Ethan Thompson, Dru Smith, Nikola Jović, Erik Spoelstra | Postgame Interviews | October 4, 2025

Ethan Thompson, Dru Smith, Nikola Jović, Erik Spoelstra | Postgame Interviews | October 4, 2025

being a representative of the national team, you’re going to get a little extra love and you got it. How good did it feel to hear that joy raining down on the floor? Yeah. No, for sure. I mean, anytime I get to be back on the island is amazing. And then, you know, to have this experience, uh, you know, with the heat, um, is an amazing experience for sure. Yeah. How cool is it Spoke got you out there? I’m grateful for the opportunity for sure. I appreciate him looking out. So, he mentioned today in a postgame press conference that this was inevitable, that they’ve been trying to get you a couple times and finally got you here. What do you think about first of all the organization having that type of focus and you know eventually we’re going to make that happen? Yeah. No, definitely. I mean I I appreciate the you know consistent uh communication that we’ve had over the years and I’m grateful to be here now. Um and definitely I feel like this is the right place for me to be um to continue to grow and develop. So yeah, it feels like Spoke coaches every group the same. So the group that you’re in, how how is it receiving that type of information from a man with his credentials? I mean every time he speaks I feel like you got to be attentive listening. So, um, he’s he’s a great coach, Hall of Fame coach for a reason. So, um, definitely enjoying the process and and trying to take in everything that he teaches us. As for tonight, who who all was here for you? Uh, my whole family, uh, that’s been on the island. My mom and my brother were able to fly in. So, it was a special moment for sure. That’s fantastic. Congratulations. Now, you keep up the good work. Simple for you. It’s just how sweet is it to be back out on the floor trying to help this team do some things? Yeah, absolutely. you know, just just excited to to have that chance to be back out there. Um, you know, whenever you go down with something like that, you really you never know what it’s going to look like on the back end. So, definitely excited to be back out there. Yeah, you had to do this a couple times now. And so, I imagine along the way you have to find some extra strength. Where do where did that stuff come from for you? Uh, you know, I think a couple different places. I think uh you know, first my faith uh my faith in God. I think uh that that’s helped me a lot. has helped me get through, you know, a lot of these things with some positivity. Uh, my family, my wife specifically. Um, you know, she’s with me every day through all the all the hard days that are that a lot of people don’t see during the rehab. You know, she keeps me going. So, you know, those things together just uh have got me back here. That’s awesome. I know everybody’s got to own the second chance point stuff. But that second group, Spo, you like the way that you guys did some things. What did you appreciate most about your group’s play? Um, I thought we played hard. I thought we um especially there in the first half, we uh we did a good job of uh setting the tone defensively. Um you know, getting some deflections, getting some easy run out baskets. Um and I like the way that we moved the ball on offense. Uh I think everybody was touching it and the ball was uh the ball was popping. How nice was it just to get out there and compete against another team. We’re going to compete against Orlando a lot, but anyway, had to be nice. Yeah, it was u it felt great, you know. Uh camp was tough, you know, tough for a lot of us. We were, you can see it was a little tired and stuff, but it was happy. You know, playing is what we all want and uh getting out there feeling, you know, the type of action we had uh with the guys, you know, that you know, you’re going to battle with through the whole season. It’s, you know, why we do this. And uh it felt great. I would say that, you know, we have a lot more to work on, but you know, I feel like everybody saw that game that we play is going to be a little different this year. And uh uh I feel like we got to stick with it and I feel like we got a big pot potential with it. Yeah, you could feel the dynamic of the offense complemented by the defense of the first and second team, but obviously everybody has to own those 42 second chance points that Orlando had. How do you clean that up quickly? I mean, I think that’s simple stuff. It’s it’s more we got to be more precise with it. It’s you know, you can scheme it. You can you know, we just got to be smarter with it and tougher with it and we we’ll be able to do it. I’m I’m really not worried about that. Of course, it’s important if you want to win to to mention it and uh make sure that we we get better at it, but uh if you really think about it, without those, you know, second chance points, this will be a almost a blowout game. So, yeah, it must be nice to have a little bit of that offense