REACTION: Miami Heat’s Streak RUINED By Victor Wembanyama | Still Some POSITIVE Takeaways vs Spurs

REACTION: Miami Heat’s Streak RUINED By Victor Wembanyama | Still Some POSITIVE Takeaways vs Spurs

The Heat ran into a 7 foot3 roadblock from France as Victor Webyama and the Spurs kept Miami’s offense in check. Can they bounce back to salvage the rest of the road trip? We’ll break down the game on tonight’s episode of Locked on Heat. 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. Whether you’re tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app, thanks so much for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. Join the cookie gang and become an everydayer by hitting that subscribe button. 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 use across the app. Head to fanduel.com today 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’ll get to big games from Bam Out of Bio and Andrew Wiggins here in a moment. Plus, we have a question about whether or not BABO is taking too many threes or not. But David, we’re recording this after the Heats 107 to 101 loss to the Spurs in San Antonio. It’s their first loss since opening night. Uh some good moments in this one, right? But maybe unrealistic to expect to score enough when a you’re missing Norm Pal and Tyler Hiro and B Victor Webbyama is playing defense on the other side. The Heat are replacing guys in Pal and Hero who averaged a combined 46 points last season with a back court that averaged 16 in DaVon Mitchell and Pel Larson. Was not an issue against the Charlotte Hornets. Turns out it was an issue against San Antonio. still uh hard to feel that bad about this one. We’ll talk about Bam here in a second. Awesome performance. Uh the Heat still somehow gives themselves a chance to the a chance to win this game. But to me, the story is Victor Wemanyama. You said he was 7 foot3 just now. That guy’s like 75. I I think they’re lying if they’re listing him at 73. The Heat were down one at halftime and the Spurs took a 15-point lead in the third quarter. We just took over the second half. the Heat used another run uh to take a one-point lead in the fourth quarter, but then Webby took over again. Led the Spurs to an 18-9 run to take the lead and get the win. And you know what? I’m saying all this about Victor Webbyama and him taking over in the second half, David, and I don’t even think he played that well to his standards, but he was still just so dominant. Yeah, I think there were stretches there where Miami really did a pretty good job of challenging him and make things making things difficult. Whether it was even DaVon Mitchell switching on to him and and trying to keep him from getting into a comfortable spot where using his length, Bam using his overall switch ability and versatility to try and make things as challenging as possible for a player who makes things look easily especially on the offensive end. And I I think they did a pretty decent job overall, but I unfortunately uh Webbyama defensively was just too much. I I wasn’t even too concerned about what they gave up offensively to him. It was the fact that he was just able to alter large stretches of the game with his defense where it made it difficult for Miami to get into the kind of offense that we’ve seen over the first five games of the season or first four games of the season where they were the number one offense in the NBA. That was not the case tonight because they were just not able to initiate anything at the rim, he wipes out the majority of easy looks at the rim. Uh if you’re driving towards the basket and you see this 7 foot plus, let’s say obstacle there, he’s going to make things a lot more less likely that you’ll take that chance and maybe you’ll dish it off to somebody which leads to some opportunistic turnovers. I think that was a big part of it was Miami just didn’t look comfortable at any point. They committed a lot of turnovers in the first quarter. committed a lot of turnovers in the third quarter, then a lot late in the game when they really needed to be almost perfect to try and hold on to a win. And unfortunately, it was just impossible given Webinama’s stature and his versatility defensively. Like his just sheer size is such a challenge to overcome. And there you are attacking the basket. You see this thing in the way and then all of a sudden you’re trying to dish it off to somebody. Well, that leads it to Deon Vel or uh Stefan Castle or somebody else. they’re just going to be able to poke the ball and initiate some kind of a transition opportunity and that puts Miami on their heels. So, it it was just a really tough challenge for the Heat and it’s been a tough challenge for