REACTION: Miami Heat Win SIXTH STRAIGHT | New Starting Lineup REVEALED | Miami Heat Podcast

REACTION: Miami Heat Win SIXTH STRAIGHT | New Starting Lineup REVEALED | Miami Heat Podcast

Miamiy’s offense was a struggle, but they pulled out the win against the Bucks on Wednesday, their sixth straight victory. Can the Heat win the coveted NBA Cup? I kind of hope so. They’re starting to make me a believer in the NBA Cup. Let’s do this thing. You are Locked on Heat, your daily Miami Heat podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. All right, welcome to Locked on Heat, your daily podcast on the Miami Heat, part of the Locked On podcast network. Now the number one sports podcast network. Whether you’re tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app, thanks for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. Join the Cookie Gang and become everyday or that means subscribing, tuning in every day, Monday through Friday, and signing up to the Locked on Heat text line with the link in the show notes. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started. I’m Wes Goldberg, host of Locked on NBA Daily and Real GM Radio. I’m here with David Rmill. Both of us are credentialed Heat Media members who cover this team every day. We’re recording this after the Heats win over the Milwaukee Bucks. We’ll hand out credit cookies and get to your listener questions here in a second. Uh, David, not a pretty one like so many of these heat wins have been lately, but it’s hard to win in this league when you miss 26 three-pointers, regardless of who’s on the court. And that’s exactly what happened tonight. The Bucks were without Giannis. Sure, the Heat did have their entire healthy rotation for the first time this season. Plenty to nitpick in this one, but they end up getting their sixth straight win. Before we get to the nitpicks, I guess we should start with the rotation. That to me is the headline here. David Eric Spolster deciding to go ahead and start DaVon Mitchell, Tyler Herro, Norm Powell, Andrew Wiggins, and Bam Matabio. So, Kell Wear as well as he’s been playing, he gets moved to the bench. Um, this probably a direct sort of answer to the Bucks not having Giannis available. I would have to imagine that had Giannis been playing in this one, he was questionable all day and then ruled out an hour before the game. maybe where is ends up in that starting lineup so they can build that wall that that Eric Spolster likes to throw in front of Giannis. Um but to me regardless of what the starting lineup is right now, it’s very clear that they’re still trying to figure out this rotation. Uh Simone Fenteo getting minutes in the first half, not so good. He doesn’t see minutes in the second half. They’re trying different groupings, different pairings, uh different rotations. They’re trying different strategies depending on who’s on the floor. Are they going zone sometimes with the second unit, not so much with the first unit? switching everything with some units, not so much with other units. It was a very sort of experimental game and an ugly game, but it was a win nonetheless. David, yeah, it’s hard to feel too bad about it because they did manage to pull out the victory. I think the starting lineup made a lot of sense to your point about Adoopo being out. you Andrew Wiggins can handle the Kyle Kosma matchup and so you go with Bambio at the center spot and it just makes much more sense in that regard that you know he has to guard Miles Turner and Turner actually wound up having a monster game with 24 points not all of which was due to Bam. I think he was just getting his offense pretty much in any way possible. He was only one of five from three-point range and I was a little surprised to see this statistic because I thought he was a lot more effective from long range. But uh he was uh effective regardless the starting lineup makes sense but to your point about the experimentation. Yeah, we talked about what the rotation would look like. a lot of options for Smolstra and not necessarily in a good way on Wednesday night because you’re not quite sure what lineup works and there was a lineup that worked but mostly consisting of backups and uh at the same time I don’t know that any particular lineup stood out well above the others. You were kind of getting opportunities uh from different players at different moments of the game and so it didn’t really seem like those combinations made all the difference at least not to my eyes. I mean, Bambio, I thought, played a pretty solid game and finished with a minus 11 as far as his minutes out in the court and so did Norm Powell. So, the backups, I guess, were a little bit more effective, but did do you see a lineup combination that you thought really stood out above all else? I think Khil and his minutes was mostly positive and then Drew brought a lot of great energy as a backup, you know, point guard, making impact plays, doing what he does. And other than that though, I don’t know that the K Bam minutes when they were together were really were really good, especially in the second half. They made that run in the third quarter with those guys on the court at the same time. Uh Kell came out, Milwaukee kind of scrapes back into the game. Kell comes back in and they immediately go on a run again. And so yeah, I thought Wear’s minutes were awesome. He was a plus 16 in a game that the Heat won by three. He was tremendous and it says a lot about Kher doing what he’s doing. 