Why Erik Spoelstra ‘wasn’t surprised’ by the Heat’s huge bounce-back win vs. Raptors

Jovic said Spoelstra had Heat “on the same page”

Another bright spot from Friday night’s game was 20-year old star Nikola Jovic who led the team in scoring with 22 points to go along with five rebounds. He has been a revelation for the Heat this season as he credited the performance and victory to Spoelstra as he “had all of us on the same page.”

“Spo [Spoelstra] had all of us on the same page, and I think that’s what he did,” Jovic said to ClutchPoints. “We know what our strengths are, we know what to do. We know who needs a ball and how to move the ball and who needs the a ball in certain moments, and that’s what we’re gonna continue to work on and when the time comes, in a few days, we will know what to do.”

Spoelstra talking about how the first half “set the tone” for Miami

The exceptional play started in the first half where they took a 66-50 lead in the first half where they were playing up to their strengths scoring 32 points in the paint on a 16 for 21 clip, plus having 21 assists on 25 made shots. Spoelstra said that the first 24 minutes “set the tone” for Miami which continued throughout the whole game.

“For sure in that first half, we set the tone, just with the ball and player movement, that was something that everybody came intentional into tonight to do a better job of that. And it’s all born out of a good place,” Spoelstra said. “You know, our guys are so competitive and when we have some of these tough games or tough moments in games, it’s just a natural instinct to try to will and that’s sometimes a kryptonite for us, but ball is moving, it’s popping, it was getting to where it needs to go and it’s just good to see and it was good to have a night like that for everybody in the locker room offensively.”

Adebayo on needing a win after disappointing loss to Dallas

Bam Adebayo was also huge for Miami coming off of a frustrating outing against the Mavericks where he scored eight points and collected three rebounds. It was much different this time around as they fed him the ball early to get him going as he finished the contest with 19 points on eight for 10 shooting while playing in 25 minutes as he said to ClutchPoints that the goal was to “bounce back from that last loss.”

“Yes. Definitely. Definitely wanted to bounce back from that last loss and we did that tonight,” Adebayo said. “I will say how the ball moved today. It felt like everybody was involved. Ball wasn’t sticking, and everybody was getting in a rhythm. You like games like that, it was like everybody’s having a piece of the pie.”

Miami is 45-36 which still puts them eighth in the Eastern Conference as Sunday is going to the final game of the season against the Toronto Raptors where a lot can change. According to Basketball Reference’s Playoff Probability Report, the Heat have an 8.9 percent chance to get the sixth seed and 1.6 to get the fifth as they need the Orlando Magic to lose their final game and either the Indiana Pacers or the Philadelphia 76ers losing to get the sixth and avoid the play-in tourney.