everybody in the league, too, because the Spurs get off to a historic franchise best five and0 start to the season. So, uh pretty impressive run for San Antonio and just an unfortunate loss for Miami. Are you a believer now in Victor Womenyama? You were like you were you were putting the kaibos on the whole ah you know what he’s not that great in our preview to the game. Where are you now? Come on. Top 10 player, let’s say. Okay. Way to give him his credit. I mean, he’s in the top 30 for sure. Like, yeah, he’s one of Antonio’s best players. I think Hey, Dylan Harper outplayed him for large stretches and he’s Dylan Harper looked really good, didn’t he? He did. Uh, that was the other part is like the bench for Miami did it wasn’t the advantage that it had been in the in the previous three games. Um, Miami had one of the best benches in the league. Kami Hake Jr. coming in as that sixman. He was just not he just wasn’t effective in this one. Two of eight overall, six points, just really wasn’t able to kind of get to his looks. And San Antonio’s bench was really good and it was basically because of Dylan Harper. Kellen Johnson went on a little bit of a run there also. But Dylan Harper basically matched Miami’s bench for I think the mediest part of these this game and that was that was a tough that was tough. I mean Simone Fentio came off the bench and scored 18 points. I don’t want to overlook him, but uh yeah, I mean, hi May Andrew Smith like you just weren’t and you got nothing from Nico who went over five in this game. Yeah, he’s continued to struggle. Making our preseason anticipation that he’d take the leap really looked like one of our worst calls ever because he just he looked really good. Come on, we’re five games into it. I don’t know. I’m not I’m not buying it. I’m almost out to be honest with you. I don’t want to sound pessimistic. Eno is our guy and we appreciate everything he can do and yet uh this is year five now where you’re kind of hoping for something and he just doesn’t seem to figure it out. Maybe the demotion to the bench is uh affecting him to a certain degree. I’m not sure because you would think given Miami’s fast-paced offense that he’d find a way to flourish, but that has not been the case. and and like again with him, especially with the three-point shot, if he’s not knocking those down, the confidence seems to wayne and it seems like it almost impacts every other aspect of his game. And and so he’s mostly been a non-factor despite everybody else’s success this season. I don’t know. He had 20 points against Memphis. He was a big driver in that blowout win. He had, you know, I thought he was pretty effective defensively against the Knicks. Had six points in that game. Better second half than first half. Charlotte, he had 10 points, uh, six rebounds, two assists. I don’t think he’s been terrible, but to your point, you need to see more from him. Um, overall though, would do you share my feeling even coming out of this? Unfortunate to start the trip with a loss. I’m not feeling I’m I don’t feel that bad about it considering how short-handed this Heat team is. And by the way, good news. Norm Pal did go on the trip. So, it’s a four-ame trip. This is the first one. The Heat are leaving it open that Pal could return. These groin strains are always kind of finicky. You really never know. I mean, you can miss weeks with these things, you can miss days with these things. You never really know, but it’s a good sign that Nor Pal is at least on the trip. They’re going to need them to win these games. Uh, but just right now in this moment after the first game, I’m not feeling terrible about this loss if I’m the Heat. I would have liked them to start off with a I just don’t I don’t want people to start thinking that this team is more of a mirage. And I think that’s the nature of fandom. I think we’re going to see a lot of people going up and down and and with every loss. But what are the expect? You’re missing Pal and Hero. You’re missing your entire back court. Like I said, you’re missing 46 points in the back court and you’re replacing it with 16. And the Heat have their look quote unquote worst offensive performance of the season by only scoring 101 points. I get it. And yet they scored 144 without Powell against Charlotte. And that’s absolutely the difference. Yeah, I get it. It’s all relative. Uh on the road this time. Yeah. No. No, absolutely. I I that’s that’s much more rational thinking and yet uh I I think it’s disappointing. I will say it’s disappointing and at the same time I will say, you know what, they they played a pretty solid game overall and there were some bright spots. A couple players did step up, Bam and Wiggins