11 points, nine rebounds. It wasn’t the 20 point, 18 rebound nights that we’ve kind of getting accustomed to here, but the impact was still right there, right? And you know, that’s something that that’s that that will be something that Eric Spholster notices in this one. Um, I I I hear what you’re saying in terms of nothing really popping in terms of these lineups. Again, it really hurts when you miss 26 three-pointers in a game. A lot of things look a lot better if you’re just making your threes. and there were a number of wide openen threes. I thought the process was a lot better than the results in this game. Now, I will say Milwaukee did slow down the Heat. I think I I don’t have this uh as like a fact, but this is in my memory the first time the Heat were held under 100 possessions in a game this season. They had 99 possessions according to cleaning the glass in this game. for a team that’s averaging over 106 possessions per game and is leading the league in pace. Uh that says something. But again, I think that has a lot to do with the three-point shooting just not falling. If if some if if five more of these threes five to 10 more of these threes fall, I just think this game looks a lot different. I think the Heat win this one, frankly, going away. You know, you’ve got the Bucks shot really well from three-point range for most of this game. And they ended up kind of they they ended up uh shooting 33% for the game, but they were chucking a lot at the end there. They were sort of hovering around 36 37 38% for most of this game while Miami I mean they’re lucky to even climb to 28% 10 of 36 overall because only because that fourth quarter before that they were even worse than that. It was a bad game. It was sloppy from Miami’s perspective. And again, that’s why it felt like outside of Khil Wear, I don’t know that any combination of players really stood out in a positively impactful way. Maybe that’s kind of a little bit too critical, but it was sloppy. 14 turnovers and they did seem very disjointed. It’s going to happen when you’re welcoming not just Tyler back for his second game and he was awesome offensively, but Norm coming back from injury, Wiggins coming back from injury. There was a little bit of a disconnect there. guys not necessarily sure what to do, where to be on the court, and you could tell with their 14 turnovers. So, not the best game for Miami, and yet again, they pull out a win, and that’s really all that matters. So, I I I like your comment about the the process, too, because despite the fact that they were held to only 85 field goal attempts, they were still able to put up a number of wide openen threes. If the hope is that they could knock those down with much more regularity, and I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t because they were wide open looks. Yeah, they’ll be fine. Yeah, Pal’s 0 for five. Wigs goes one for six. Even Bam going one for five isn’t normal for him anymore. Uh Pella goes two for seven. Uh Fonteo missed his first and he’s missed what his last five or six threes. I mean, it’s been he’s been in a problem. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, he’s in a little bit of a slump, too. And you know those if those threes go in, I think this just this game looks a lot different even aesthetically. And I think it feels a lot different. And I think the Heat win it going away. Now, back to the starting lineup part though. Do you? So, it was the big question leading up to the game, right? Who is Eric Sper going to start with this healthy rotate? This is the first time all year that we’ve had a healthy rotation. Everybody that was part of that was supposed to be part of the rotation was healthy in this game. Now, Niklo Yoic available coming off of injury though did not play in this game. Maybe some of that is because, hey, we just don’t want to rush him back. We got plenty of guys. We don’t need to get him on the floor. Maybe part of that is based on his struggles prior to the injury. Uh, but I still think and I think this game showed it. The thing that you and I talked about, what who’s the fifth starter gonna be? I keep saying this team has six starters. You’ve got the four who are in Penn between Bam, Wigs, Pal, and Hero. And then that fifth starter between Kell Wear and Devon Mitchell. I think it’s going to change every day based on the matchup. And I think that’s fine. And I think a lot of people took some issue with where going to the bench and say you don’t want to match up against your opponent. You want to make them match up to you. And I I think I think there’s some truth to that. But I also think every team is different. And for this Heat team whose strength is versatility, I think you want to lean into that strength. And I think that’s okay for now. Is just based on the matchups go with either Wear or go with Mitchell as that fifth starter. That way, first of all, you’re not hurting anybody’s feelings. Mitchell and Wear both deserve to be starters. Like this team has six starters, right? And you’re just going to decide the first five based on the matchup. Yeah, I I I think we called it and uh I think also DaVon was the right choice because Ryan Rollins had a big game and at the very same time you want somebody who can challenge him a little bit defensively and is able to do some things to force turnovers or make those shots uncomfortable. Rollins only went 4-14 