working that way. It worked for you in those uh 12 minutes I think you had in the contest. Yeah. Uh felt great, you know, just running the floor with the guys who who understand how it’s played, you know, simple basketball, drive and kick. Uh, one dribble there will help you kick it. You know, my boy Him is open, knocks the shot down. So, feels really good. I I feel like we understand what we got to do and it’s not like we’re just out there running around. We We know what we have to do and I feel like he’ll be a lot better. What was your best congratulations note that you’ve received over the last 48 hours or so for the extension? Uh, probably Bam, man. I think Bam congratulated me like 58 times, you know, so I’m I’m a little bit get tired of him right now. in your pockets. No. So, I mean the first half um certainly there are some things uh uh in terms of our defense except for you know finishing uh our possessions with uh rebounding. I mean that uh is uh kept in obvious stuff, but some of the efforts um and then the pace going the other way uh in the first half. Um that’s that was what we’ve been, you know, trying to work on. Um you know, but overall, you know, we we want to have more physicality, more toughness, uh and certainly on the glass. It started off with like six or seven that went through our hands. Uh and then it snowballed uh from there and um we’ll get to work on that uh you know and shore that up. Yeah, that uh I assume you bring that up. Everybody can open that. Uh yes, but we need to correct it, you know, and we’ll get to work on that. We have been working on that. uh you know everybody uh was talking about it at halftime you know so you know that’s what I want to see is uh the recognition uh and then correction uh of it we weren’t able to uh make that uh change in the second half they just continued to uh to pound us and then they you know they started to go a little bit harder in the second half as as you would expect uh you know but there there were some good things defensively from our efforts but uh you know we have to finish those uh those possessions off with more physicality. How nice Thompson general manager Carlo super proud to see him organization. Yeah, it was uh cool to see it and every time you know he touched the ball, you could hear uh the crowd uh you know step up and um those are special moments uh you know that you’ve enjoy being part of. Uh it was a great crowd. Um, you know, we enjoyed uh our 24 hours here. Uh, wish we could have gotten the W. U, but we’ll get back to Miami and get to work. As you do get back to Miami, very interesting in town working out prepared for Monday’s tussle. The task ahead with them, I assume doesn’t change much to the plan that you had that extension. Yeah, we’ll continue to get to work. Uh, there definitely were some good things. I mean, uh, there was a great flow in that first half. Uh, the second unit really came in and played well, um, and and sparked us and, uh, they’re all over the place defensively. Uh, you know, Drew and KJ were really making some great efforts out there. Uh, and then turning those into, you know, transition or semi-transition opportunities going the other way. That was that was a fun period of the game. Uh and in the first half in general there was uh you know it felt like the game was uh on our terms. So you know we just have to work on some things to to make it more consistent. What do you take from not just the game but the experience of being here in Puerto Rico and playing on and off the court? We enjoy it. Uh, you know, we would have enjoyed it if there was another day here if we could have gotten here a day earlier, but we had training camp. Uh, but this kind of breaks up preseason. Um, and it is close uh enough to to South Florida. Most of us have uh been here enough times. Uh, we love the island. Um, we love the passion for the game. It was cool to see uh Los uh you know I see him uh you know all the time in Miami but it was cool to see him here and um was like I said it was a a good event um and it’s worthy of coming back down here again. What do you take away from Thompson’s play? What qualities do you set apart? We like Ethan. You know we’ve we’ve been a fan of his for a couple years. We tried to get him a couple uh a couple years ago. um it just didn’t work out. Um so we’ve followed him since then. Um thought he had the qual qualities that fit, you know, how we we play and how we do things. He’s had a very good training camp. He was really committed in September and August. Uh and he just has to keep on plugging away. He’s he’s very close. You know, to me, he’s an NBA player. Uh it’s just a matter of, you know, the right opportunity, the right uh timing. Okay. Thank you.

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Ethan Thompson, Dru Smith, Nikola Jović and Erik Spoelstra spoke to the media following Saturday night’s game vs. the Orlando Magic.

0:00 Ethan Thompson
1:20 Dru Smith
2:36 Nikola Jović
4:48 Erik Spoelstra

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