chiefly among them. And yet, uh, I I don’t like the fact that Webinama was able to almost single-handedly just impact what looked like such a fluid part of their offense because without with him there, they weren’t able to get those easy transition baskets. They weren’t able to get the good looks at the rim that they had earlier in the season. And uh, they were kind of flattened out in the sense where they had to really rely on their halfcourt offense, which has been a challenge for well, that’s been a challenge for a long time, especially without Jimmy Butler in the lineup. Do you know how many blocks without looking? Don’t look at the box score if you haven’t looked already. Do you have blocks when tonight? Yeah, I think credited with four, right? Oh, five. It felt like more. I was like kind of half expecting to look at the box score and be like seven, eight. Uh he had a couple there that look like goends, you know, but uh he did get away with a goal. Maybe it was the first quarter. It was in the first half. But um what you just said about like yeah it was really disheartening to see Victor Webbyama just ruin all of our plans. I remember listening to Nick Angstat over on Locked on Mavericks after the opening night and his entire episode was Victor Webbyama just beat us and yeah you’re disappointed that that happened David. A lot of fans around the league are going to be very disappointed when they play Victor Webbyama in the Spurs. He’s that good. I don’t I’m even even the Heat broadcasters being like, “We don’t want to overpraise Victor Wyama.” Like, go ahead and overpraise. We haven’t seen anything like this ever. It’s fine to give credit where credit is due. Victor Womanyama took over this game and he didn’t even play that well to his standards, right? Like I think the Heat did some really interesting things defensively that we’re about to get into kind of get him out of his rhythm, but defensively there’s just nothing you can do against this guy. We got a lot more to get to. We’ll talk about uh Eric Spolster’s interesting defensive strategies that he used against Victor Wmanyama. Maybe something that other teams might be able to pick up on and have a little bit more success in Miami did this uh in this game. We’ll talk about Andrew Wiggins apparently not caring about Victor Webbyama, the only guy not affected by Victor Webbyama. We’ll talk about all that next. Today’s episode is brought to you by Robin Hood. Your ambition just meant its match. With Robin Hood, you play for the win, not just on game day, every day. locking locking in on every opening, beating your PR, beating it again. Channel that drive into your money. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money. 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Thanks again for making Lockdown Heat your first listen every day. Uh let’s talk about some player spotlights here, but we’re not going to talk about a player to lead this thing off. We’re going to talk about the coach, Eric Spolstra. I thought what he did defensively was really interesting in this one. So, uh background really quick. Miami’s defensive schemes this season have basically been we’re going to switch one through four. Our our center is going to drop and that’s essentially our defensive scheme. Switch things up defensively in this game. We saw zone for I think the first time all season. I don’t recall seeing zone for definitely not for this long of a stretch. It was a lot of the second half Miami was in that zone defense and then also willingly switching the Webbyama stuff which I thought was really interesting. We saw Da’Von Mitchell pinned up against Victor Webmanyama quite a bit. And this is a thought, David, that I’ve been having over the last, I don’t know, week or so. I was like, everybody’s trying to play their bigs on Wemby and he’s just such a mismatch for them. I do wonder though because he’s 7 foot five. And by the way, the Spurs list him at 7’4 and basketball reference list him at 7 foot three. I’m listing him at 7 foot five. That guy’s enormous. um it’s just a long way to dribble the ball, you know, and I’m wondering if you put a smaller guy on him if they might be able to disrupt that dribble a little bit more and create some turnovers. And we saw that happen. We saw Eric Spolster do that with DaVon Mitchell uh kind of guarding him there. Wy had three turnovers in this game. It kind of felt like it might it could be more. Um but I I thought DaVon did a really nice job. We saw Wigs um matched up on him on switches a couple different times. I thought Wigs had a couple nice possessions on him. also forced a turnover on WBY on in the second half at one point. Uh I thought it