Miami Heat Winners & Losers From NBA Preseason Heat vs. Bucks Ft. Nikola Jovic, Kel’el Ware

Miami Heat Winners & Losers From NBA Preseason Heat vs. Bucks Ft. Nikola Jovic, Kel’el Ware

[Music] The Miami Heat played their second preseason game of 2025 last night against the Milwaukee Bucks. They lost, but I don’t really care about results in the preseason. What I do care about is how the starting lineup looked again. Yes, there are some still players out with injury, but there are a lot of takeaways that we have, some winners, some losers, and we’re going to look at the latest on this team after that game against the Bucks. But I do want to make you aware, we are back live on the channel for another live edition of the Heat Report by Chad Sports. Watch parties are officially back. We’ll be live on Wednesday, October 8th, 7:15 p.m. Eastern time, 6:15 p.m. Central time for Heat Spurs. This is our thumbnail, Yovic Wii. So, if you want to tune in, subscribe, and don’t forget that we’re going to be live tomorrow. All right, the first winner is Norman Powell. And we’re not going to have all winners. We’re not going to have all loers, but Powell certainly made a large impression on Heat fans last night. It was a spotty first game on Saturday for Powell, but on Monday, he was absolutely cooking. He did not play in the second half, only played in the first half, but played in 16 out of 24 possible minutes. And boy was he on fire from beyond the ark. He had 18 points in the first half, shooting 50% from both the field and from beyond the ark. When you watched Norman Powell last night, and if you did, you would know. If you didn’t, let me try to tell you, he looked exactly like how you would have imagined him fitting into this heat team when the trade was made in July. If you go back to the trade, I talked about it instantly on our reaction video, on our live stream, and videos to follow over the last couple of months on how I think he is going to impact this Heat team in such a positive way with his offensive creation in tough shotmaking ability. That is exactly what he looked like yesterday. He is a dynamic shooter, a dynamic scorer, but the part that makes him such a awesome player to have on your team, especially with how he is progressing in his career right now, he is able to score without being selfish. He is an unselfish basketball player. He’s able to score at these efficient rates while playing in the flow of the offense, off catching shoots. Like there are scorers in the NBA that score because of volume, that score because they have the ball in their hands the most and are ball stoppers. They don’t move the ball. They iso. They hold on the ball for 8 seconds in the shot clock and then put up a shot. That is not what Norman Powell does. He keeps the ball moving, relocates, hits his shots, gets out in transition, and leverages his shooting into drives, which collapses the defense for kickouts. or he can get to the rack and finish with a floater or at the rim. I loved what I saw from Norman Powell yesterday. And the Heat have a golden opportunity here. And I hate to bring this up, but there are two ways this season could go for Miami. There is a positive way and there is a negative way. The Heat with Powell have a very interesting decision to make because if the Heat come out firing and playing out good early in the year and then Hero returns in mid to late November and they take that step forward as a top five six team in the East and are a playoff team, not a playin team. Well, that’s awesome. You can make the playoffs or Powell continues to play extremely well like how he looked in that game last night without Tyler Hero. You pump up his trade value. you’re a play-in team, you’re not performing well, you trade him since he’s an expiring contract for multiple second round picks, or you might even get lucky and get a first round pick. You’d have a golden opportunity to either use Powell to get to the playoffs or flip him at the deadline and get draft capital for the future. But the point I’m also going to try to make here is that these four are dangerous when I know it’s only a small sample size. It’s only been two preseason games, but when these four share the floor, Powell, Wiggins, Yovic, Bam, they look so comfortable together. Their strengths and weaknesses are masked by each other. Like, Yovic gets the best out of Powell and Wiggins offensively. Wiggins and Powell work really well together on the offensive, but I want to make note of this, the defensive end of the floor, and we know what Bam could bring to the table every single night defensively. And he looks really aggressive in terms of his ability to get to the charity stripe early in this preseason. It’s going to be interesting to see who the fifth person is in that four lineup in terms of starting and closing games without Tyler Hero, but we know it’s going to be Hero when he returns in late November. But for the first month of the year, who is going to be that fifth guy? Probably won’t be Hakez in the regular season. We’ll talk more about that later on in this video. But those four look really good playing together. Really connected, really solid group right there. What is your biggest takeaway from last night? I think there are a lot of takeaways that we’re talking about. I’m not going to give you my top one right now, but let me know yours pin comment. On today’s show, we’re going to get to our first loser on today’s show, and that is secondyear center Kel Wear. I know you guys might call me a hater in the chat, but head coach Eric Spolstra sees exactly what I’ve been seeing and is exactly the reason why I have been saying what I’ve been saying. One, he played until the game finished. He didn’t really play that much in the first half, only about seven minutes, but played 16 minutes in the second half and played until the buzzer sounded in that fourth quarter. Now, the raw box scorer will tell you that he had