from three-point range. I think a lot of that was due to DaVon’s overall perimeter defense. So, I think that helped rather than having Khil as the fifth starter. And I I think again in future matchups, let’s see, they they play they play Detroit on Saturday. That’s their next game after the Thanksgiving break. And they just got healthy. So they brought they’re bringing Tobias Harris back. So I imagine they’re going to go to Duran and Tobias Harris in that starting front court. You can kind of go either way with that. I I think you’ll still see You see, despite the fact that Duran is playing like an all-star this year, I think Bam’s the better matchup. And I think having Bam on Duran makes more sense and you can keep wigs on Tobias and that’s probably where they’ll go. I would anticipate that this starting lineup is exactly what we’ll see on Saturday as well. You could I’m I’m not but you could also go the other way and just put wigs on Cunningham because you don’t really need DaVon on Cunningham just because of the size and then you put Bam on Tobias Harris, let him switch on things and then have We wear on Dur. It does to your point depend on your confidence of wear on Duran or maybe you just have I don’t know there’s a lot of options that they can go with. Uh quick uh NBA Cup update here. So the Heat win they stay alive. They needed the Knicks to lose to the Hornets in order to clinch tonight. Obviously that was not going to happen and it did not happen. The Knicks crushed the Hornets 129 to 101. The Knicks have the point differential diff uh advantage right now I believe. Um but um the Heat can still win this group if the Knicks lose on Friday to these Milwaukee Bucks who could have Giannis back by then. So plenty to watch here. And by the way, if the Heat don’t win their group, if the Knicks end up winning this group, the Heat could still get in to the knockout stage by winning the wild card. And David, I kind of want him to do it. I’m kind of in on this NBA Cup thing now. I was a I was a doubter. I was a hater for the first couple years, but now that the Heat actually have some skin in the game, right, I’m a little excited by it. Uh, Credit Cookies is next. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA’s back and there’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you missed the start of the game or want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game exciting, especially when your team’s making that late push. And right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. You know, looking forward to that Saturday matchup against the Pistons. Does Duncan Robinson have a little extra skin in this game? Does he have a big night against his former team? You wonder whether or not he’ll have something to prove. The Pistons also, you know, lost today after a long win streak and they lost to the Celtics. Maybe they’re looking to prove something. So, it’s going to be an interesting matchup, but definitely something to watch out for. And uh you know what? I’m still confident Miami can find a way to win. So, head to fanuel.com, sign up, and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. We’ll be right back. Well, David, it’s another Miami Heat win, which means it’s time for the tastiest segment of Locked on Heat. It’s time for credit cookies. Quick shout out, Eric Spolster. Congratulations. 800 career wins. A lot of cookies. That’s a lot of cookies. Uh 800. If 10 cookies for all 800 wins, that would be 8 million cookies. Yes. Why not? 8 million cookies. All right, start handing them out, David. Well, we talked about Tyler Hero, and I think he was phenomenal today. I I know it’s easy to equate two rough games offensively and some poor shooting nights with Tyler’s return and that’s really unfortunate because he was as great as he’s ever been. 29 points in the night, eight of eight from the three line. So that was the difference between tonight and what we saw his first game back where he was getting to the line and knocking those shots. Three of five from three-point range. So again, the three-point shot was there and he looked smooth. He looked confident. He had a little behind the back move in the fourth quarter. He just looked really confident. He was all the way back. And on top of that, had some really nice defensive possessions as well. A block steal, five rebounds, uh, seven assists. His playmaking was otherworldly tonight. A great game, an all-star level performance from Tyler Hero, and this is what you expect. And so I think to the overall point about how he fits in the offense or whether or not the offense has looked clunky since his return, to your point again that the process works and Tyler I think is benefiting from that and I think everybody else will too. Are there are some growing pains that guys like Norm and Davian are going through, Pella are going through? Sure, because they’re used to certain rotations, certain rhythms over the course of the game and those adjustments will have to be made. But I think it really bodess well for the fact that Tyler was able to perform as well as he did. You still get the dub and you know everybody else is going to find their rhythm eventually. Norm’s shots were the same shots he was making a week ago and I think him coming back from injury certainly was a factor in that. It’s not related to Tyler. Tyler was sensational. He gets five cookies in the night. We’re two games in. I think Tyler Herro