was a really interesting scheme there. They didn’t overh help, right? They start with Bam uh and Kell Wear in the front court with Bam guarding Webmanyama and then Kell on Harrison Barnes. And I see that on the opening possession. I’m like, “Oh, so they’ll probably have Wear kind of come over as that weak side helper.” Nope, not really. Yep. They just sort of let they they played him straight up even when Da’Von got switched there. you know, a little bit of help pinching from the nail stuff, you know, typical Eric Bolster stuff, but nothing, no overhelping, no real double teams there. They just played it straight up. And to your point, like Victor Romano was fine offensively. I think he dominated this game more defensively. So, I am interested to see going forward if other coaches maybe steal some of this from Miami. It’s, you know, it’s an interesting question because I think Miami, strangely enough, as as much as everybody’s talking about their offense, defensively, they’ve got a lot more versatility than you might expect. Bam obviously still maintaining his role as one of the most versatile defenders in the league, but you have uh you have where is long and can’t affect certain shots and he did, I think, a pretty okay job. Uh Mitchell also strong and quick enough to kind of use his kind of stout physicality to make things a little bit more difficult for Webyama who’s still underweight at his size and maybe he can’t get that leverage necessarily when a guy you can get up under him. Yeah. So if if you keep him from his spots, yeah, he’s going to turn around and knock down that jumper. But it felt like a lot of his shots were basically created off of lobs or putbacks or you know maybe if there was a switch here that didn’t work out and Webyama found himself wide open maybe because of a blown defensive assignment then he would get his cuts to the rim and again for him it’s just two two steps and he’s inside the painted area and that’s all it takes for him to launch for a dunk. So I I think the jumper was almost to my recollection anyway pretty neutralized. He was only one of five I think from three-point range. So, not a great shooting night from him, but still finished with 20ome points because, well, he’s as long and uh gifted as he is. But I think the defensive principles that Spo rolled out there were an interesting challenge for a player who’s looked really dominant. They they made him look just pretty good, which is still very good. You know, it’s still, you know, you mentioned you mentioned jumpers there. I just wanted to to jump in on that because I I pulled up the graphic on on the NBA website so people watching on YouTube could see this. At the rim, he did WMBBY stuff. He just he made everything. He’s enormous. He’s going to make everything. They really did kind He only made one real uh two-point jumper in the entire game. He had one free throw line jumper that he made. Other than that, it’s a lot of misses. And that’s sort of pushing him off of spots, making him fade away. That’s kind of what you want to do. You just want to rough him up a little bit. And those are there’s nothing you’re going to do when he’s by the basket. The goal is to make sure he doesn’t get by the basket. I think one of the reasons they switched everything, by the way, was to try to flatten that part of it out. Hey, we’re not going to give you that open roll to the basket. We’re willing to live with you getting uh with you taking DaVon Mitchell or Andrew Wiggins or Hakis Jr. uh in a matchup 15 ft away from the basket as opposed to us not switching it and you’re getting to the rim and we’re going to try to live with those jumpers. And I think it did work for the most part in this game. Um, so that was the interesting strategy I thought on Victor Webbyama. Uh, so that I think it was worth highlighting and I think Eric Spolster deserves a ton of credit. The other thing that Spo did which we saw uh, when they played the Knicks was he aligned Bam’s minutes with Carl Anthony Towns against the Knicks. He did the same thing tonight for the most part. Again, it’s not perfect but tried his best to align Bam’s minutes with Victor Webmanyama. So instead of Kell Wear coming out at the halfway point of the first quarter, Bam came out because Victor Wow always comes out at the 6-minute mark of the first quarter, they knew that going into it. So they kind of just uh jiggered the rotations really quick to to reflect that and align Bam’s minutes with WBY. So another thing to keep an eye on in a trend whenever the Heat play, you know, one of these allNBA type centers, it looks like that’s what he’s going to do with Bam and his rotation. Uh the key we have to talk about those wigs. What a game. Oh, go ahead. No, I was gonna say like the you’re speaking about matching up with other big centers, you can’t do the same thing I think with Nicola Joic who will be on the fourth game of this road trip. Like that’s a completely different style of play. So I think I I’m curious to see how those minutes are aligned because that to me I think of the two Bam is much better equipped to defend Yo Joic than uh than where is. So I wonder whether or not he’s going to tweak that a little bit. Just something to look at moving forward. But that’s a conversation in terms of aligning Bam’s minutes with Yic’s. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think we’ll probably see that. Bam does historically a pretty good job. Nobody does a great job guarding Jokic, but you know. Uh but that’s what I’m saying. Like he’s he lined Bam’s minutes with Cats and he aligned Bam’s minutes with Webinamas. He’ll probably try to align Bam’s minutes with Joic because Joic will just he’ll just push Kell Wear into the stands, right? Like there’s there’s nothing Wear is going to be able to do against that. Uh wigs, man. Talk about a guy not bothered at all by Victor. Did anybody even tell him that Victor Women’s play? I don’t think he even bothered to look at the scouting report. He was just like, uh, what is this piece of paper? I don’t need this. I’m gonna go at the basket. What a game for Andrew Wiggins. 24 points out of 11 of 18 shooting. He had six rebounds. My favorite part about this, three of those, half of his rebounds were offensive rebounds. You know my thing with Wigs, when he’s offensive rebounding, he’s super engaged. Not only was he doing that, he was scoring. He had in the opening moments of this game a layup right over Victor Webmanyama and everybody in the arena was like you can do that you can just sky over Victor Webbyama. We don’t see the the athleticism that made Andrew Wiggins a number one pick a lot anymore partly just because he’s older at this stage of his career but also because he doesn’t really engage that mode all that often. But we saw it in that instance and it’s a little bit of a reminder of what Wigs is capable of. Tremendous game from him. Another point, I think he dropped his shoulder into Webanyama, kind of pushed off the spot, then spun around on him and got an easier layup that Webyama just couldn’t challenge because he had taken him out using his strength. So, that was an impressive overall game. He looked really, really solid. Uh, unfortunately that it came in a loss, but he was Miami’s best player tonight. I think you could probably say that. Although I maybe you can give some credit to Bam as well. I would go Bam, but yeah, I mean it was it was those two guys carrying them. Yeah. Yep. No doubt. Uh, and and yeah, to to your point, I think Wigs unbothered by Webinama. I think maybe got his shot blocked a couple of times or if I recall correctly, but either way, no, it was just a much more aggressive version of him. And and it’s good to see that because if you can get that at the same time as you’re getting this version of Bama Debio and you have either Powell and or Tyler out there that bodess well for Miami because again this is was the hope for us moving forward or start starting the season is that we thought if you could get all these players to kind of ignite at least simultaneously or maybe uh you know at some point at varying points throughout the course of the game then that makes Miami pretty lethal. And I think we saw how good Wicens could be when he’s really aggressive and just looking for his shot. He had a three in the last couple minutes that cut uh San Antonio’s lead to eight. Yeah. And they were right there in striking distance and then Haime and DaVon fail on a twoon-one FA fast break that would have cut it to six. Too many sloppy turnovers. Yeah. Um but you got to give credit where it’s due and for Wiggins like he he was literally keeping Miami in that game uh in the first and the second half. Uh the other guy really quick that we want to shout out here, Simone Fonteio, the Italian stallion, 18 points off the bench. He goes five of seven from three-point range. Made his first three, I believe. I have that. I I think maybe he missed the fourth one. But this guy doesn’t really miss shots, especially not from three-point range. He’s so quick with the release. Um, Bball Ball Breakdown did this thing I saw earlier where he catches the ball in the palm of his hands. His fingers don’t even touch the ball until the release and I think it’s really interesting. Like he’s it’s so quick with him and it’s just he gets his shoulders squared. He’s able to shoot on the move. What a steal in