Jaime Jaquez Jr., Erik Spoelstra | Practice Interviews | November 30, 2025

Jaime Jaquez Jr., Erik Spoelstra | Practice Interviews | November 30, 2025

out to last night’s game going to practice today. How you feeling physically entering tomorrow? Feeling a lot better. Feeling a lot better. Good day of uh rest, some rehab yesterday. Um feeling a lot better. Um was it concerning and obviously dealt with growing issues in the past. This one feel a little different, less significant. And kind of what was the concern about? Um yeah, definitely less significant. It was bothering me. Um the game before the Milwaukee game in the Milwaukee game um when I was going up um I got fouled I think by Bobby Portoris um went into them felt a little pull in my groin. So just a little uh take extra precautions um but I do so much you know a lot of work every single day with our trainers um you know so I think all that work made it so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. You hopeful tomorrow? Yeah, very hopeful. Good. Thanks. Thank you. million ways to kind of slice this apple, but points in the paint that you’re giving up is probably not ranking wise where you want it to be. Yeah. Where do you see kind of the areas that you need to clean up there? Yeah, we need to uh, you know, be better on the ball for sure. Last night, yeah, there were some pick and rolls. They’re calling up, you know, uh, different actions. Uh, but at some point it becomes a competitive u spirit on the ball uh to handle your business. Um, and then our weak side has to be extremely active. Um, you know, this league is not easy to defend. The talent, the skill, the uh three-point spacing, uh, all of that. Uh, and it really does require, you know, when you hear that saying, five guys on a string, it it is true more than ever. Uh and you know we didn’t have that activity until that last like I said there was that uh segment there in the the second quarter we were pretty pretty active uh and then the last four or five minutes extremely active uh you know that’s been our personality you know um more often than not you know this season and when we’ve done it you know and been active like that we’ve had a reasonable you know job of protecting the paint and protecting the rim when they’re trying screen Davon get him off someone like Kade does is he kind of like BAM for you where he has a little leeway to make his own coverages yeah and we need to get better with that and that that takes a little bit of time it’s very nuanced um but they have to earn the switch um and there’s different things that we’ll we’ll get better at he’s so dynamic on the ball you want to keep them on the ball but teams are good at screening and uh flipping screens that’s the one that got uh Cunningham open you know on that last play uh and so your defense has to you know evolve and and and get better at things too. They were all talking about Dave on just now that term slightly re reckless they used. Can you elaborate on what you really mean by that when you tell the team to be slightly reckless? Um I don’t know that it’s just funny some things that stick. Uh it was a film session earlier in the year uh and uh I was commenting about a play uh DaVon was making. I said, “Hey, that was slightly reckless.” Uh and then I said, “But I come to think of it, I like it when you’re more slightly reckless.” And I evidently everybody thought that was humorous and it stuck. So now it’s it’s becoming a theme. Defensive rebounding was a nice strength for you guys last few years, but probably not where you want it to be this year. What needs to be better in that area just to that? I think we’re making uh progress with it. Uh you know, often times it’s containing the ball, whether it’s a pick and roll or keeping the ball, you know, um out of the paint, uh and you have a better chance of rebounding. There’s the physicality effort uh components of it as well. Uh and then the teams that you know are shooting volume threes are those long um rebounds. You know, there was one uh two of them last night. You know, Duncan’s obviously that went back to him for a three and then um another one that went long uh ended up going to Tobias Harris for a little bit of a pullup. Um but, you know, we’re working at it. Uh I feel like we’re building better habits. Um, I think with more time we’ll we’ll we’ll be more consistent with it. Okay. Thank you.

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Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Erik Spoelstra spoke to the media following Sunday morning’s practice.

0:00 Jaime Jaquez Jr.
0:54 Erik Spoelstra

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