is better than he was last year and he’s not even all the way back. He looks great. That floater is a superpower, dude. That floater. I don’t know anybody in the league that has a better floater than Tyler Hero. There’s no There’s nobody in the league that has a better floater than Tyler Herro. It’s such a weapon. I mean, that be You mentioned the behind the back fake uh pass to the corner and then into the floater. I mean, for him to do that, the dexterity, the skill, like that’s a crazy thing to do in a tight game of a fourth quarter where at that point they were kind of making a run and Milwaukee hadn’t come back at that point, but they were making that run because of Tyler Herro. It had been a tight game prior to that. Um, and so that was great. The one even after Tyler Herro was so good in his first game back, had the 24 points led the Heat to that win. We had talked about the his first eight minute stint, how it did look clunky, how he didn’t really know where his shots were coming into the offense. He looked tentative, right? The quick decision-making wasn’t there. That was not the case from the jump in this game. And that was my favorite part uh of Tyler Herro’s game tonight was the first quarter for him. His first bucket, quick decision to drive to the basket. It was in the wheel of this Miami no screen offense, all the things, uptempo, all of this stuff early in the shot clock. Ball gets swung to Talah. One dribble, boom, he’s at the basket. That was awesome. He also had a three-pointer in transition on a hit ahead pass that was uh just I tweeted it out just a total representation of exactly what you want in this offense, especially from Tyler Herro who is so deadly with that pull-up three-pointer. If he’s getting that right, if you’re able to just be Pel Larson or DaVon Mitchell and get that rebound and and hit uh find Talah on that hit ahead pass the three-point line and he’s just rising up from from right there, that is really quick, tough shots to cover and to defend and it’s nothing. It it’s unlike anything else that anybody else on this roster can do, right? Even Norm Powell, I always say Norm Pal is a good three-point shooter. He’s a foot to the line three-point shooter. Tyler Herro will lift and shoot at an efficient mark from 27 to 30 feet. And nobody else on this team can do that. And when you unlock that part of this Heat offense, you’re really starting to see stuff. Now, from there, it was a little bit clunkier because nobody was really making threes, but I thought Tyler Herro was phenomenal. The Heat lose this game if Tyler Herro isn’t playing. Five cookies to me is the minimum for Tyler Herro in this one. I debated it. I thought, you know, again, it was hard to measure everybody’s impact. I gave two cookies to Khalil Wear and that feels like I’m I’m kind of selling it short because again you pointed out his minutes there. I think he was really good in his limited playing time just 26 minutes on the night a plus 16 11 points only four or six field goal attempts. Uh hit both his free throws one of one from three-point range did pulled down nine rebounds also had two steals and a block. We saw the moments there and and I think we’re starting to see them more. So, I could be convinced to give him an extra cookie, but I thought two kind of felt right because everybody else had a moment throughout the course of the game. And that’s why I felt, you know, the holiday spirit maybe and giving a little bit extra cookie here and there to everybody else. But, uh, Khil has been great. And I don’t want to take anything away from his performance just based on this. You gave him two cookies. These every cookie is tremendously valuable. He’s got two of them. I don’t think you’re taking anything away from Kell. Two is exactly right to me. Maybe it’s a little bit more if he doesn’t fade kind of at the end of this game. I thought he got a little bit tired or something like that in the fourth quarter. He wasn’t as effective, but his second quarter was a total explosion. All of his production was basically done in the second quarter. 11 points uh in that quarter. He was phenomenal and he was a big reason why Miami was able to pull away and ultimately have the lead at halftime, which I thought was really important for this team. So, uh yeah, Kell, two cookies, no problem with it. I’ve got one cookie a piece to bam bio. Andrew Wiggins and Haimemeh Hakez. And again, I I think everybody had their moments. Bam wasn’t great overall. Uh just won a five from three-point range as you pointed out. Some of the defense miscues unfortunately. Yeah, this game’s not going on Bam’s defensive player of the year reel, but he did have some also some nice possessions. You know, he had a nice block here and there and uh you know, some nice assists, solid rebounding with 11 boards. So, it’s hard to kind of take that away from, you know, what he was able to accomplish. And yet, one cookie feels right there. Like he he had his moment. He wasn’t great all game, but he was helpful in a win. And you know what? You accept it, you take it. Andrew, same thing. Four of 11 from the floor. So, that’s the block right there is that his offense was really a struggle. But he also had two rebounds, three assists. He was really active. Two blocks. I think his overall game was just okay for his first game back. It was just okay. And yet there were moments there where he really helped Miami secure the victory