that Pistons trade, man. Like he’s been great for Miami to open this season. He’s not going to shoot like this for the rest of the season. He’ll have his slumps, but right now he’s shooting the lights out. Yeah, he’s been great and I think again solid defensively, just a little bit more willing to attack, too. And and you can do things differently. He I don’t think as good as his shooting’s been, it doesn’t feel like he’s just a shooter as opposed to what we saw with with Duncan Robinson in the first few seasons in in Miami where he was kind of just viewed in that regard. And not until he started diversifying his game a little bit. Could you expect something different perhaps if the three-point shot wasn’t necessarily as effective? But with Fenteo, he’s just been really, really good. and he has a knack for drawing fouls even as he’s taking that shot. Maybe because of his length. It’s one of the points of contention I always had with Duncan. It’s, you know, kind of he needed to be reminded. He’s 67. You could shoot over these people. But doesn’t need reminding. He’s totally aware of it and he’ll just pull up and brace in for that jumper. And it looks good. And you know what? When he all of a sudden pulls up as quickly as he does to your point, he’s able to draw those fouls because you have to go, “Oh, damn.” and you have to kind of, you know, try to to come, you know, come back and see if you can guard it and then you wind up committing a foul. And he did that on a couple occasions, although I think the second time it was on the screen from Bam and Abio where he drew a four-point play after Feio hit the three and then Bam was pushed by Harper, I believe. Yeah, but if Bam doesn’t get pushed by Harper, then they’re calling the foul on Feio because he got fouled after foul. Yeah, more than likely. Yeah. So, uh, you know who also doesn’t need reminders that he could shoot threes? Bam out of bio apparently. Is 13 three-point attempts too many for Bam? We’ll answer that next. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA is 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 miss 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 save 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. So, head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. We’ll be right back. Before we jump into listener questions, I just want to clarify something that I said on the podcast yesterday when we were talking about the Terry Rosier scandal and all of that stuff. I had said that if he’s suspended that he would no longer count on the Heats roster, that the Heats roster would go from 14 to 13 players. That was inaccurate and that’s my fault and I apologize for that cuz that was a that’s a that’s a mistake on my end. he would still technically be on the roster so the Heat wouldn’t be forced to go out and add another player to the roster to hit that 14 player league minimum. So, I wanted to clarify that uh before we got into our listener questions because we are about accuracy here on Locked on Heat. But, let’s jump into some listener questions. Thanks to everybody who sent in questions via the Lockdown Heat insider community. Get the chance to ask these questions for postgame shows, get live game notes during games, and much more by joining the Lockdown Heat Insider community with the link in the show notes. Andrew writes in, “Thoughts on Bam’s three-point attempts? Was it a positive that he was willing to take that many considering the opposition? He’ll have a better shooting night from three.” Of course, I also writes in, “Is Bam taking too many threes?” David, I knew he was taking a lot of threes and then I looked at the box score at the end of the game and I was like, whoa, 13-point attempts. I don’t even need to look it up. That is a careerhigh in 13point attempts for Bam. I promise. Maybe after making a mistake on Rosier, I should look it up. But I’m pretty I’m 99.9% sure that’s a career high. Yeah, I can’t recall him taking 13 at any point either. But um I don’t think it’s too many. I think uh one you’d like him to hit maybe one more of those. Five of 13 feels like something doable for Bam. Ideally, yeah, he’d go for six of 13. You know, that would be much better. Like he he looked fluid on his shot. And I think that’s that’s the whole thing is that they’re coming mostly within rhythm. I think they’re it’s kind of a I don’t even know if it’s by design necessarily, but he is just kind of spraying out to the three-point line and he’s a he’s a shooter at this stretch. And I think you have to kind of take that into consideration. And I don’t think he’s hijacking the offense. I don’t think he’s doing anything to that would take away from a