STATEMENT: Miami Heat Beat Buzzing Hornets as Tyler Herro & Bam Adebayo Step Up

It was a crucial game versus one of the hottest teams in the league, the Charlotte Hornets.

And Miami responded with one of their prettiest performances of the season.

Wes, that's one of the years so far.

Best win of the year so far.

Let's talk about it.

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I'm Wes Goldberg host of Locked On NBA Daily in Real GM Radio.

I'm here with David or Mill, both of us,

our credentialed heat media members who cover this team every day.

We are recording this on Saturday morning after one of the biggest wins of the season, David.

The heat go into Charlotte last night on the second night of a back-to-back and beat the Hornets.

One of the hottest teams in the NBA.

If not the hottest team in the NBA, they beat the Hornets 128 to 120.

What a game, man.

I mean, felt like a playoff game.

The intensity was up, obviously an important game for the standings we'll talk about.

I mean, with the win, the heat, they take the tiebreaker over the Hornets for the season.

They move into seventh in the Eastern Conference, just percentage points behind,

quote, unquote, behind the 76ers, but in a virtual tie for them in the standings.

Real striking distance now to avoid the play-in altogether.

Win the Southeast Division for whatever that matters and put some extra cushion between them and the buzzing Hornets here.

Let's talk about the game, though.

What's that out to you?

Oh, just the phenomenal effort.

You wind up missing Andrew Wiggins for the game.

You're already out with Norman Powell.

So you're shorthanded.

Your bench is a little thin with Nico Yoch.

That's an instrument for Tekken.

Not that they were major parts of the rotation, but on the second night of a back-to-back,

you might figure that they'll get some playing time out, things considered.

And now you're down four players that might otherwise have played.

You're going into Charlotte again, a second night of a back-to-back.

And one of the question marks I've had for this team over the last 40 games in the season is

whether or not they have the kind of sense of urgency or whether or not they recognize what's at stake

within a game-to-game basis.

And I didn't see it.

I haven't seen it until last night.

And that was what stood out to me the most was that there was no letdown for this team,

that they understood the challenge and they responded in every opportunity.

Really, really, I use the term gritty.

And I think it really was in gritty's performance from them because it was incredible

to see them respond in every way, whether it was a defensive possession,

a big shot down the stretch, handling some, in my opinion, questionable officiating

and not letting it get to them.

I think they did a really, really good job of just keeping their head and their emotions

in check, but utilizing them in a really, just a great way of kind of channeling that emotion

of what, as you said, felt like a playoff game to really turn that game around

and control the end there.

We've talked recently a lot about how this team does not perform well in clutch situations.

That was the exact opposite last night.

They were really, really good down the stretch, whether it was, again, getting that key stop,

hitting that big shot to pull away from Charlotte and figuring out a way to get this win

and go back to Miami.

Great win.

And I think really the best one this season.

Yeah, the size of 11-2 running the fourth quarter to take control of this game.

Con-Kenniple makes that three-pointer late and you're like, oh boy, here we go.

But they put the clamps on, they made the stop when they needed to.

And they get that eight-point win.

Ditto.

Everything you said, man.

That was such a response on such a tough spot, right?

I hate winning the NBA sometimes when we get these games that should be these big moments,

right?

The Hornets and the Heat.

I joked.

Yeah.

What was it?

In the episode previous.

Yeah, yeah.

Coliseum, yeah.

Yeah, like Heat Hornets in March.

We all had this game circled on our calendar before the season.

It didn't.

Obviously, I was being facetious, but this was a really important spot.

And it's kind of lame in the NBA when one of the teams always feels like these big games

when you look at the teams.

Like one of these teams are always coming off of a back-to-back, right?

Like there's a restless advantage or whatever.

There's a tough spot for the Heat to be in, but they didn't.

This was that, it was that heat, culture-y kind of, nobody cares, nobody sympathizes.

We have enough kind of next-man-up stuff that like nobody cares that you're on the second

night of a back-to-back, right?

This thing counts in the standings the same way.

And they go into Charlotte against what has been the top performing team in the league

since basically the middle of December.

Yeah.

And they put the beat down on a man like they matched the intensity.

They came out knowing what was at stake in this one.

They did not shy away from the moment, and I love the defense in this game.

I thought they were on a string.

They played man-to-man.

They played zone.

They kind of threw out the kitchen sink in this one, right, with some of the zone defense

tactics that they used.

Tyler Hiro, breaking out of what he called the three-point shooting slump, even though

the stats would argue that he was shooting okay from three, but eight three-pointers in

this game, definitely the earning some credit cookies later on in this show.

But...

Let's go heat-chance in the Spectrum Center.

We got like two.

We got like two.

Amazing.

I mean, it was, that was the kind of win that makes you feel like this team can actually

accomplish something.

I don't know what it is, but what that something is, maybe it's just get the succeed, get

in the playoffs, but it's the kind of win that a serious basketball team with a real

direction makes.

And we can argue about direction, I know if some fans have questions about the direction

of this team is win games.

That's the direction.

That's what this team has decided that it's going to do, and they got their biggest

one in the season last night.

That run on the fourth quarter though, Bam had a biotala hero stepping up.

That's what you need your franchise players to do.

Absolutely.

Yeah, they were great.

