A Heat youth movement? Jaquez and Jovic stand out on the same night. Also, Butler still out
The Miami Heat’s last two first-round draft picks started a game together for just the second game this season, and the results were encouraging.
As the Heat continues to deal with injury issues, 2023 first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr. and 2022 first-round pick Nikola Jovic were moved into the starting lineup and both contributed positive minutes in Wednesday night’s 110-96 win over the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena. The victory snapped a two-game skid, as the Heat improved to 2-2 on its five-game West Coast trip.
Jaquez continued his strong rookie season, finishing with 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting on threes, eight rebounds, one steal and one block in 39 minutes in his 10th NBA start. The wing also recorded a team-best plus/minus of plus 24 in the win.
Jovic put together one of the best stat lines of his NBA career, finishing just two rebounds short of recording his first NBA double-double. The second-year forward contributed season highs in points (15), made field goals (6), made threes (3) and minutes (28) to go with eight rebounds, while posting a plus/minus of plus-3 in his third start of the season and the 11th start of his NBA career.
Both Jaquez and Jovic played well on the same night, but they’re different players who are at different stages of the developmental process.
“You have different ends of the spectrum and that’s OK, in terms of a young player developing,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the Heat set to close its five-game trip out West on Friday against the Phoenix Suns at Footprint Center (9 p.m., Bally Sports Sun).
That’s why Jaquez has become a consistent and important member of the Heat’s rotation while standing as the only player on the roster who has appeared in every game so far this season, and why Wednesday represented a rare opportunity for Jovic to play extended minutes even though Jaquez is the rookie and Jovic is in his second NBA season.
First, Jaquez is 22 and Jovic is 20. Second, Jaquez played four years of college basketball and played in one Final Four, and Jovic played professionally in Serbia before being drafted by the Heat.
“Jaime played four years of high-level college basketball and big-time tournament games,” Spoelstra continued. “If he didn’t play well, they didn’t win. There’s a responsibility that he learned early on from that. He also learned how to play a role his first two years when he was like the afterthought his freshman year, third or fourth option in his second year.”
Spoelstra then emphasized the patient approach that the Heat continues to take with Jovic, who has appeared in just eight NBA games this season and has already taken part in multiple recent G League assignments.
“Niko is 20,” Spoelstra said. “While everybody wants everything to happen right now, that’s not necessarily reality. But his head coach sees progress.”
That progress was on display Wednesday, as Jovic shot 3 of 5 on spot-up threes. He also made a few impressive plays in the open court, including a coast-to-coast layup after grabbing the defensive rebound.
On the defensive end, Jovic recorded one steal and was able to hold up in the Heat’s zone scheme. With the Heat using a season-high 47 zone possessions in Wednesday’s win against the Lakers, Jovic didn’t need to defend in as many of the 1-on-1 situations that he has struggled in since entering the NBA.
“It’s all across the board. He gets coached hard, as you could expect,” Spoelstra said when asked about the development of Jovic’s defense. “... He’s been drilling all the details ad nauseam. But he’s big, so he’s 6-11 and he’s 230 pounds. He’s a good rebounder for his size and he’s learning pick-and-roll coverages and that’s probably the most important thing a big player has to learn coming into this league is how to manage when you get called up every single time. The best thing about that is he gets called up every single time, so he gets 10,000 reps and then he’ll get coached in all the video sessions and practice sessions in the days in between.”
Defense is one of the biggest reasons behind Jovic’s lack of consistent playing time this season — other than just a very deep Heat roster — and he admits that “1-on-1 defense is where I need to get good.”
“I do make some dumb fouls,” Jovic said. “Last game, I had five. This game, I had four. Just some random shooting fouls. Of course, refs are going to target me and probably give me a hard time. But still, I need to stay solid and finish the play. It’s always like I’ll be right there and at the last second I’ll touch somebody’s hand or bail somebody out.”
Jovic, who the Heat drafted with the 27th overall pick out of Serbia last year, has actually logged more minutes in the G League (234) than in the NBA (109) this season.
“Niko has been making progress and I’ve said that before,” Spoelstra said. “You can’t judge it on whether he’s been playing in every game. He’s been playing, he’s been developing and if you play him with our main guys, that gives him the best opportunity for him to use his versatility to help us and that’s what he did [Wednesday].”
As for Jaquez, he just continues to establish himself as one of the NBA’s top rookies. In Wednesday’s win, he took on the defensive assignment of guarding Lakers star LeBron James when the Heat was in its man-to-man defense.
“He’s the all-time leading scorer,” said Jaquez, who was selected by the Heat with the 18th overall pick in this past summer’s draft. “You try to stop him from making that record grow even bigger and bigger. That was kind of my goal. He does so many things great in transition and we just tried to slow him down the best we could.”
On the other end of the court, Jaquez hit a spinning turnaround jumper over James in the fourth quarter that drew a gasp from the Los Angeles crowd.
“I’m going to have that video and I’m going to show that to my kids, when I have kids,” Jaquez said with a grin at the end of his four-day trip back home to the Los Angeles area.
Among NBA rookies this season, Jaquez entered Thursday ranked fourth in points per game (13.8), 11th in rebounds per game (3.8), seventh in assists per game (2.7), second in steals per game (1.1) and second in minutes per game (30) while shooting 50.4 percent from the field and 35.2 percent on 3.1 three-point attempts per game.
Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Jaquez are the only two rookies in the league averaging double-digit points while shooting better than 50 percent from the field this season.
The NBA on Thursday announced that Jaquez was again selected as the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month, this time for games played in December. It marks the second consecutive month that Jaquez has earned the honor, receiving the first two East Rookie of the Month awards handed out this season.
“He has a competitive spirit and an experience level to know how to impact winning and we’ll roll with that,” Spoelstra said. “While he’s learning nuances of the league and he’s learning our defensive system, which can be complex for a younger player, he has a competitive toughness and he makes winning plays.”
That’s exactly what Jovic was most proud of from his performance in Wednesday’s win over the Lakers. After the Heat lost the first two games that Jovic started in this season, the Heat came away with the win in his third start.
“The first two games I started, we lost,” Jovic said. “So it was for me, personally, it was really important to win no matter what.”
For Jaquez and Jovic, it’s all about impacting winning because that’s at the center of the Heat’s ethos. Even at different stages of their young NBA careers, they both understand that.
INJURY REPORT
The Heat will play without Jimmy Butler for the third straight game on Friday against the Suns. Butler’s foot injury is now being listed by the Heat as “right toe MP joint irritation.”
With Butler also missing four games recently with a strained left calf, Friday will mark the seventh game that he has sat out in the last eight games.
Along with missing Butler, the Heat will also be without Haywood Highsmith (concussion protocol), Orlando Robinson (G League) and Dru Smith (season-ending knee surgery) against the Suns.
The Heat listed Caleb Martin (right ankle sprain) as doubtful. Martin has missed the last four games with his ankle injury.
Meanwhile, the Suns listed Kevin Durant (right hamstring strain), Eric Gordon (right knee soreness) and Nassir Little (left knee soreness) as questionable for Friday’s game against the Heat. Damion Lee (right meniscus surgery) will not play for Phoenix.
This story was originally published January 4, 2024 at 12:45 PM.