better offensive possession. The shots look good in of themselves. And uh I I think it’s also a byproduct of having to challenge Whipyama. No one’s going to get those kind of looks in the rim at the rim. So uh to Bam’s credit, he recognized, you know what, if I want to try and make an impact offensively, I can do that from beyond the line. And uh it worked. Again, four of 13. You’d like it to be better, but it wasn’t a bad uh shooting night overall. And I think he was still very effective even when he was in two-point range. did have a ridiculous dunk uh where it wasn’t necessarily on Webyama, but he drove baseline and he made Webyama look absolutely foolish. He was able to get past him and just yammed it as hard a dunk. Maybe I think you tweeted this out. I think they said it in the broadcast as well. Perhaps the signature play of his career. Uh it was that impressive. I would consider that dunking on Victor Webmanyama just because as long as Webmanyama is on the court, he is capable of blocking the shot. So, you can’t have it both ways, WBY. Uh, I think that’s dunking on Victor Webbyama. Um, I’m okay with it. I It’s a It’s It’s It has everything to do with Victor Webyama being on the court. That’s what this is. But still, 13 three-point attempts, 27 field goal attempts, and four free throws. Most of his work still was below the arc, within the ark. So, it wasn’t like he was exclusively shooting from outside. He was still he was getting that dunk. He was still doing stuff inside. He was just really aggressive. He was taking a lot of shots. And it turns out that a bunch of those shots happened to come from three-point range. It is a lot of threes, though. And I want to make that very clear. Here’s the list of players this season who have taken at least 13 threes. And the names make sense here. These are not bam bio names. Steph Curry, Devin Vel, Sam Hower, Larry Morgan, Anthony Simons, Grayson Allen, Dylan Brooks, Nicola Joic, VJ Edgecom, Derek White. These are the guys taking 13 threes. Perimeter guys, Steph Curry, Larry Morgan, guys who have made their bones shooting threes. And now, of course, Bamabio. But I love it. I love that he’s comfortable with the shot. Everybody was begging for him to take threes for years. Beggars can’t be choosers. He did it. He had a great game. It wasn’t like it came in a bad game. To your point, it was felt like it was in the flow of the offense. I’m okay with it. Is he ever going to take 13 threes again? I would be surprised if he ever took this many threes again for the rest of his career, but who knows? The NBA is going in some crazy directions. Let’s go quickly through our last few questions. Lightning round style. Billy writes in, “So, it might be premature, but I have been thoroughly unimpressed by KL Wear this season. I know Bam doesn’t really want to be the center, but I can see Hero replacing wear and having pal and Wiggins slide to the 34 spot when Hero returns if We doesn’t shape up. Any idea why We isn’t taking a step up?” So, a couple different things there from Billy. Um, but Kell Wear, I mean, you you flagged this going into this game. This was a game that he needed to step up, maybe take personally, come out with energy and urgency, and he did not. He did not. Uh, offensively, he struggled. Uh, just didn’t seem like he was willing to attack Webyama, and he settled for the three-point shot, and he missed all of his attempts. So, he looked all four of his shots were threes. Yep. Yeah. Uh, he just did not look good out there. So, he was a little he was a factor in terms of rebounding and other than that, not much of anything else out there on the floor. I mean, and when you’re a legit seven feet tall, you’re going to be able to rebound to a certain degree. So, it it was not a great game. I don’t know why he’s struggling. Um it it doesn’t seem like it makes sense because I I feel like he should be able to capitalize on this opportunity, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to do the things in the painted area. And for a player like Webonyama who’s taken the leap this season, he went through it. Like as good as Webonyama was in his first two seasons, a lot of people questioned his shot selection too until this season now he’s been much more engaged at well doing what he does best, which is scoring around the rim. So I think make the same adjustment at some point. If not this season, then maybe next season. But certainly that’s it looks like he’s settling for the three-point shot when he could probably be much more effective as a rim roller. You hope that that comes right and this came in year three for WBY. Maybe it comes in year three for Kell, but um yeah, it’s a great