Nikola Jovic REVEALS Problems with Miami Heat Offense--Has Spo's New Offense Worked?

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Before we do all that, a major announcement we are having a watch party at the Taurus and

Coke on a Grove for heat at Wizards on April 10th.

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when we're going to be there, the address, if you can't find it on Google yourself,

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But we are expecting a big turnout and some surprises as well.

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David, any words on that before we jump into the show?

Always looking forward to meeting everybody.

It's going to be so much fun, always exciting.

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Has been a frustrating season at times, but this is a good chance for us all to get together.

It may be commiserate a little bit, celebrate the end of the season or the end of the regular

season rather and talk about all the things that we think might happen for the heat going

forward.

But I want to start today's show with this piece from Barry Jackson and the Miami Herald

that came out over the weekend.

And it was a deep dive on Nico Yovic and Barry spoke with Nico after practice about Nico's

struggles.

And Yovic made his return in Saturday afternoon's game against Washington and then got hurt

sprained his ankle and it looked bad at the time.

Fortunately, it sounds like everything came back clean afterwards and it's not going

to be like a major injury.

But you know, he got some garbage time minutes at the end of that wizard's game.

You hope that maybe that would be the start of some token minutes here or there.

But now it looks like, yeah, probably not.

And this is in many ways been a lost season for Nico who, I don't know if you remember

said before the season opener that he was worried that if the team struggled, he would be

the one that lost minutes.

And that's exactly what happened.

And not because the team struggled at the gate because they got out to that 14 and 7 start.

But when they have struggled, he's been the one on the bench.

They obviously think that they can win without him or they have a better chance of winning

without him, rather.

And you know, the injuries obviously have been a major setback for him.

But really, it's been the offense that that Nico is sort of zoned in on when he was talking

about his struggles.

He said this to Barry, quote, last year was easy because the offense we ran in the way

we played.

I kind of knew what my role was this year with an offense where you don't have calls and

you don't really know where to be at what time.

It's hard for me because sometimes I play the five, sometimes I play the four, sometimes

I have the ball in my hands, sometimes I don't.

It's hard because you never get similar looks.

Last year we ran a lot of plays and I kind of knew what looks I would get so I could easily

get more into my rhythm.

And quote, I encourage everybody to go check out the full article on the Miami Herald because

there's a lot of context in there and there's even more stuff from Nico who, in fairness,

he's owning up to the struggles being his fault.

He's not necessarily blaming the offense here, but he is being honest about how he has struggled

in the new offense, David.

So when you read this story and you hear these quotes, you think what, just that he seems

lost.

That's my first thing is that he just doesn't know where he fits into anything.

And you know, we can't help but recall our conversation with him on media day.

And the kind of confidence that he was exuding, it was before he signed his extension, but

he was coming off a strong off season.

He told us how much he wanted to start.

The expectation was that he was going to start that this was going to be, I thought, and

you thought, and I think he thought as well, this, his strongest season in the NBA, that

he was building towards this.

Now he had his opportunity, no more Jimmy Butler, there was some clarity there.

It was going to be him starting alongside Bama to buy him.

And we were both encouraged by that.

And I think a lot of fans were because the conference was so complete.

Like the way he assured us off, I see myself as a starter.

Like that was the, that he was saying it, and I'm not messing around.

This isn't going to be a positional bad.

No, no, I'm a starter.

This is my job to lose.

And he did.

And from that point forward, the whole season has just been such a complete, he hasn't had

a good grip on what to do, where he fits with his team.

The injuries haven't helped, and he just doesn't know where his place on this team is anymore.

And that's, that's what I come up with is that some of it is the offense, some of it

is on him.

And to you point, he does take credit and accepts that responsibility.

And he doesn't know how to move forward.

He's trying to sound optimistic.

But the confidence, almost borderline arrogant in the way that he spoke to us on media

day, and to where he is now, it's such a stark contrast that I can't help but feel sorry

for the way that this season has turned out for him, because it was just such a complete

departure from what he told us just a few months ago.

And not just from what he told us, from what the organization saw in training camp, right?

That to me is the part that I cannot square in all of this is they installed this offense

in training camp.

Everything that we heard in Boca, every single day, Nico looks great, Nico looks great,

Nico does all positive, and you know what, it wasn't just lip service, they backed, they

gave him the extension after that, right?