a really good game. He finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds, shot just under 50% from the field and even shot 50% from three. But for the people who did not watch the game, there is nothing positive about this stat line. He had four turnovers and it’s preseason, but he did not impact winning. The Heat got outscored in the second half. They lost by 10. Said results don’t matter. But I think it’s telling that when he was on the floor yesterday in his 23 minutes, the Heat were a minus 21 and they got outscored by 14 in the fourth quarter. I mentioned it where played until that buzzer sounded. And when you watch him play, you sometimes forget you’re watching him play because he’s not on his consistent effort. And the effort that he shows sometimes is so piss poor. Dude, you’re in the NBA. You don’t have a long-term secured contract. You’re on a rookie deal. Show me some effort. Eric Spraer feels like that’s the same thing. And this is what I’ve been trying to tell all y’all. Spo after the game asked about where says there was a three-minute segment where he actually impacted the game, but the rest of it has to impact the game. Actually, I’m not looking at the statline. I think everybody’s looking at the wrong thing. It has to impact the game. Spo clearly wants more from KL Wear. And as the host of this channel, I am trying to inform you. I’m trying to analyze the game. And when I watched wear last season, I watched where in the summer league, I saw consistent lack of effort and it’s almost like he didn’t want to be there. Hassan Whitesideesque after Hassan got his bag from the Heat in 2016. I’m not comparing the two. Wear has an unbelievable amount of talent, but the consistent lack of effort that is shown from time to time, it’s concerning. It is and it’s why you’re probably going to see Nikico Yovic start and it’s why you’re going to see wear consistently have a short leash and maybe not see as many minutes as fans want to see at home. It’s just the truth of the story here folks. We’s got to prove it to the head coach that he wants to be on the floor and will give consistent effort will impact the game so he can be on the floor for 20 25 minutes a night. more coming. But this episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I make decisions every single day. The right decisions on prize picks can get you paid. It’s so easy. All you do is pick more or less on at least two player stats. If you get your picks right, you could cash in. How you play is up to you. If you want flexibility, choose the flex play where you can get paid. Even if one of your picks misses. And if you want the biggest payouts, go for the power play. No matter your play, Riseix is a great way to put your takes to the test. But also flexibility. You can choose how you play. You want to go season long, you want to go daily, you can. I have a seasonl long three pick power play for this upcoming year. I’m a be mill guy. I’m going more than 22 points per game. Dylan Harper, loved him coming out of the draft. Thought he was worthy of the number one pick, but it’s a crowded room in San Antonio. Is he really going to average more than 13.3 points? Oh, probably not. I’m going less there. I think Luca Dotic is going to be in the top three of the MVP voting this season. I think he’s averaging 30. So, I’m taking the more on his points per game at 29.1. Download the Prize Pix app today and use code CLNS to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code CLNS to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It’s good to be right. We just mentioned Nico Yoic and how he is likely going to be a starter. Well, he has started the first two preseason games for the Miami Heat and he is a clearcut winner for this team through the first couple of preseason games. Once again, in this game, he looked like a man worthy of the $62.4 million extension that he inked him to just late last week. I mean, he was absolutely phenomenal last night. He played 23 minutes just like Khal Wear. But in contrast, when Yoic was on the floor, the Heat were a plus 12 in those 23 minutes. And that’s the contrast to Wear being a minus 21 in his 23 minutes. He just stuffs the stat sheet, man. He impacts the game in so many different ways. And that is what I’ve been trying to tell people and why I think Yovic should start. He impacts the game in so many different ways. Is where a better rebounder? Yes. Is wear a better rim protector? Yes. But every single thing other than rim protection and rebounding, Yic is better in. But it’s not like Yoic is some slack in terms of his ability to rebound. Spolster said he challenged Yoic after the first preseason game to be more involved on the glass both offensively and defensively. How did he respond? Eight boards last night alongside nine points and seven assists. Speaking of those seven assists, came alongside no turnovers. Yoic is such an impactful and fascinating player. It’s why I have been so high on him since the Heat drafted him in the 27th pick of the 2022 NBA draft. And it’s why over the past couple of off seasons where we’ve had this channel, y’all have seen a lot of Yoic propaganda from yours truly. He has that ability to elevate everybody around him on the offensive end. Is there questions defensively? Yes. But I truly believe he is improving in that area. And you could see it in the way he’s able to contest shots and switch on this versatile Miami Heat defense. When he has the ball in his hands, he makes things happen, especially in transition. multiple times last night. He got the ball in transition, found shooters on the wings like Andrew Wiggins and Powell, and they knock down a wideopen three-point shot while the Heat are playing this uptap bow offense. Then we saw him in transition lead a twoon-one where he found Haime Hakees Jr. for a alleyoop dunk. The kid is special. Just let him have the ball in his hands and playmake. Even in the half court, let him