point. Uh next question really quick. Eric writes in, “First third quarter of the year. What was wrong with Da’Von Mitchell? He lost the ball and just played slow tonight.” I think the offense overall played slow tonight and that didn’t help DaVon Mitchell. He did kind of just run, literally just run into a Spurs defense a couple times and just lose the ball. Wasn’t his best night, but I’m not overly concerned about it. Yeah, me neither. I mean, they’ve got a good defensive back court. I mean, Vel, Castle, Harper looks solid, too. like he was really good as a score, but I mean and again I think it’s all built on the foundation of having Webyama there like the what Miami had done so effectively over the first four games of the season they were not allowed to do because you cannot attack the paint. I I don’t know what the stats are as for teams shooting in the paint or restricted area against Victor Wmanyama and the Spurs. It probably ain’t good. And uh you could see that with Miami tonight where a lot of those opportunities they’re pushing, they get to the painted area and all of a sudden it’s like, you know what, let me pull back just a little bit because I don’t think I’m going to be able to get this shot off. With the exception of Andrew Wiggins, nobody was willing to do that. Bam. On a couple of occasions, I saw Heyman get negated. Mitchell was negated. Uh Yovic was negated. Like none of the players that you needed to pop in any way or be able to provide that, you know, that secondary offense, none of them were able to do so because of Webonyama. and and it does lead to turnovers. WMBBY uh leads the league in forcing players to hear footsteps, right? Like that’s just it. Uh last one here, we’re do it quickly. Malachi writes in, “Our half court offense continues to struggle. How can we fix it? I feel like San Antonio did a great job defensively against our strengths tonight and forc us to play out of our normal strengths.” Um I’m my quick answer to this, David, before we start using the word fix in relation to the half court offense. I want to see it with Tyler Herro healthy and then obviously Norm Powell back. Yeah, that’s fair. I I think uh that’s a big point is you have to have two really good scorers because think about it even in half court like you’ve seen Powell use his north south ability to just put the ball down and create opportunities that way where he might draw a defender. He might be able to drop Webbyama and maybe a secondary defender and if that’s the case maybe he kicks it out to a wide open shooter. Maybe some of those wide open three-point shots go down. Maybe the outcome of the game is completely different. So, who knows? Uh, you know, we did see that when Powell played the first three games of the season. Unfortunately, haven’t been able to see it the last two, although Miami’s offense was significantly better against Charlotte. But I think again, that’s a byproduct of playing the Hornets. Again, 46 points combined from Hero and Powell, 16 points. Like, you’re not even replacing them with like an Alec Burks type guy who’s sort of this microwave professional scorer. It’s Pel Larson and Davon Mitchell who are not they’re known for a lot of things. scoring ain’t one of them. So, it was it’s a 30point drop off between the back court that you thought you’d have at the start of the year and the back court you did. Nothing against Dion Mitchell Pel Larson, but you’re you’re missing a lot of scoring there. So, before we start worrying about the half court, I just want to see this team healthy and then if we have issues at that point, then we could start throwing around the word fix. Let us know what you think in the comments about this loss. Are you feeling optimistic? Do you feel like it was just you ran into Victor Wmanyama and the Spurs are 5-0 and what are you going to do about it? Thank you for making Lockdown Heat your first listen every day. Hey, have a great weekend.

The Miami Heat fell to the San Antonio Spurs for their first loss since opening night, but there are still some positives to take away from a night where Heat fans experienced just how good Victor Wembanyama can be. Bam Adebayo was a bright spot, but is 13 3-point attempts too many? Wes Goldberg and David Ramil give their instant reactions and takeaways from the first game of a four-game trip, highlight the positives on a night where the Heat were missing Norman Powell and discuss where the team can improve.

0:00 Intro
1:30 Wembanyama too much for the short-handed Heat
12:30 Spotlighting Spo’s defensive scheme vs Wemby, Bam’s big night, Wiggins
24:53 Listener Questions: Is Bam taking too many 3s?

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