Miami Heat: Jakučionis & Ware show out despite another preseason loss | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat: Jakučionis & Ware show out despite another preseason loss | Five on the Floor

[Music] Yeah, it’s mercy music by mercy again. Keep nation the culture. Yo, I need you to call time out radio blanket open for the shot. Still five on the floor. Still ride for my dog on the court. Still survive in the wall. Keep your eye on the ball or get burned from the heat. This mic off the wall without turning the cheek from night to day. No sleeping pads so allowed to mourn us. The nut is sleeping us never catch us alive from Miami. We pour in the heat with five reason sports from the court to the streets. Damn car. Be patient. [Applause] Welcome to Five on the Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the Five Reason Sports Network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. [Music] Welcome back to Off or Off the Floor. Listen to me. Five on the floor. A postgame edition preseason. Uh the Heat losing another one. They’re 0 and three in the preseason. 112 107 to the Miami Heat. Uh I’m your host Greg Sander. Uh tonight’s floor plan with me, Digital Liddell. We are going to go through this um San Antonio Miami game which did have some interesting things that that I think are worth acknowledging, but ultimately the Heat lose again and they kind of lost in um it it kind of sucked the way that it happened. if I’m just going to be really honest and and blunt about it because they uh had opportunities to win the game and there was just some lapses there at the end and obviously you don’t want to look too much into preseason matchups Adele but ult ultimately there was uh some miscues and some turnovers and things like that but we’ll get into all of that. Uh before we do want to shout out off the floor that’s our Discord server the most heat anywhere. So like you can basically consolidate all of your social media where you talk Miami Heat basketball into one place. We have channels to talk about every other topic. You need to go to the link in the description of this episode. That’ll get you to bypass the Apple Upcharge. 299 on your desktop, 3.99 on your Apple device. off the floor, the most heat anywhere. Also going to shout out prize picks. Use the code five. That’s for $50 instantly when you play your first $5. Always love to give them a quick shout out. Adele, your initial thoughts. Um, I want to save the segments to really uh look deeper into what we saw from Koware and from the debut of Casper as Jak Yakonis. But just uh overall your thoughts on the team and the way that they look collectively before we dive into each individual player when we get to the segments. Yeah, collectively I think the first team that was out there, Drew started tonight, Drew Smith and Norman Pal, Bam Adabio, Nicole Yoic, and uh Andrew Wiggins. I think they had a rough go of it. They they didn’t get off to the start they wanted to. A little bit of sloppy play. They didn’t really bring the the energy and intensity. It’s preseason and they’re veteran so that’s going to happen. But what I was really impressed with is that second unit and Norman Pal as well. Norman Pal is just a pros pro man. He fits when he’s in the game. The ball moves, the ball doesn’t stop. He makes the right reads, scores when he needs to score, passes when he needs to pass, and he just makes the game easy for all the other players around him. I thought he he played a terrific game. I mean, he shot 46.2% from the field. He was five for five from the free throw line, four rebounds, three assists. Uh, had a block and a steal. So, he does a little bit of everything. He’s been their most consistent player throughout the preseason so far. Obviously, it’s early. I’m glad you alluded to the Drew Smith move in the uh starting lineup because Ethan is um just so everyone knows on off the floor. He mentioned that he really thinks Drew has an opportunity to start the season as the starting point guard uh and they’ll keep DaVon Mitchell off the bench as Tyler Herro rehabs. So this was the first step towards that becoming reality and Drew Smith getting that opportunity with the other players that I think we all probably perceived to be the starters until Hero gets back. So it it was difficult that they didn’t play particularly great together. Um so honestly it’s preeason. We’re not going to dig into this too deep. I do think that there’s things that we can take from each individual performance, but ultimately the guys off the bench were more the conversation today. It’s where we’re going to focus our energy and we’re going to get to our first segment from a Aggressive Insurance. Uh shout out to Lynette. And now it’s time for the Aggressive Insurance player of the night sponsored by our friend Lynette. You can find her at insurancebylanette.com. That’s with two N’s and two T’s. Insurancebylanette.com. If you need car insurance, renters’s insurance, homeowners insurance, or any other type of insurance, she’s the person to go to. Based in Lauder Hill, she services the entire Tri County area here in South