And then all of a sudden, it doesn't work.

And that's what I can't figure out with all of this is, well, why did it look so good

in training camp?

And then when the lights come on, and you're supposed to do it in a real game, now all

of a sudden he looks lost, because if he was looking at that lost in training camp in

this offense, and look like this was going to be the situation, if he didn't know what

the offense was, wouldn't they have had signs of that in training camp, right?

It feels like this is a guy who aced every pre-test to the SAT and then got to the SAT study

hall.

And then it was just like, oh my god, I forgot how to write my name on the paper.

Right?

That's how reverse this is, and that's the part that doesn't make sense to me, David,

I don't know.

Maybe there is something to, hey, it's game speed, now we're playing an opponent, not

everything is scripted in terms of the way, not that the offense is scripted, but in a

training camp, things are scripted.

Like, okay, show up, we're going to do these drills, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And this is now, this is not the first time with Nico, right?

Where it's just something, right?

I understand his rookie year, the lower back injuries, sideline them from, he only played

15 games, okay, you can only do so much about that.

The back injuries also played a factor in this one, but he's not pointing to the injuries.

He's not pointing to this lower back injury, which we've talked about, I think about a

month ago where it was like, that doesn't sound super awesome, where maybe he doesn't have

the strongest back and he's going to have to maybe rebuild kind of the way that his body

works a little bit here, but he's not pointing to any of that here.

He's just saying, like, I couldn't really figure out the offense.

And I'm like, didn't you have it figured out?

What happened?

Yeah, it's not quite clear.

It's a good point, too, because I do think that practices are one thing in games or something

else, but the heat is not a team that operates just based on what you do in practices.

I mean, that does matter.

There is some weight attached to that.

And I think that's a point that we'll talk later on as far as why he's kind of in the

doghouse of what he has been.

But I think they were encouraged enough by his progress that they believed in him.

And they don't.

This isn't a show of good faith either.

It's a business, ultimately.

They're not going to be like, like, man, we really, we'd like your progress and we believe

in your potential.

So here's $40 million.

That's how any team like this was not a personality higher.

Yeah.

We really like you.

And so here's more of your million, you know?

So there should have been some kind of, I don't know, lining up of sorts between what they

didn't practice and what he was able to do in games.

And it just hasn't looked that way.

And so you have to wonder, though, if there's just a particularly short hook with Nico.

And I wonder if that's the case because he did lose his starting job almost immediately.

And to go from one extreme to the other so quickly is very unusual.

Even for somebody like Eric Spolstra, and I know a lot of people listening to this show

are probably pointing to another player on that roster, Khalil, where who's been in and

out of the starting lineup.

But I don't think that we've seen the same kind of linear progression from Khalil the way

that we, the way that we were led to believe was taking place for Nico.

It's a good point, right?

Because they get smacked by Orlando on opening night.

Nico starts and then is immediately moved to the bench, right?

Like, he almost knew what was coming.

He says before that magic game, I'm worried that if we struggle, I'm going to be the one

to blame.

They lose their first game and then he goes to the bench.

And that was the only game he started all season.

And yet the heat, if not beaten the magic, all season.

So it wasn't Nico's fault that they lost to the magic.

And I think it's fair to wonder, did Spol maybe overreact to that?

I don't know, but he's got, it's not like he hasn't played.

He's played 47 games this year, a total of 800 minutes, which isn't a lot, but it's

not nothing either.

And he hasn't been good, no matter where he's been, and there's something to be said of,

no matter if you're starting coming off the bench, whatever, you got to do something.

And to shoot 27% from three and to not be a factor on the boards.

And to look lost in the offense, it's like, are you going to look less lost in the offense

if you're out there more?

I don't know.

Maybe more reps would be helpful, but that's what, again, training camp was for.

And so it practices for and Spol has done this where if you're out of the rotation, but

you're showing up at practice and you look like you know, you're ready for it, then

you'll play.

And obviously that hasn't necessarily been the case.

We're going to continue this conversation about Nikolay Yovic, specifically looking at

what does he need to do to bounce back?

And is this just sort of maybe even the end of Nikolay Yovic's time in Miami?

Does he need ultimately just a change of scenery?

All of that and more coming up next here on Locked On Heat.

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Continuing this conversation about Nikolay Yovic, he's at least owning up to it.