especially late in the game and he was part of that clutch lineup late in the game too. So I think that’s worth noting. And then Haime Hakez only 17 minutes. I’m not sure if there was something that Spo saw why he wouldn’t be a positive impact out there. He helped me limit his playing time. Maybe again it’s just part of that I’m trying to figure out what this lineup and these rotations are going to be. So I’ve only got 17 minutes for you. But during those 17 minutes, four six from the floor and 10 points overall. He also had four rebounds, three assists. So, a good overall game from Haime. Uh just not as impactful as we’d accusto him to be, you know, we might be accustomed to seeing from him. Yeah, I think part of it, too, is he was upgraded from questionable before the game. And maybe there’s not a minute restriction, but you’re just sort of being careful with him. Pel Larson played more minutes than he did. Drew Smith played more minutes than he did. It felt like there was minutes out there. If they wanted to give them to Haime, but probably they’re just being a little bit careful with them. Um, and yeah, I mean, look, you want to give those guys cookies, that’s fine. Um, I think you probably could take away a cookie from Himemeay, maybe you could take away a cookie from Wiggins and give it to Hero if you really wanted to. Um, I think DaVon with his nine assists, I thought he was really good, even though he didn’t shoot the ball a lot. I thought he I thought he was as important as anybody else that you mentioned with one cookie if we wanted to maybe move a cookie towards uh his way. But, um, you know, I think Larson also had his had had his moments, but he’s probably more of a crumbs guy in this game. Yeah, I think it’s fine. All right, fair enough. Yeah, I I I can make a you can make a strong case for DaVon. Can we go Da’Von over Wigs or DaVon over Haime? Haime had a good like run in the first half is the problem. Yeah, his his stint was short, but it was it was impactful. So you think Dave between Dav? Yeah, give it to DaVon over Wigs. I again I don’t I don’t have a problem with that. So uh I think Wiggins will have plenty of opportunity and he’s still been really solid this season. He still has more credit cookies on the year than DaVon Mitchell. Do people want to know the list? Do I need to release the credit cookies list? People have asked a few times already. Where can we see the totals? I’m gonna and and our federal government and just like delay releasing this list as long as possible. We can promise it and and just never have to it’s coming. No, I mean it’s just it’s a hoax. There is no list. I don’t even know what people are talking about. The credit cooking segment doesn’t even exist. What do you mean? We haven’t been doing it. Um one other rotation note really quick. Uh nobody played more than 32 minutes. Um Talahero played 32 and a half minutes. So nobody played more than 32 and a half minutes in Miami’s rotation. They went 10 deep in the first half. Fonteo did not play in the second half, but they still go nine deep in the second half. Uh they went 10 deep in the first quarter. Uh and I think that’s probably a trend that we’re going to see shorter stints, shorter bursts for these rotation guys so that they keep the tempo up and keep the intensity up. I think that’ll probably be the trend going forward. Um if until Spo decides that that’s not the way to go. Um, you sort of hinted at this, David, and we’re getting a lot of questions. Is Tyler Hero to blame for Norm Powell’s recent struggles? We’ll talk about that when we get to our listener questions next. Today’s episode’s brought to you by Door Dash. The NBA season’s heating up, and Door Dash has found the perfect way to keep fans in their bag all season long. Whether you’re watching for the highlights, your fantasy team, or just your favorite player, Door Dash makes every game night ever even better. Door Dash is the official on demand delivery platform of the NBA and they’re celebrating with something called the Backdrop. Every time an NBA player scores 50 points in a game, Door Dash drops 50 off your order, 50% off your order with Dash Pass the next day and you’re automatically entered for a chance to win the ultimate fan bag. We’re talking player inspired trip, exclusive gear, and stuff you’ll actually want. 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Let’s get to the text line. You can get texts from us and submit questions for the postgame shows the link in the show notes or text 7869987029. This question comes from Jonah who writes in a disengaged KL wear this game. Still looks like he figured out rebounding more. Did the demotion hurt his confidence? I don’t know that I agree with the premise of this question. I don’t know that where was disengaged. I I mentioned I thought he got tired at the end. I think he faded a little bit in the fourth quarter and that’s why he probably wasn’t on the floor to end this game. Um, but I thought he was overall very impactful. I think the rebounding is real with this guy. Um, 100%. He’s getting a lot of national attention now, too. I mean, Zack Low did a whole thing on his podcast about how this leap is real, and I’m just glad people are starting to notice. Yeah, I mean, we brought up that very same question last week that it feels like he has made the leap to the player that we’ve seen him become. It’s unfortunate that there’s only you can only have so many