MIAMI – The Miami Heat are holding their season-ending media session today at Kaseya Center.
Among the comments offered were:
– Coach Erik Spoelstra said he sees a future of the Bam Adebayo-Kel’el Ware pairing.
– “They were able to do it in more impactful games down the stretch,” he said.
– “Both of them took a jump,” Spoelstra said.
– He added, “You need to be able to play big. You also need to be able to play small.”
– Of the Tyler Herro-Norman Powell pairing, Spoelstra said, “It ended up being a challenge at the very end.”
– He said injuries muddled that mix, “but we would have been able to work.”
– Of the pairing with Herro, Powell said, “I don’t think we got a full chance to figure that out.”
– Powell added, “It’s really tough not seeing what it could be.”
– Powell said the plan again is to work in the offseason with the Jamaican national team.
– He added, “I’m fully invested into the Jamaican national team.”
– Of the sudden end to the season, Spoelstra said, “We don’t like this feeling at all, being off in the middle of April.”
– He said there had been a clear path to something better than the No. 10 seed, “I truly felt that there could have been four to six more wins on the table for us.”
– He added, “But we’ll be motivated moving forward. The front office, they’re already going to work.”
– “We’re going to get to work this summer,” he said of being better.
– Of those wins that might have gotten away, Davion Mitchell said he felt there were too many games when the Heat let up after establishing leads.
– Jaime Jaquez Jr., when asked to sum up the season, “We had a lot of good moments, a lot of not-so-good moments.”
– He added, “We just couldn’t put it together enough times when we needed it.”
– Asked about his final message today to players, he said, “It’s amazing how fast these seasons go. And that’s the message you try to implore during the season. We weren’t able to maximize what we thought the potential of this team could be.”
– Of his highlight moment of the season, Spoelstra said, “The beginning of the season, there was an energy and momentum. I thought we were going to build off that.”
– He added, “This was a great group to be around. I commend the competitive character of this group.”
– Still, Mitchell said he would like to see teammates get together more in the offseason.
– Of the team’s youth, Spoelstra said, “Our young guys got a lot better, all down the line.”
– In that regard, Spoelstra cited the seasons of Ware, Jaquez, Pelle Larsson and Kasparas Jakucionis.
– As for the struggles of Nikola Jovic, Spoelstra cited Jaquez as a potential bounce-back comparison.
– “What he does fits,” Spoelstra said of Jovic.
– Spoelstra termed the team’s new offense a success, “Our offense looked great against a lot of the teams.”
– Added, “We’ll dive into all of it.”
– But said still thinking about the season-turning plays at the close of Tuesday night’s play-in overtime loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
– “We had our opportunities,” Spoelstra said.
– Mitchell said he did not feel up to his defensive standard this season, “I felt like last year I was more disruptive than I was this year.”