And I do like seeing that, right?

And there were, by the way, there was a lot of quotes on social media.

If you didn't read the full Miami-Herald story, and this is why I encourage people to read

the full story, there are a lot more quotes than the ones that have been making the rounds

on social media where it sounds like he's blaming the offense, and that's a conversation

we're going to have here in a second about whether or not the offense does work or not.

But he's not doing that.

And I want to give Nico as much credit as possible for that.

But at the same time, David, there is something to be said about every year it feels like

this is the year for Nico, and then it isn't.

And we're four years in.

And it's one thing to do with this on a rookie contract.

It's another thing where you're going to be making 15 million plus per year.

Now we've got some problems.

If 10% of your cap is tied up into a guy that can't crack the rotation.

And I do wonder, how does he bounce back?

Can he bounce back?

Is he actually better than this?

Because that's the one thing that he said in this story was he knows he's better than

this.

I tend to think he is better than this.

I guess the degree is how much better is he better enough to be a normal part of the

rotation, and frankly, worthy of the contract extension that he signed, David.

To answer your question, I feel pretty confident he's better than this, just because we've

seen it.

And not just in spurts here and there in the NBA, but also in international basketball.

And I think that's where the difference is, like not to sound xenophobic in any sort

of way, but there are European players who do wind up struggling at the NBA level, whether

it's a cultural thing, a language barrier, a style of play, or something like that.

For the record, I don't think that's the case with Nico.

But I think he is struggling for whatever reason with confidence in a way that NBA players

typically, or at least outwardly, don't, like at least I saw this at least, and I think

you did too.

Josh Richardson is another one of those players, where a guy where his confidence level was

not necessarily what you would think it would be for an NBA level player, where he would

get into his own head in the middle of games and things that sort, and he talked to me

about that.

And he can get to you.

NBA players, again, outwardly shrug it off.

It's like, yeah, these things happen.

You just still go out there.

And Nico is another one of those guys who just seems to wear his heart on his sleeve and

can't seem to separate when he's not playing well and having to continue to make an impact

or find a way to get through it.

And everything that's three pointer is a plea to the heavens, right?

It's a different single one, yeah.

Yeah, he puts his head down.

He starts trotting up court.

He gets lost on defense, comes back down, Rinse and repeat, or in the rare case, he hits

a three pointer, and so your point throws his arms up and finally says, thank you.

Like almost in prayer saying, oh, finally, I get one.

It's like, you can't show that.

That's not how it works in the NBA.

You miss 10.

You better hit that 11.

And that's the conference.

You know you're going to hit that 11.

You have to get out there.

And I don't know that Nico has that.

And the only time where he's looked that confident, honestly, is when he's playing alongside

his countryman, Nicola Yokitsch.

And so we're going to talk about the change of scenery in a second here.

But I mean, if I was Denver and I want to unlock this team, I don't know what it would

take to trade for Nico, but I would be making that call as much as possible because I think

that is a player that they would certainly benefit from.

Well, I do, does Nico need somebody to play off of like that?

I think that's fair, right?

You could argue that Nico's best moments in Miami has come alongside Jimmy Butler, right?

And so it does kind of feel like for this guy who is talked about, especially by heat fans

as maybe a point forward type and play Nico at point guard, he is clearly not ready for

that.

Right?

If he was ready to just do stuff on his own, he would be doing stuff on his own, but his

best moments are playing alongside somebody with a lot of gravity.

Who could actually even more specifically get into the post and kick out.

And that's by the way, something that you also talked about with this piece in with Barry

Tyler is playing off of Tyler, but also playing off of BAM, getting like BAM in the post

ups and then the kickouts and then Jimmy in the post ups and the kickouts.

This is where Nico thrives.

I've always said Nico to me is less of a primary ball handler and more of a really good sort

of second side guy where if he's getting the ball on a kick out, he can make stuff happen.

And I really like and I really like what he could do off of a defensive rebound in terms

of pushing the pace, but I like him pushing the pace and then kind of finding somebody

on a hit ahead pass in open space more than just finishing.

This is the guy who does need to play with someone.

And that's okay, right?

That's most NBA players.

The problem in Miami is when you look at the guys who have figured it out, like a Jaime

Hacker's junior, for instance, he doesn't really do well playing off of other players.

