{"id":623928,"date":"2026-02-25T12:41:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/623928\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T12:41:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:41:47","slug":"an-analysis-of-tuesday-nights-miami-heat-milwaukee-bucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/623928\/","title":{"rendered":"An analysis of Tuesday night&#8217;s Miami Heat-Milwaukee Bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Observations and other notes of interest from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sun-sentinel.com\/2026\/02\/24\/heat-fizzle-late-amid-bucks-closing-sizzle-falling-128-117-in-milwaukee\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tuesday night\u2019s 128-117 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Yes, this one mattered for the Heat, as they went for a fourth consecutive victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 With plenty at stake in a tight playoff race in the middle of the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 So it stung.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Stung plenty, with the late missed free throws and inability to stop the Bucks at closing time.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 But the initial game discussion practically was preempted by the fashion police.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Adding at least a distraction for Heat from what followed.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Prior to the game, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra addressed Pat Riley\u2019s comments about Riley\u2019s preference for coaches returning to wearing suits, comments the Heat president and former Lakers coach made Sunday at the unveiling of his statue in front of the Lakers\u2019 arena.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cI can see the arguments both ways,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cI think as long as we look professional and look different than the players, I think that\u2019s great. I think it\u2019s becoming a little bit different anyways in corporate America. But then I also see Pat\u2019s point of view. When I see the footage of him from the Lakers to the Knicks to the Heat, he did look sharp.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Spoelstra added, \u201cBut he wore suits differently than us \u2013 us mortals. We just didn\u2019t look the same, as the way he looked. That was an iconic Armani look. In fact, he gave me a few suits back when I was an assistant coach. But I looked like the lead singer for the Talking Heads. Is that who that was? David Byrne. Yeah, that\u2019s who I looked like. I didn\u2019t realize I had to tailor the suits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Before those comments, Spoelstra spoke of the last time he found a suit being mandatory.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cPat and I debate about this all the time,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cWe went to the Hall of Fame this year for Micky Arison and so I had to wear back-to-back nights of suits, and I swear that was all Pat was talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 That came this past summer, for events in Connecticut and Massachusetts.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018See, you look great, you look presentable,\u2019 \u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018Well, I had to go get these just for this weekend, and I don\u2019t plan on wearing them again until the next Hall of Fame event we get to go to.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 The Heat are not positioned for a Hall inductee this summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 From that discussion, the game followed, with Spoelstra working in the now-customary casual wear.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 With nothing casual about this fight to the finish.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 With Davion Mitchell back from the illness that had him out Saturday against the Grizzlies, the Heat returned to a starting lineup of Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, Pelle Larsson, Norman Powell and Mitchell.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 That lineup entered at 5-2.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kel\u2019el Ware again entered together in the first Heat substitution.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Tyler Herro and Kasparas Jakucionis then followed together in the next Heat substitution.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 And, again, Myron Gardner made it 10 deep.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Playing ahead of Dru Smith and Simone Fontecchio.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Smith then got second-half minutes ahead of Jakucionis.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Spoelstra said at the morning shootaround he has been pleased with his team\u2019s recent ball movement.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cOur guys have buy-in because they can see the possibilities for their offense,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re scoring more. It\u2019s happening with less effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 He added that by creating ample possessions, there are ample opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cWe have a lot of possessions in the course of the game. There doesn\u2019t need to be stress,\u201d he said. \u201cJust play the right way. Everybody will get their opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 All of which has made mastering the offense a key.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cWe know at this point of the season which lineup, where the ball needs to be going more often than not,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it can happen organically, which is much more difficult to defend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Herro said he is all-in in that regard.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cLike we said at the beginning of the year, every night can be a different night, guys different nights,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all are happy to see other guys succeed and ultimately it\u2019s about winning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Spoelstra also spoke at the morning shootaround about a healthy uptick in the team\u2019s rebounding.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201cThe last month to possibly six weeks, the intention has been much better on both sides of the court,\u201d he said of the board work. \u201cIt\u2019s probably one of our top three leading factors in our success. And it\u2019s not just on one side of the court.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Herro agreed.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 \u201d I think what moves the needle the most for us is guys crashing the offensive glass and creating more possessions for ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if we do miss a shot, it\u2019s not the end of the world, right? We\u2019re crashing four or five guys in order for us to create more possessions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Observations and other notes of interest from Tuesday night\u2019s 128-117 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks: \u2013 Yes, this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,144,165,295,189,3880,3881,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-623928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-heat","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miami-heat-blog","14":"tag-miamiheat","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116131328608544206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}