SALT LAKE CITY — Being physically strong has been a necessity for Nikola Jovic at times such as these, with the Miami Heat without sidelined center Kel’el Ware.

Being mentally strong appears to be an ongoing challenge for the 22-year-old Serbian forward, including a brutal outing in Thursday night’s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, when all semblance of confidence appeared to be lost.

“I don’t even know how to explain it,” Jovic said at Saturday morning’s shootaround at Delta Center, ahead of Saturday night’s game against the Utah Jazz. “I want to play good. I’m not making shots right now, and I get a little bit down on myself. That’s it.”

With a pair of Jovic missed free throws, an airballed 3-pointer, a turnover in the backcourt after a rebound and then a three-shot foul on that same sequence, coach Erik Spoelstra seemingly had no choice in pulling Jovic for the balance of Thursday night’s loss.

“He’ll be fine,” Spoelstra said Saturday, with the Heat next moving on to Sunday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns, the final stop on this five-game western swing. “Every player goes through some pockets of the season where it’s not going exactly how you want to. I think these are big opportunities for growth. When you face it and you embrace it, and then eventually you overcome it, you gain a lot of confidence from that. He’ll be just fine.”

A week ago, it was Spoelstra upping the ante with verbal challenges of Ware, before Ware was lost with the hamstring strain that has him back in Miami, missing all five games of this trip. Jovic said no prodding needed in his case.

“I have my own sense of drive. I want to win. They want to win, too. And, I mean, at the end of the day, I want to be a great player,” he said. “That’s what drives me every day — not the fact that coaches have to drive me and stuff like that. I drive myself, and I think I’m my biggest motivator. That’s about it.”

With Ware out, the moments are now coming at center. It might not be Jovic’s position of choice with his perimeter skill set, but one he appreciates he has to fulfill.

“Yeah, it is a little bit different,” Jovic said of playing up in weight class. “I think defensively, not as much. It’s actually easier for me, because if I’m going to guard somewhere, it’s in the post. The big guys are not as fast. The only thing I’ve got to worry about is rebounding. But offensively, I just think I’ve got to be a little bit more smarter.

“We don’t run a lot of plays. So I’ve got to figure out how, as a five, do I space a floor and what do I do. Sometimes I feel like I’m lost on the court a little bit, like in spacing. Because I’m not sure where exactly to be.

But, no, there is no bucking the process.

“Whatever coaches need us to do, I’ll do it,” he said. “I’m not a system player. I mean, I’m not a guy who you build a system around right now. We’re not going to build our offense around me. So for right now, it’s just whatever coaches need me to do and whatever our play style, whatever play style they want to play, I just have to adapt.”

Mitchell’s caution

After an abbreviated two-game return after previously missing two games with a shoulder contusion, point guard Davion Mitchell said Saturday it is time to make sure he gets things right, with Saturday his second consecutive missed game.

“I think I just got to kind of take my time and kind of let this heal, because I don’t want it to kind of it to be like this like the whole season where I’m feeling good and I think I’m fine, and it happens again and I’m going back to square one. So, I just got to take my time.

“What happened was I didn’t play contact before when I got back. And then when I first got contact, it was in the game.”

Mitchell initially was injured in the Jan. 13 home victory over the Suns, then missing the next two games. He returned in the loss to the Golden State Warriors at the start of this trip and then aggravated the contusion in Tuesday night’s victory over the Sacramento Kings.

“It was the beginning of the third quarter with the Kings, when I was guarding Russ,” he said of Russell Westbrook. “And I kind of reached my arm out and he kind of bumped it a little bit. And it kind of aggravated it then.  And then afterwards, it just didn’t feel too good.”