He needs the ball in his hands.

He's sort of the opposite, right?

And in this offense, that does tend to work, whereas in this offense, it doesn't really

work maybe all the way for Nico.

Now, I do think that there's a better version of Nico, even if just looking at the three

points here, he's shooting 27% from three this year.

We know he's better than that.

37% last year, 40% of the year before that, on a larger sample.

He's a better three point shooter than what he's shown this season.

I do think that lower back injury is a big reason why that percentage dipped this year

and you hope that he can get healthy.

And on the other side of this, just kind of find his three point shot again.

But other than that, like just getting back to where you were isn't going to be good enough

to earn this contract extension, to be worthy of this contract extension.

It's going to, he's going to have to take that step forward.

And that's the part where David, I think you might be on as something that might be where

the change of scenery might be needed, where you can play alongside somebody who incensuates

like sort of what he does well.

I agree.

And at the same time, though, when you mentioned Jaime, and I think Barry did a good job of

pointing that out too, that Jaime seems to be thriving in this offense as opposed to

the way Nico has wilted.

And you wondered, can he adapt his style to be more like Jaime?

Can he have his own Jaime highway and be aggressive and getting to the rim and finishing

at the rim?

Or is that just not part of his game?

Because I think obviously his size and speed, maybe he doesn't have the same quick burst

as Jaime does.

But I think given his size, he could probably be a high level guy who could finish at

the rim.

And you wonder whether or not that might be the nature of his game is a guy who can just

attack, attack, and just get to the rim, he's in score that way and manufacture his own

points that way.

It's why I wanted him to do the things that we saw on Euroleague or in Eurobasket, where

he was getting that deep seal and transition and Yokech was sort of finding him on a small.

Every time there's a smaller player in front of him, he should be taking that guy under

the basket with him and then posting them up.

That's where it is, Reniko.

He's the ability to run the floor at his size with or without the ball.

That's to your point, David.

That's where that goes.

And he just too often, something doesn't go his way and he jogs down to the corner and

then he just stands there.

It comes, what does Jaime do?

He does stuff.

What does Pele do?

He does stuff.

And there's just too many moments, Reniko's just not doing anything out there.

Now, there is that bigger question.

When Nico Yovic talks about the offense, again, I don't think that he was blaming the

offense.

I want to be fair to Nico here, but it has sort of generated a conversation about whether

or not this offense works.

Or maybe, hey, is this offense not really suiting Miami's most important players, whether

it's Nico on this extension or even a guy like Bam who's had to find his spot in this

offense?

And he's done a good job of it, but there's obviously a version of offense that works

better for Bam because we've seen that too.

Does this offense work?

We're going to answer that question next.

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Today, we'll be right back.

Thanks again for making Lockdown Heat your first lesson every day.

Let's talk about this offense because that's the natural part of this story to branch

off of here is, does Niko in some ways maybe have a point about this offense that it's

maybe too difficult, maybe doesn't suit Miami's, the strengths of Miami's most important

players going forward?

David, I'll ask you a point blank.

Does the offense work and maybe more importantly, do you want to see this offense be

on this season?

I think it does work based on the personnel and I think I do want to see it beyond what

we've seen.

It just bogs down and you'd want maybe somebody else that's more of an established playmaker

or maybe even a more consistent star level score to be able to be the focal point of this

offense.

But I think it does work and we've seen moments where it's looked incredible.

I mean, the most recent win against Washington, that's the wizards, but you score 150 points.

That matters.

That counts for something.

So, I think it does work and it's up to Niko, in my opinion, to kind of change or adapt

to it moving forward because you base the offense looking at your personnel on what they're

capable of and maximizing their strengths.

And for Niko, whether it emphasizes his strengths or not, he has to be able to find a way to

lean into that because he's not the player that you can afford to bend your team towards.

Like you can't change everything to accommodate Niko.

That's not how this works.

So, as we were talking in the second segment about how we need somebody to create offense

form and where you can play off of a guy like Yochich, that player might not be on this

roster.

It's a different offense and a different team.

This team, you need guys like Norm Powell, Tyler Hero, etc., to be able to thrive.

The fact that you've kind of lean into the fact that Jaime can produce as much as he can.

A guy like Pella can generate the points he can.

That kind of makes it incumbent on Niko to be able to make those changes.