starters out there and I think we made the point that the starting lineup made sense for Milwaukee. Uh and yet that doesn’t take anything away from Khil being able to make an impact and make the most of his opportunity and that’s what you want because I don’t think there was any disengagement. uh as you said uh I think he he maybe he like you said he he lost some wind there but I don’t I didn’t see him fade like from an emotional standpoint like he didn’t seem like he was just like oh well I’m not starting so I’m not making an impact I’m not chasing after rebounds no I I think he was really making that same kind of push giving that same kind of effort that we’ve seen over the last few weeks and that’s what you want this is growth and we’ve seen his growth take place in real time here over the last three weeks He’s a much better player now than he was at the start of the season. And the fact that he’s just coming off the bench gives him another opportunity to prove that and I think he understood the assignment tonight and I think he’ll continue to do so throughout the rest of the season and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’ll get more opportunities as a starter down the road. Another question comes in. What’s with Norm Pal? Is it the injury or is it having Tyler that’s messing with his head? What do you think’s going on with Norm? Um, I thought there were moments in this game where the groin, it looked like the groin injury was bothering him, especially uh when he was near the basket. Not as much lift as we were used to him seeing. He did have one nice uh kind of reverse layup, but other than that, I thought he missed a couple of shots that we’re used to seeing him hit uh in the restricted area and in the paint. I don’t think it has anything to do with Tyler Hero. Um David, you mentioned it uh closer to the top of the show. He went four for 11, zero zero five from three-point range in this game. He had 11 shots. Tyler took 15 shots and Powell didn’t even play 30 minutes in his first game back from injury. I don’t think he got fewer looks. I don’t think maybe there was a little bit something about out of rhythm with this new rotation. I think that’s totally fine. Out of rhythm in his first game back since the groin injury, but um I I don’t think this has anything to do with Tyler Herro. This is a lot more to do in my opinion with the injury. Uh the shots will go in. I think the the psychological component is something that’s both overstated and uh not getting enough attention at the same time because I think it is a real thing. There is a psychology for players that they have to feel comfortable. They want to do or maybe they’ve got other things outside of the court or outside the game of basketball that might be weighing on them. So there is always that to consider. But I don’t think Norm is there going Tyler’s coming for my jaw. Like he’s not worried about that. Maybe if there’s if there’s anything going on, maybe it’s a little bit, let’s make sure this guy gets comfortable. Let’s I’m gonna be a little bit more differential. I’ve been getting mine for 17 games this season. Let me make sure Tyler’s getting his when he comes back. I could see that happen. And we just saw that happen with the Lakers, right? They took him a little while to figure out how to bring LeBron James of all people back in with Luca Don and Austin Reeves as well as they were playing. This stuff does take a little bit of time for people to get used to each other and and figure out where your touches are going to be to make sure it’s not so your turn, my turn, but it’s a good problem to have, right? Yeah. And he’s played alongside Damon Lillard, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard. I think he can make the adjustment to Tyler Hero. Like, you know, I I I think he’s aware of enough to say, you know what, I’ll get my my chances. I’ve got to make good on those. He’s not worried about Tyler in any way. And I I think he’s just he is a little injured and I think he is a little off. But I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them have a combined 30, you know, not combined, like I think they both have a 30-point game at some point like during the same game like that. It just feels like this offense is waiting to break out once both of them are on the same page. I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a great point. Uh I love this next question. Um and I’m sure you’re going to know why when I read it to you. A Lamus writes in, “Does Miami care about this NBA cup?” felt like it was treated as a joke during the Jimmy Butler tenure. Did you Did you submit a question under a pseudonym? I am a llamas. No, Alamus is a very loyal uh listener who is a loyal subscriber to the text line. Um I think they do. I think this team cares about the NBA Cup. I don’t think they care about it in some sort of like it matters more than other things way, but I do think that they care about this because it’s part of a regular season that they now care about. And by the way, against the Bulls in their last NBA Cup game, they ran up the score. Right. There you go. That’s the all the proof you need that they care about the NBA Cup because point differential matters. They’re aware. Yeah, they’re aware. Yeah, they’re aware of it and they’re they’re they’re playing towards it and and I think they do care about it. And I think there is something about this NBA Cup that just