Live updates: Spoelstra, players address state of Heat during locker room cleanout
Every NBA team has a locker-room clean-out day when the head coach and some players (voluntarily) agree to interviews.
Wednesday was that day for the Heat, but it was not the day for president Pat Riley to speak to reporters. (That day will come, but it’s undetermined when.)
Keep checking back for updates from Wednesday’s Heat press conferences with Erik Spoelstra and players; we’ll add updates at the top.
2:30 p.m. and final update: Tyler Herro had some interesting comments, which we posted here.
Andrew Wiggins, Duncan Robinson and Terry Rozier were the three players who declined to speak to reporters.
2:07 p.m. update: Pelle Larsson said he realized “how much higher a level” the playoffs are. “It was really fun to have that experience.”
What does Larsson need to do to be an every night rotation player? He said he needs to improve “shooting. It never hurts to be a better shooter in this league. Being more comfortable with the ball in my hands, making plays for others. That’s something that could have been needed more of this year. And keep defending at a higher level.”
2 p.m. update: Nikola Jovic said consistency “is one thing I’ve really struggled with. I’m going to work on a lot of things. Work on whatever they need me to work on.”
He said he “has a solid three months” to work on his game before his Serbian national team duty begins in late July.
Jovic said of one of his skills: “It’s unusual for a guy 6-10 to play make and make plays for others.”
1:48 p.m. update: What did Bam Adebayo learn from Cleveland’s sweep?
“Understand how hard it is to win a playoff game. That was a very valuable lesson. Understanding how hard it is to win. A lot of us take that for granted.
“You still have to figure out how to get a win, whether guys are in or out. This organization could have let go of the rope a long time ago. It’s been an up and down road. We’ve figured out how hard it is to win.”
Should Adebayo take a handful of threes per game if he continues playing alongside Kel’el Ware, in order to space the floor?
“Keep them honest, understand I can space the floor. Keeping teams honest is the biggest thing. I don’t think you should start jacking 15 threes a game. That’s not ideal in my mind.”
Asked about his comment that there will be changes this summer, Adebayo said: “At the end of the day, I want to win. That’s more of a Pat Riley question. I hope you can ask that question to him and he doesn’t blow you off. He knows how much I want to win. We want to be in the best way possible to do that. After he talks to you, he will probably talk to me and we will figure out what happens.”
He said he was begging Spoelstra to play Ware earlier this season. Ware became a starter in mid-January. Adebayo said Ware “is a great teammate, ready to sacrifice for the betterment of the team. He’s a great player in this league. He’s one we will be constantly be talking about every year, could be in contention for [Defensive Player of the Year]. He has the showcase and can show it.”
1:42 p.m.: Jaime Jaquez Jr. said this season, which was a step back for him, adds “fuel to the fire. Really excited to get into this offseason, things I can improve on. Sometimes you need that in your life to get humbled to propel you forward. Excited for this offseason.”
Jaquez will focus on improving his 31 percent three-point shooting. That, he said, will entail “a lot of repetition, mental work, understanding where I need to put my hand on the ball. Just reps, staying in the gym, living in the gym.”
Did defenses take something away from him?
“They would crowd the paint a lot more, maybe sometimes send two or sag off me on pick and roles.”
Jaquez’s shooting and overall play were far better as a starter than as a backup. Why so and how does he change that?
“More time on the floor, more opportunity to shoot shots, rebounds. If the role is limited, understand how to maximize my time on the floor is something players can really work. Something in year two is something I need to learn how to do, maximize my time.”
1:37 p.m. update: Kyle Anderson said the Cavs “looked like a better team without Darius Garland on the floor. They were able to dictate the tempo and get more stops. I’m not saying they’re better without Garland.... He’s a really good player.”
Anderson, on his February move to Miami: “I had never been traded before. I knew this would be tough for me. Me going through that, it’s something I’ve never been through. Not seeing my son in five weeks. Mentally, it was a challenge. I was pissed we loss, but I need to see my son ASAP.”
Cleveland routed Miami in Games 3 and 4 without Garland.
Anderson on Cleveland’s suffocating defensive approach and top locking and face-guarding against Tyler Herro: “No one likes it. It’s tough to deal with. As great as Steph Curry is, he even struggled with it. You have to make the right read every team. Tyler handled it really well. He was able to pick his spots. Me and Davion Mitchell were able to allow him to play more off the ball.”
1:28 p.m.: Guard Alec Burks, the team’s only impending unrestricted free agent, said: “Hopefully I can come back.”
He said he learned this season that “Spo can manage anything. And Bam. Bam did a lot for his team and it showed.”
1:23 p.m.: Haywood Highsmith said “whether I come off the bench or start, it doesn’t matter. I want to impact winning. Obviously, I want to play.”
He said: “This league is humlbing. The Cavs are a good team. We felt we could make it competitive and try to make it a series, but they came out on top. They are kind of on a different level than us.”
Highsmith, on the Butler saga: “He got what he wanted. We wish him well. It was kind of weird at first.”
1:17 p.m. update: Kel’el Ware said “I feel like I got better.”
He said his number one priority this season is “getting stronger” physically.
Ware finished sixth in Rookie of Year voting but said, in a respectful way, “I don’t care” about that award.