And so, to me, I think the offense does work.

It's just how about how everybody can kind of fit into that and find their rhythm within

that context because that's what makes this team better is when they play that way.

Does the offense work?

Yes, there's no question that it works.

There's no way to argue that it doesn't work, right?

This is a team that had a bottom 10 offense for four straight years.

And now is 12th in offense of rating.

It works, especially when you look at the personnel, but the fact that they don't have that

number one scoring option.

Even their best score was out for most of the season in Tyler Hero.

The fact that they're this high in offensive rating shows you that it works.

And I do think that Eric Bolster has sort of maximized the personnel, even if it doesn't

in a weird way, look quite right.

Like I do think, yes, you're right, you can't look at Niko, for instance, and be like,

we got to make sure that we're tailoring our offense around that guy.

But at the same time, you could look at Bam and say, we got to make sure that we're kind

of making sure that we're, you know, maximizing what he can do in this offense.

And to basically just throw Bam into the wilderness and say, figure it out in this offense.

And then for him to score 83 points in this offense, it's just, it's pretty remarkable.

And to do it without Tyler Hero for so much of the season in Norm Pal in and out of them

line up and Wiggins in and out of the line up and all these things, I kind of think it's

a minor miracle that this is somehow a top 15 offense.

I don't think there's any question that's supposed to maximize the personnel and maximize

this group offensively.

I don't think there's any way that you can debate that, right?

Like you look at them at 12th and offensive rating.

Can you look at this roster and be like, they should be higher?

No, how do you look at this group and say, with the injuries and say, yeah, they should

be higher in offensive rating.

So, but that's one thing and I'll put that over here for now.

Do I want to see this offense going forward?

Not really, I don't.

It's a gimmick offense to me.

I do think that teams have figured out parts of it.

And the thing that you mentioned at the end of games where it does tend to bog down,

that is a problem, right?

And we might get a chance to see this offense in a playoff setting.

I have a feeling it's not going to look as good, especially maybe in games one,

maybe in games one and two.

But as you get into the third, fourth, fifth game of a series and teams are more,

yeah, they're more accustomed to playing it and they're kind of in that rhythm.

It's not going to look good is my, is my guess.

At the end of the day, the NBA is pretty simple.

You need a top guy to win at the level that you, that team to want to win at.

And then he don't have that top scorer guy, they don't.

And when you do have a top scorer guy, you don't run an offense like this.

You put the ball on that guy's hands and you let him go to work.

Now, I'm, I'm very much in favor of ball movement and tempo and all that stuff.

But it doesn't look like this necessarily where you have no pick and roll,

you have no screen setting.

I would like the heat to get to a spot where they have a number one option

who can run pick and roll with BAM or some sort of two man game with BAM.

And then where there are some screens being set that utilize BAM strengths.

Because I think the best version of this team is a team that has BAM in a secondary type of role

with a top scoring threat who can play with BAM in a two man game.

And if you could figure that out,

then the offense isn't going to look like this.

There are elements of this offense that you can keep in terms of the pace and the tempo

and some of these other things that we like.

But in terms of this specific offense, it's a gimmick.

It's a gimmick that worked.

But it's not something that to me is sustainable.

If you want to win at the highest level of this league.

Is this Chad Bennington and the Wildcat offense?

It's a little bit, right?

That's a great, that's a great callback.

Yeah, it's a little bit like that.

You can even argue it's the first year of Tua with Terry Kill.

Mike McDaniel with the pre-snap motion and all this stuff.

And it's like, oh my god, what are we going to do with this?

And then teams figured out what they were going to do with it.

And it got completely shut down from there.

And McDaniel never had a counter for it, right?

And Tua wasn't that quarterback who could provide that kind of counter.

The heat need that player to come in and be like, okay,

all of this stuff that we did, that's a nice base.

Let me come in on top of it.

You can run this offense for 80% of the game.

But in the fourth quarter, you better have somebody who can run a pick and roll,

get an advantage on a mismatch and then go to work.

And that's what this heat team to me is missing.

We're going to end the show there.

We got a good show for you coming up tomorrow.

Big questions about Yannis's future in Milwaukee.

We're all still going to look ahead to what should have been a big series against the

Toronto Raptors, but might not be anymore.

Thanks for tuning in to Lockdown Heat.

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This is Jake from Lockdown.

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