Jaime Jaquez Jr., Bam Adebayo, Erik Spoelstra | Postgame Interviews | November 2, 2025

Jaime Jaquez Jr., Bam Adebayo, Erik Spoelstra | Postgame Interviews | November 2, 2025

Yeah, I think that’s, you know, part of my role on this team, you know, coming off as that sixman. It’s to infuse life and energy. Um, you know, give the team a spark, whatever they need, you know, or throw gas, you know, be the gas that we throw on the fire. So, you know, I take that role very seriously and, uh, you know, that that’s kind of my approach when I go into when I get subbed in. Defensively, you supposed it was hard to recognize you guys at times. What What do you feel like went wrong on that end of the court, at least early on? Um, you know, I think, uh, we just let, you know, some of those early fouls get discouraged or let let those early fouls discourage us. Um, and we just got to stay stay through the course. Um, you know, Reeves and and Donic, they got, you know, they got something that they got. They know how to draw fouls. And, you know, that’s that’s something tough that, you know, we got to guard. We got to be disciplined. And, um, I think that’s let it let us get discouraged and we dug ourselves into a hole and it was uh, kind of almost too late to dig ourselves back out. uh with Jake on their team had a big game for them. Not a real big name, but he played well tonight. Yeah. Um you know, we we we let some of those X factors come alive tonight. And you know, as a team who takes pride on defense, you know, we’re not really supposed to allow that to happen. So, that was our When you’re attacking like that, are you looking for a specific mismatch or are you just going? Uh, you know, I’m really just going um, you know, trying to get downhill, trying to collapse the defense, bring defenders on to me so I can spray out and create for my team. And, you know, if I got a mismatch, you know, I’m going to just take it to the hole. So, appreciate it. Thank you. Defense is still our touchstone and always will be. And then we see a game like this in the 40s for them in the first quarter, 77 at the half, over 100 after three. How important is for you guys to get back sort of in touch with that part of who you are and and maybe be more limiting than you were tonight? Uh that’s our identity. You know, that’s what we’ve that’s what this franchise has really uh hung their hat on defense. Uh so even though our offense has changed and we’re scoring in the 120s, we still got to defend. Offensively, do you you still scored in the 120? Do you feel like you still got to where you wanted to get to as far as the way you want to play offensively? just a matter of the defense. Yeah, we just got to we got to pick up our defensive habits. Uh we got to communicate a lot more than we did today and uh you know we I guess we got a lot of you know a little frustrated with the foul calls but you know that’s part of the game now. Uh so you know as a team we got to collectively you know do it as a unit. Sam, as as a mentor and captain, how do you deal or what do you tell someone like Kell who gets benched after his first stint, doesn’t play at all the rest of the first half, and then for the first time is benched at the start of the second half? How do you manage that as both a captain and a mentor? Uh, I mean, at the end of the day, that’s my brother. So, you know, I’m going to him as a brother. I’m not going to him as no captain, no mentor. Uh, so, you know, it’s growing pains when it comes to this this NBA thing. It’s, you know, you you get involved and you blink and it’s it’s for me like nine years in uh and you’re going to have some growing planes along the way. It’s just how are you going to grow from those lessons? Uh you know, this is a lesson for him and I feel like tomorrow he’ll get a second chance and then we’ll grow from there. SP even pointed out he said that’s a very good pick and roll team and that’s a real hard thing sometimes for a big to learn. Can that be fasttracked by from a 21-year-old in his second season? And and and if so, how do you do that to get Khell more at ease defending the pick and roll? Uh just filming reps. Uh and then communication obviously makes it way easier. Uh but that’s a part of his development and you know, we’re we’re not going to give up on him. We know how great he can be. We know, you know, he moves the needle for this team. Where’s his confidence at? Like does is he the kind of guy who goes up and down with that or is he still up here? Uh You know, I feel like he’s one of those guys he’s very very even kill. So, it’s hard to judge uh like if he’s down or not, which I truly respect cuz uh it’s good to not know. Uh cuz it’s, you know, also you got to add the professionalism to our to our league. Uh but, you know, just talking to him, I don’t feel like he’s he discouraged. It’s just lessons he’s got to learn. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. What were you like at his age? What was I like? Were you up and down a little or you uh I didn’t play as much? Uh um but yeah, I was up and down. Uh I always make this joke that I hated Spo uh just cuz I didn’t know what he wanted. Um so, you know, he might be going through that phase. I mean, he’s second year player. Got to get used to it. Yeah. To a a whole another offense and uh trying to figure out what his role is. Yeah. When did you finally feel like you knew what Spo wanted? Uh when I went in his office. Uh around my what my third year. Uh close to the end of my second year. Okay. I started going in his office more. Uh Chris Bosch actually told me to do that. Okay. Uh go in his office more just talk to him and figure out and then the conversations get easier. Was it scary to go in there? Uh I mean at first not anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, you you spoke before the game about defense still being the foundation went through 77 first down points. What stood out just what went wrong? Yeah, I mean, we were just uh it started off, you know, with a mistake to a wide open three to start the game uh deflating and then we just had um you know, really boiled down to lack of effort uh on on plays that we’re accustomed to to doing and making. um and or um mindless uh plays either fouls or just you know things that we haven’t been doing. Um so you do have to credit them. Uh you know but we’re we’re much better defensively than we showed tonight. That’s that’s probably what’s what’s really frustrating. And you know if we defend you know with the appropriate uh effort and and and discipline that we have been you know competing with it doesn’t guarantee anything. I mean you they have great you know players it still might not have been enough but it was just hard to recognize us you know uh in that first half. Can you sort of explain the approach with Kell? He played the first shift, didn’t play the rest of the first half. Came in very late in the third. What was the Yeah, we’re just trying to get a handle on it. Um, you know, uh, it’s very nuanced, you know, when you have two dynamic pick and roll players like they had. Um, but I thought he bounced back in the third quarter and gave us some quality minutes. Hi, Eric. They have a guy named Jake. Don’t know a lot about him. Do He had a huge night tonight for them. Do you know much about him or what were your thoughts about? Yeah, I feel like he had those kind of games against us last year uh when he was with Memphis. Uh but he’s a good player. He’s been playing well and he was definitely an X factor tonight. Jame’s relentlessness just throughout the game. I mean, there was even one play where he just demanded the ball, just went full court and just went full throttle. Just your thoughts on the energy he delivered into the game to keep you guys afloat. Yeah, he brought a force uh tonight for sure. uh he was competing um you know as poorly as we played we still had you know almost 70 uh in the paint we had 36 free throw attempts but even our decision- making um I was good you know with his decision-m but overall our decision-m was slow u we’re missing moments making you know um uncharacteristic reads um you know on some of our passes or we’re late uh on some of the decisions. Um, but we’ll be better with that. Uh, it was just kind of a a frustrating night, you know, uh, all night long that we we were playing, you know, from behind, you know, from the beginning and, um, you know, we started to recognize kind of our identity in that third quarter. Um, but we couldn’t get over the hump. The three-point struggles early, were there the shots you wanted and how deflating was that? That I think it was one of 13. I think that should be deflating. I think if you score 120, you get 66 in the paint, you get 36 free throw attempts. Um that should give you a better opportunity to win. You know, I I in my mind, um it should have been a possession game going down the stretch. Shot 50% from the field. Um what do we what do you want? You know, let’s shoot 70%. You know, we have to score 150 to win now. like uh you know um we needed probably what we did in the third quarter, beginning of the of the fourth, we needed that for 48 minutes. Give ourselves a better chance. Thanks, coach. All right. Thank you.

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Jaime Jaquez Jr., Bam Adebayo and Erik Spoelstra spoke to the media following Sunday night’s game vs. the Los Angeles Lakers.

0:00 Jaime Jaquez Jr.
1:36 Bam Adebayo
5:21 Erik Spoelstra

MIA vs. LAL Boxscore:
https://www.nba.com/heat/gamedayhub?gameID=0022500155

Coup’s Takeaways 📝:
https://www.nba.com/heat/news/coups-takeaways-lakers-doncic-reaves-jaquez-paint-attack

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