run pick and rolls with Bam. Let him run pick and rolls with KL Wear when those two show share the floor. Let Yovic have the ball in his hands. Now, I do want him to attack more. He’s not a perfect player by any stretch. Feel like sometimes he’s a little bit too passive on the offensive end. He is 610 with long strides and long arms. If he drives to the rim, there are not many times where his defender is going to be able to stop him, especially when he gets a full head of steam downhill. I like to see him be more aggressive offensively, looking for his own shot. He does a tremendous job finding his teammates, but look for your own sometimes. I’ll tell you what though, Ben Simmons is a very fine comparison. What we thought Ben Simmons was going to be coming out of LSU as the number one overall pick is what Nico Yoic can do. Like we saw a stat line last night, nine points, eight boards, seven assists. That is something I think we will see consistently from Yoic. Hot take. I think Yoic averages six rebounds, six assists this year. How many points, I don’t know, but those assists and rebound numbers, I think they’re coming up big time this year. Loser Haime Hakez Jr., this pains me to make this kind of segment on Haime because I was hoping that he was going to really flash early in the preseason with all of these players injured. Hero, Yakonis, DaVon, Rosier, like there was a large opportunity for Hawz to show what he’s capable of early in training camp and in the preseason, but he just hasn’t been able to do it. His fit on this roster is just so clunky and it looks like he really doesn’t know what to do with himself at times. Like last night, yeah, does his box score look good? nine points, four boards, three assists, made his one three-point a shot, shot 50% from the field. But when you look at the actual game and watch it, he played 16 minutes in the first half, seven in the second half. Well, seven of his nine points came in that second half. So when he shared the floor with Yoic, Bam, Wiggins, and Powell, as that was the fiveman lineup, Hawz and those four, he only had two points. He had a couple turnovers. He struggled finding his groove. It looked exactly how it looked last year where he was spamming the spin move when he dived downhill and he really couldn’t look normal and look like he was a part of this heat normal flowing offense. Now I will give him some slack. He’s kind of put into a tough spot right now because that lineup I just mentioned, Hakez, Powell, Yoic, Wiggins, Bam, that doesn’t have a true natural point guard. Yovic is doing a lot of ball handling. Same with Powell. But Hakez has the ball in his hands a ton, looking to create and bring the ball up in that fiveman group. And that’s just not his role. I think the Heat hoped after his rookie season he would be able to take that next step forward as a guy who could handle the rock, can playmake, can isolate for himself offensively. But that’s just simply not who he is. He has to get his in transition, get his off the catch and off cuts made with other people in the ball in his hands. You just simply can’t trust trust Triple J with the ball in his hands to create for himself or others at this point in his career. We’re going to round out the show here in a second, but do you have faith in Haimeh Hake Jr.? Type Y for yes or type N for no. Let me know your thoughts down in the comments section. I didn’t want to really incorporate them too much, but bonus losers here. Ethan Thompson, Trevor Kes, and Jamir Young. The three players that are fighting for the last two-way spot on this Miami Heat team. Remember, the Heat have one two-way contract open. Probably going to give it to one of these players that is currently on exhibit 10. Well, we talked about Ethan Thompson on yesterday’s show. He only played nine minutes. Went one of three from the field. Didn’t really do much in that fourth quarter. Trevor Kees played the most minutes in this game. 29 minutes, zero points, 0 of eight shooting. Not a game for good game for KES after having 12 points and shooting four for four on Saturday against the Magic. And then Jir Young, 18 minutes, four points, one of six from the field. Those three who are competing for that last two-way spot really had an opportunity for one of them to take the strangle hold on it if one of the three performed well because of how poorly the other two played. But everybody struggled, so they’re all losers. And there’s no clear-cut favorite for that last two-way contract spot. By the way, Vlad Golden and Dane Danja, two big man for the Heat. Golden on a two-way deal. Both DNPs. Uh, your daily update on the Heat pace. This is something we are monitoring because we’re so excited and hopeful that the Heat play with a uptempo pace this year as they haven’t done in the past. Bottom three in the NBA in each of the last four years. They had a 106.5 pace against the Magic and a 109.5 pace in that Milwaukee Bucks game. Through two games, they have a 108.0 average pace. That is third best in the NBA pres season to this point. They trail the Milwaukee Bucks because they also were up tempo in that game with Miami and they’ve only played in one preseason game. So that tempo is a little bit higher than obviously Miami’s average. point I’m trying to make. It seems through two preseason games, this tempo that Miami has talked about in practice and to the media seems to be a real thing. We’ll see if it continues in the preseason and into the regular season. But make sure you are subscribed because we are live for Heat Basketball. First time in the 2025 season tomorrow against the San Antonio Spurs. The only preseason game we’ll be live to because the schedule with the NFL season just makes it a little bit too difficult. But I’m super excited to be back hanging and watching Heat basketball with Heat fans. Subscribe if you haven’t already and make sure you join us tomorrow evening for that watch party. [Music]

