NEW ORLEANS — When it comes to body language, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday that comportment carries weight. For Nikola Jovic, he said, it means carrying a “strong face” even in the toughest times.

With the fourth-year forward at or near career lows with his shooting percentages, Spoelstra said ahead of Wednesday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center that head should still be held high, lest the opposition feeds upon such signs of a lack of confidence.

“It’s just something to work on and he is,” Spoelstra said of such visible exposure of fading confidence. “He’s working on it and you just want to have that strong face always throughout the course of competition. We like him shooting open shots, being aggressive offensively.

“You can’t control always whether the ball is going to go in or not. His process behind the scenes has been solid the last three weeks. He’s been putting in the time and that’s what you can control. He’s working on it, working on the strong face at all times.”

Jovic said he is keeping it real, amid higher expectations of himself.

“I think I’m just being true to myself,” he said. “Does it look good? Probably not. But I’m working on it. I think it’s a smart thing from them, telling me that I should maybe look better, and look better for the others, and help. So I’m just working on it. But I don’t think it’s any big issue.”

The look in Heat games often is significantly different than the look projected while playing for the Serbian national team, when confidence consistently is emoted.

“I do feel confident,” he said of his overall outlook, here and abroad. “It’s more like I just don’t show emotion enough maybe here. I think that’s the only thing. I really try to lock in and be ready.

“When I play there, I just show a little more emotion. And then it looks maybe if my body language and confidence is better. But that’s the only difference.”

Team captain Bam Adebayo said he has been working with Jovic on comportment.

“Understand that missing shots is part of the game. It’s part of your journey,” Adebayo said Wednesday. “I always talk about when I had my slump, how everybody was trying to figure out how I could make shots or whatever. I was like, ‘Bro, just keep your same routine. Don’t switch up. Just keep living with the result. You don’t do all this work to, obviously, you want to make shots, but it’s really off the repetition of how it feels. If it feels good coming off your hand and you don’t make it, you stick with that same routine.’

“For me, it’s just weathering that storm. At some point, like I said before, the table is going to turn for him.”

Ultimately, guard Davion Mitchell said, it’s a matter of looking within while putting a best face forward.

“I mean, kind of just tell him to keep being aggressive. At the end of the day, he got to have confidence in himself,” Mitchell said. “Because if you don’t have confidence in yourself, it’s kind of hard to get it from somebody else.

“So I think that he just got to go out there and just be aggressive, like he’s been doing. Just a couple of missed shots, and kind of just thinking a little bit when those missed shots. I mean, I’ve been there before, too. After you miss shots, you don’t want to shoot another one. But we want to encourage him to shoot shots, because he’s a really good shooter, he’s a really good player, and he’s one of our best players on our team. So he got to keep being aggressive no matter what.”

Still Simone

Even with Simone Fontecchio off with his 3-point shot at times, Spoelstra said there still is value of the Italian forward to his rotations.

“He’s done a lot of other things really well,” Spoelstra said. “It’s been a pleasant surprise to see how he’s helped us with our team defense, a lot of the intangibles, hustle plays, offensive rebounding.

“And he always provides the gravity. You can run, catch-and-shoot actions with him that open up something good for our offense typically.”

Two back

Forward Keshad Johnson and center Vlad Goldin rejoined the Heat on Wednesday following their assignment to the G League Sioux Falls Skyforce. Johnson next will participate in the dunk contest on Saturday at NBA All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles.