. \u201cPat was at practice all week, and the way he\u2019s played with the ball in his hands\u00a0 and delivering the ball reminds all of us of a great big point guard that played for Pat back in the 80s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n
As do teammates,<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he\u2019s an incredible passer,\u201d Larsson said. \u201cI think you saw today he was making the right play every time \u2014 driving, kicking out to wide-, wide-open shooters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo was the lone starter not to attempt a 3-pointer.<\/p>\n
3. And Bam: With his time to be limited, Adebayo was allowed to play through three early fouls, with six points and five rebounds in his opening 6:50.<\/p>\n
Going in, Spoelstra said the goal was clear when it comes to Antetokounmpo and Adebayo, \u201cI want them to feel comfortable. I want them to feel like they\u2019re playing to their strengths.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, we can make both of those guys feel comfortable quickly to a point where they\u2019re our leaders. They\u2019re our co-pilots. The better they are at imposing their will at what they do, the more it influences the rest of their locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. In reserve: Hardaway thrived in his 11:13 off the bench, with 14 points on 4-of-4 shooting that included 3 of 3 on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
Also dynamic in that second unit was Larsson, whose aggressive, attacking style left him with 13 points on 3-of-3 shooting from the field and 7-of-7 shooting from the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe scored almost 80 points first half, but it still didn\u2019t feel great, which is crazy,\u201d Larsson said. \u201cSo it feels like we can keep working on it and get even better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe showed a lot of things that we\u2019ve been working on in camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only player to see action in each half for the Heat was Jovic, who had six rebounds and three assists in 9:53 in the first half while playing with the rotation players.<\/p>\n
5. Long day: Due to travel delays out of Miami, the Heat did not arrive in Quebec City until 12:57 a.m. Saturday, 6 hours, 4 minutes behind schedule.<\/p>\n
That came after the team concluded its\u00a0 final session of training camp at midday Friday at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.<\/p>\n
The Heat\u2019s lone remaining trip of the preseason is Oct. 16 for a matchup against the Orlando Magic at Kia Center.<\/p>\n
The Heat\u2019s first road game of the regular season is Oct. 24 against the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What mattered most in Saturday night\u2019s exhibition opener against the Toronto Raptors in Quebec City arguably came during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,3914,7223,590,85],"class_list":["post-915603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}