Miami Heat winners and losers from the Heat vs. Bucks NBA Preseason game headlines this Heat YouTube video. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CLNS and use code CLNS and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! The Heat preseason winners from the Bucks game include Norman Powell and Nikola Jovic. Kel’el Ware and Jaime Jaquez Jr. headline the loser list for the Miami Heat. Chat Sports host Nic Rohloff has the Heat news and Miami Heat rumors you need after the Heat Bucks preseason game.

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Miami Heat stats vs. Milwaukee Bucks in NBA Preseason:
Norman Powell: 18 PTS, 2 REB, 1 AST, 6/12 FG, 3/6 3P
Nikola Jovic: 9 PTS, 8 REB, 7 AST, 3/7 FG, 1/4 3P
Kel’el Ware: 18 PTS, 13 REB, 4 TO, 7/15 FG, 2/4 3P
Jaime Jaquez Jr.: 9 PTS, 4 REB, 3 AST, 3/6 FG, 1/1 3P

Want more Heat rumors YouTube videos? Check out some of the ones posted this week:
– Do The Miami Heat Have A HIDDEN GEM?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fryuvg3Tq6U
– Nikola Jovic STARTING? Miami Heat Preseason Takeaways vs. Orlando Magic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7GVv3B_TcY
– Miami Heat Fans MIGHT FINALLY Receive The News They’ve Been Waiting For…: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRChwRT7rUE

Want more Miami Heat news, and Heat rumors? There’s more content posted over on our Miami Heat website: https://www.chatsports.com/miami-heat/

Miami Heat PACE in NBA Preseason:
GM 1 vs. ORL: 106.5
GM 2 vs. MIL: 109.5
Through 2 games: 108.0

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Miami Heat starting lineup:
Davion Mitchell, G
Tyler Herro, G
Andrew Wiggins, F
Bam Adebayo, F
Kel’el Ware, C

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Be a real Miami Heat fan and answer today’s questions!
– Biggest takeaway from last night’s game?
– Do you have faith in Jaime Jaquez Jr.? Type ‘Y’ for Yes or ‘N’ for No

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