Florida, and she will make sure to get you the best deal. She probably talk to you about the heat while you’re at it. Reach out to her, insurancefilinet.com. And now, the player of the game. [Music] So, because the minutes are so evenly distribute di distributed, uh, when it comes to the preseason, we’re not going to do just one player here. Uh, I want to give a major shout out to Haimey Hakez. I thought that that he had a really efficient game. Uh, pre-show. That was something that Adele immediately mentioned. Um, I thought that Kel Wear responded really well to some, you know, there were uh he he had a double double in the last game and essentially postgame Eric Spolstra was like getting down to a threeinut span that he contributed to winning and to me that minimized a lot of what he had done if you just looked at the box score tonight. I thought he was a lot more active, a lot more um uh he just I don’t know if he gets up for these matchups against WBY or what it is, but right, shout out to him for playing really well off the bench. 29 points, 12 rebounds. He played uh efficient, pretty mistakefree basketball for the most point. And then the other guy that made his NBA debut, and I’m queuing this up for you so that you can tell us about how he played. Casper Yakonis makes his debut. Eight points, 10 assists in his first game out there. Uh you’ve been a proponent of his since the minute that uh there was a chance he could be drafted by the Heat. He looked great tonight. Uh your thoughts on his play? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I had him eighth on my big board during the draft process. I was blown away that the Heat were able to draft this kid at number 20. And one of the hallmarks of Casper Shakonis is his defense. And Eric Spolster pointed that out whenever he was going at it and being super competitive with DaVon Mitchell in practice. And then tonight, you saw that he was impactful defensively. He was in the passing lanes. He got a steal, couple of steals, and he was making the game easy for those guys on the second unit. I mean, his ability to read the floor, just make subtle moves and get into the paint, and once he gets in the paint, he plays off two feet, so then he can either shoot it or pass, and he’s able to make quicker decisions because he’s playing off two feet, not caught in the air. Even had a nice step back uh jumper from three. Like people are going to look at the box score and say he shot 28.6% from the field and 20% from three and it doesn’t tell you how well this kid played. He impacted winning in such a way that they were they had a pretty sizable lead in that second quarter when he was in there and then at the end of the game until like the last two minutes of the game they looked like they were going to roll to a victory and a lot of it was because of the playmaking of Casper Shakonis. A lot of people don’t realize too he’s a terrific rebounder. Like he averaged six rebounds per game in college. So, he didn’t get any tonight, but I expect him if he gets minutes to be on the glass a lot. And so, for him to get 10 dimes in his first action out against a defensive team like the Spurs, I think that’s big time. Yeah. No, it’s a win for him to make a debut uh particularly coming off a summer league where there were moments where you thought, wait, does he have limitations that are going to be difficult? tonight. He looked like he could get by guys just fine and um he could make plays and he made really smart decisions with the basketball and they need players that can do that. So, I thought it was a really encouraging sign despite the fact that he didn’t shoot well. Uh overall as a team, Miami shot uh 45% so they were 37 of 81. Um and then they shot 10 of 29 from three. They were outrebounded by San Antonio 4936, but again the counting stats getting into this for preseason gets a little ridiculous. So, um, let’s lean into, and I know I mentioned Haimey, uh, we’ll talk a little bit more about his play and some of the guys that I think, uh, we saw tonight and and there’s an important reason why it’s why we should bring that up. Uh, but before we do, let’s get to the next segment and that comes from Mobile CR and staffing. And now it’s time for the X-ray of the play of the day, brought to us by our friends over at Mobile Carm and Staffing Services. Nelson and his team will bring the X-ray equipment and the staffing to you if you work in a hospital or a medical office. Get a consultation today at c-armmanstaffing.com or give them a call at 561891-9620. Their fleet of trucks at your service. Again, it’s mobile CRA and staffing services. 