On improving the frontcourt partnership with Bam Adebayo said, he said the goal is “feeling each other out more, where each other needs to be.”
1:10 p.m. update: Point guard Davion Mitchell, who can be a restricted free agent if the Heat extends him an $8.7 million qualifying offer as expected: “I don’t know what the future holds. I’m not going to get into that. I haven’t thought or talked about that with my representation.” But he said he enjoyed the experience here.
The Heat can match any outside offer if it extends that qualifying offer. Otherwise, he would be an unrestricted free agent, with the Heat having no right to match.
Why did he thrive here? He mentioned Erik Spoelstra telling him “on my first day here to be my myself.... Other places I’ve been to, I didn’t really have that opportunity. Being here, I kind of fit right now. They needed someone who could be a defensive presence, get teammates open, make my teammates’ lives easier, and that’s what I think I did.”
Mitchell said “me being more and more consistent” is the objective.
Mitchell said one key in him playing well, from an offensive standpoint, is “I had the ball in my hands to turn people over, get defensive stops. That comes with the rhythm. People who don’t play the game don’t know it’s a rhythm game. I had a rhythm, and when it comes to rhythm, I shoot better.”
He said teams tried to keep him out of the paint late in the season: “Cleveland did a really good job at that. Jarrett Allen [made me] pass the ball. We shot a lot of threes. That’s not our game. We have to figure out a way to generate cleaner threes.”
1:07 p.m.: Spoelstra on Nikola Jovic: “Last 14 months have been really important as well. Going back to last year’s playoff series as well, a summer of work. Starting out as a starter and then being out of the rotation, having to fight for it again. And then earning back a sixth or seventh man role and thriving in that role before he got hurt. He made significant progress.
“The staff reminds me all the time there are not of teams other than OKC playing a lot of young guys in the playoffs, 21-, 22-year olds. Pelle Larsson is 23, Tyler is 25. Jaime Jaquez is 23. Kel’el Ware turned 21 in the playoffs. A lot of times to win in the playoffs, you need them to be the 28 year old versions. The best way to fast track that is experience. That’s not to put anything on the young guys. This is all collective with us.”
1:05 p.m.: Spoelstra said “I love seeing Bam [Adebayo’s] leadership being put to the fire, and that’s what it was. He has accepted the captainship for sure. It’s one thing to do that when you’re playing well. He wasn’t playing his best basketball [early on] but he was still leading. That was a big step for him. There are a lot of guys who would be pointing fingers. He did the same thing when everyone was looking [for leadership] in March. That speaks to his character.”
1:02 p.m.: Spoelstra, looking back at the season: “The memories will be the last four weeks. The rest of the season was a grind. We even started to turn the corner during the [10-game] losing streak. You felt the momentum and it led to the play-in [wins]. I’ve never been in a situation like that to keep a locker room together. That was an invigorating challenge. I hope I’m better for it, in a lot of ways, from a leadership.. emotional, execution standpoint. And even X’s and O’s.
“We have been to the playoffs the last six years. But we’re embarrassed the last two games. I ask who has the model: Boston does, because they won last year. [As far as some other teams], how are they the model right now? We are stubborn as hell. We are going [to try] until we have the results the city expects.”
1 p.m.: On the impact of the Jimmy Butler chaos on the season: “It certainly had an impact. Always second-guessing what we could have done. It is not as if that would have moved the needle for us to be first in the conference. That’s unrealistic... it was a good five year run. When things end, often times they end not as loudly as this. But it ends where there’s something. We all feel like it didn’t have to go to that level. We have clarity now. We have turned the page. We are moving on.”
12:55: Spoelstra on losing two blowouts to Cleveland to end the season: “We deserved the criticism. We deserved the embarrassment of the last two games. It’s not what our organization is about. We felt [play-in wins] would lead to a lot more. That was irrational on our part.”
He said: ”Where we made the most improvement is during that [10-game] losing streak. I’m extremely motivated to get our organization and our basketball team to a higher level. The play-in is obviously not where we want to be. There’s great parity. There’s a lot of teams pretty similar to us that are trying to figure out that are not at this top tier level.”
12:52: Spoelstra said an early-season ankle injury led to Jamie Jaquez Jr.’s “inconsistency with his play and his role.”
Then there was a stomach illness that sidelined him.
“Clearly, he has to work on some things, which he will,” Spoelstra said. “He will work on defending in open space, defending situationally in our system. Outside shooting will be key again; he worked on that last summer. Another full summer again, you will see progress. He was coming out of training camp shooting great. And decision making. There are going to be different schemes and you graduate to different levels.”
12:51: Spoelstra will again evaluate the offense this summer and make tweaks.
12:50 p.m. update: We asked Spoelstra if he has seen enough to move forward with a Bam Adebayo/Kal’el Ware starting power rotation moving forward, barring a trade for an All Star power forward or center. His answer:
“I was encouraged by the minutes they had and progress they made. They found a way to complement each other and heighten each other’s strengths. This will be a really important summer for Kal’el.
“All the learning lessons from these four games [were helpful]. There are not a lot of guys from this draft class that played in the playoffs. Him and Pelle Larsson got that experience and got it in a hard way. These are tough lessons in a playoff setting. if you’re not advancing, it’s a tough lesson. I’m grateful Kel’el got these experiences and set up for an important summer.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 12:53 PM.