gets some teams riled up, especially younger teams or more unproven teams. Like a team like the Denver Nuggets probably doesn’t care about this. Yeah. Uh I don’t even know the Thunder very much care. The Thunder could win this cup by accident, but I don’t think they care about it. Um that’s a good point. But but for Miami, for I think this Heat team, it sounds crazy, but this is an unproven Heat team because it’s kind of a revamped roster, a new system, all this stuff. They’re trying to create some proof of concept here. And I think winning the NBA Cup would give them a little bit of proof of concept. And they’ve never done it before. They’ve never advanced out of the group stage. I just think there’s like a a uniqueness to that, a novelty to it where they might just chase it a little bit. I mean, Jimmy Butler spent the amount of money that they would win for the cup on coffee every week. So, I don’t think he was too concerned about it. Like, he’s not there’s no financial motiv motivation for him. He didn’t want to prove anything during the regular season more often than not. And he definitely didn’t want to have to play an extra game, right? So, yeah, I don’t think the motivation was there at all over the last few years of the cup and I think it is now. And I think again they’re approaching every game with the intent of wanting to win and wanting to continue to They weren’t even motivated to make the playoffs. They were like playing’s fine. Yeah, we’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. We’ll do what we do one way or the other. We’ll figure it out. They did it one time. Yeah. 13 and six, though. Can we just stop? I mean, we’re the night before Thanksgiving as we’re recording this. 13 and six. This team is so much better than people expected it to be. And I for one am thankful for that because I think they’re they’re grateful. They have a good attitude. They’re approaching every game. They’re fun. Um and and I I love the just the overall positivity and approach to every game of wanting to get better and wanting to find ways to win as opposed to just throwing in the towel. I texted you at halftime. I wasn’t sure that this version of the team as this joint as they look through spots throughout the game was going to find a way to pull out the victory. It felt like Milwaukee had more to prove. Kind of like, you know what, we can win this without Giannis. We don’t need no stinking Giannis kind of thing. But uh no, it turns out that they kind of could have used it. Giannis out there. Uh and Miami found a way to just do enough and they came out with a a big win, a needed win. Um 13 and six. It’s a great point. You and I kind of went through it before the season started and predicted seven and 14 through their first 21 games. You know, I’m not very good at math, but I think they’re going to avoid that. I think that it’ll be tough to drop a 74 at this point. Uh last two questions. We’ll do them quickly as we get out of here. Cody writes in, “Is the Heat’s three-point percentage the last two games, 19% and then 28% in this one a sign of things to come or more of backto-back off nights from deep? Does this have anything to do with Tyler Herro’s return?” Um, we’re going to go quick through these, David. My quick the answer is no. Just a couple of off nights. They’ll figure it out. What say you? Y agreed. I I think it’s not a big deal. Malachi writes in, “We need BAM and wear on the court at the same time. More and more. How can we make that happen? Bam and wear together makes things smoother and better for the team. Uh I think they’ll figure that out, too. I agree that they do need to be on the court more often, but they’re also being forced to stagger them because they’re the only two bigs in the lineup. So, it’s tough. Yeah. Uh assuming they don’t make any roster changes, then Nico Yoich doesn’t make an incredible leap over the next couple of games, uh it’s probably going to stick like this for a while. Our Thanksgiving special, our Heatsgiving episode is coming out at noon on Thursday. So, thanks for listening to our postgame recap of this Bucks win. Six straight wins for the Miami Heat. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Have a happy Thanksgiving weekend. And we’ll see you back here on Monday.

Miami Heat grind out sixth straight win despite offensive struggles and a new starting lineup—can they take home the NBA Cup?

Wes Goldberg and David Ramil break down the Heat’s hard-fought victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, spotlighting Tyler Herro’s standout performance, Kel’el Ware’s energetic minutes off the bench, and the impact of a fully healthy rotation for the first time this season. With Bam Adebayo anchoring the frontcourt and Andrew Wiggins returning to the lineup, the debate heats up over Miami’s evolving starting five and which lineup best unlocks their explosive pace.

Key discussion points include Miami’s cold three-point shooting, ongoing rotation experiments under Erik Spoelstra, and how the team’s versatility could be the secret weapon in knockout stage scenarios. Will Norm Powell overcome injury woes and regain his form alongside Herro? Plus, the hosts provide expert insight on Miami’s chances in the NBA Cup and what the win streak means for the season’s trajectory.

00:00 Intro
01:30 New Heat Starting Lineup in Win
12:41 Credit Cookies
20:26 Listener Questions

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