561-891-9620. And now the X-ray of the play of the day. So we got to go with the Yakonis alleyoop, right? Absolutely. That alleyoop that he had to KL Wear has to be the play of the day, man. Casper Shakonis coming down on the right wing. I can’t remember if it was off of a straight dribble drive or if he came off a pick and roll, but he came down that right wing and just lobbed it up to wear. We wear got way up for that thing, stretched out and slammed it home. Man, that’s definitely the play of the night for me. Yeah, it it’s fun to see the Heat rookies um flashing. That’s that’s the kind of stuff that gets fans excited. And what else is the preseason good for? because otherwise it’s it’s really hard to to know exactly what you’re going to see cuz we’ve seen Heat teams win preseason games and then start off really ugly. I I just I don’t want to make too much of the results, but um I think ultimately to see some of these young players playing well. Tonight was as probably as close to a dress rehearsal from a rotation perspective as I would expect. Meaning maybe more uh Larson as we go here. He he only played 15 minutes. He was one of six from the field. He just didn’t play well tonight. Uh and uh Myron Gardner got 14 minutes. I think he’s still gonna be a factor, but as a two-way player, obviously they have a lot of guys that still need to get back. Fonteio will try to squeeze his way into the rotation. DaVon Mitchell has a spot in the rotation. So, I thought that tonight we saw like the bulk of guys that are going to be in the mix for playing time. And what stands out to me is that we we we’ve pretty much established that for me it looks like Bam Wiggins, Powell, and Nico are definitely going to start. It’s just a matter of who’s is it going to be Da’Von or does Drew Smith kind of do the placeholder thing to keep DaVon in his role off the bench. So, that’s something we’ll watch for going forward. Uh any other major takeaways from you? I I know that we’re going to have plenty of podcasts to do for the uh rest of the week and we’ll have you covered as the Heat continue to uh get through preseason, but your thoughts on tonight’s game and just uh particularly because we saw some good stuff from Hakez, from We from Yakonis. Uh your your takeaways from a from a Heat loss that didn’t really feel like they necessarily lost. Yeah, I thought Khloe Wearer played a fantastic game and it goes beyond the stats. Like he actually hustled. He boxed out. He went for rebounds aggressively. Um he had three offensive rebounds which shows you’re willing to use that energy and do something out of area. So he rebounded out of his area. I just thought he played a really great game even though he had some bad passes there as well. The thing you want to see going forward is him stack the days. He’s got to stack games like this. It doesn’t have to be 29 points on 60% shooting, but it has to be the effort and that energy level every single night. And I also want to shout out Jamie Hawkins Jr. I was a proponent of I thought he was still injured most of last year. We’ll never know because then, you know, nobody’s going to tell us, but he he couldn’t even dunk last year. Like he had like one dunk all last year. His pop of athleticism is back. He hammered on Victor Wimbeyama’s head. Like that could have been a play of the night. It could have been. We all bet. We should had co-plays of the night. We just decided by by Yakonis. Absolutely. And if Haime Hakas Jr. can give you some athletic pop, he played well defensively and he played well out of the mid post. And if he can spin a little bit less, I think they got something. That’s funny. We’re gonna talk about a spin counter as we watch him. Right now, we’re doing that on playback, but eventually, who knows, maybe we’ll be doing it on off the floor. Uh, but we we joke tonight that we are going to do a Haimey Hawk spin counter throughout the season because that is his go-to move and he needs to develop more counters and it seems like right now the counter to the spin move is to spin again and to spin again or do a fake spin. Exactly. Or a half spin. Exactly. But uh for the most part tonight, I think it’s an encouraging game. Uh each one of these with the wins and losses don’t matter. So, they got out of it with um relatively uh no injuries that we know of, knock on wood, and uh the the young guys contributed. Uh it’ll be interesting to see if they get Yakonis some more minutes, what that looks like because early in the season if it is um a situation where you need to plug in guards because there’s injuries or or whatnot. It’s just nice to see that he uh some of the stuff that we were worried about in summer league for at least tonight. He dispelled a lot of those concerns. So shout out to him in his NBA debut. Shout out to Kell Wear for playing a lot better. Kasha Johnson, I’m getting worried. I’m just just going to be honest with you, homie. Um, but Digital Liddell, uh, thank you for joining me. We will have you covered throughout all the home games throughout the season. You’ll see major passions pop on here as well. Uh, but I guess um I don’t know that we’ll have you again for the rest of the week. So, uh, peace out and, um, it’ll be to the next home game.

Kelel Ware answered recent questions about his impact with his best game of the preseason. Kasperus Jakučionis also made his NBA debut and contributed 10 assists. Greg Sylvander & Digital Adel break down the preseason action and recap the Spurs 112-017 defeat of the Heat on Wednesday night at the Kasaya Center.

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