Bam just aggressive, like I love, I know we'll talk about him and his stats specifically

in the next segment, but just the aggression, the taking shots, like he wasn't as efficient

as possible, but I think you have to give credit to the Horn's defense for doing some

good things to stop him, and at the same time, there was no let down, there was constant

attacking, trying to find a way to make things happen, whether it was drawing a foul, getting

the shot off around the rim.

Three-point shot wasn't falling for him.

That's a little bit of a concern, but again, I think he was great and defensively, man,

what a possession.

I know what's going to stand out to everybody, I'm sure we'll talk about it later also,

but that possession against Kobe White, where he guards him, run the perimeter, White's

like, yeah, I got a big on him.

I got a big on me.

I'm going to drive against him and bam.

North Carolina versus North Carolina.

Step-per-step, step-per-step, and bam, match is him, and then Kobe's falling out of

bat.

What do you say?

He blocks his shot, and then he is shot.

Falling out of bounds takes the ball in mid-air and throws it against Kobe White to make

the out of bounds.

Of course, it out on him instead and gets possession of the ball.

Those possessions were so huge.

If Bam had a bio-play for the Boston Celtics, that possession would have won him to play

over the year.

100%.

100%.

And they would have gone on Sports Center replaying that.

Look at Bam.

Nobody could do this.

That could be IQ.

Yeah.

He blocks it with both hands, and then in one moment, I'm like, I didn't even see what happened

the first time.

Like, they, I didn't realize that it had happened.

It was, it was a block and a throw off his body in the same motion.

I mean, for him to have the awareness to do that.

In a half a second.

In half a second.

I didn't realize what happened.

I'm like, do we have the ball?

Like, I was so confused.

Yeah.

And then they did the replay.

I'm like, how did he do that?

How did he even know Kobe White was there?

I think Kobe White looked shocked.

And then like, you know how sometimes you get scared.

Some people get angry when they get scared.

Yeah.

Kobe White was like going through the haunted house and then like punched one of the characters

when the character jumped around the corner.

Like that was Kobe White's reaction.

Like he kind of got mad at Bam and Bam had a little bit of words.

And I think I think Kobe White was more like surprised and scared, like jump scared and

mad because of that than actually giving the ball thrown off of him because that happens

all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I thought it was like, I was questioning, is that legal?

Yeah.

Because at first I thought, Bam had actually gone out of balance and put his feet down.

But no, he's in mid air.

And it has the possession there that's just like, I'm glad you rewinded that whole thing

to the beginning of that possession because that was obviously the really cool part.

But that entire defensive possession for him was aces, just defensive play of the year

stuff.

This is why this guy is going to make an all in B.A. or an all defensive team this season.

So look, you've got, we talked about going into that game, how you win that game, right?

And we talked about the margins.

And I thought the heat did a really nice job of not let get not getting beat on the margins.

First of all, the turnover battle was a big thing here.

The heat turned the ball over just six times, of course, 12 turnovers from Charlotte.

So twice as many turnovers from Charlotte, the hornets are the best defensive rebounding

team in the league.

They did not get beat on the boards badly.

The hornets had 48 rebounds.

Miami had 44 rebounds.

So that's fine.

They took 52 three point attempts.

The hornets did in this game.

They made 19 of them.

That's a lot of threes.

But the heat took enough, they didn't really take that many threes.

They only took 38, but only, they shot 47% from three overall.

So they only, they made 18 threes.

So Charlotte, despite taking way more three point attempts, only made one more three pointer

than the heat.

So you're not getting beat on the three point margin.

All the things that we said they needed to do, they won the transition game, they won the

transition game.

Like they took, like this wasn't one of those random games where the heat just come in,

get hot from three point range and just sort of steal a win on the second night of

back to back on the road.

They took care of the things that they needed to take care of to put them in position to

win this game.

It was one of those, it could have went either way, right?

Totally acknowledging that.

Like Tyler here were getting hot, they definitely got hot from through, you know, a hornets fan

could be like, hey, the heat shot, 47%, that's why they won.

No, no, no, no.

They won, they put themselves in position to win this game because they took care of

the margins.

That's how you beat a good team and the heat earned this win in this game.

We got a ton of credit cookies to hand out, we're going to do it next.

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Yeah.

It's another Miami Heat win on a Saturday morning.

It's time for the tastiest segment of locked on heat.

It's time for credit cookies.

Another Miami Heat win which stated which means we've got 10 credit cookies to hand out

on a Saturday morning.

Where do you want to begin?

Well, you know what?

Before I get into the cookie allotment because I know it's kind of important.

It was something we touched on there, the kind of the overwhelming sense of like a playoff

type atmosphere.

And you and I had been talking about this recently that locked on hornets kind of called

their matchup versus a rivalry.

Oh yeah.

And they said, specifically they said, if the hornets have a rival, the closest thing

would be the Miami Heat.

Yeah, and I texted this to you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I was a little surprised at that.

But I'll be honest with you, going into last night's game, I did kind of feel some

playoff vibes there.

Like even in me, I was just wondering, like I was getting a little emotionally invested

in watching the game.

And I know my personal feelings about Lamello Ball notwithstanding, like I just, there

was frustration there.

I saw a lot of the calls that were kind of ridiculous going against Miami.

It was really interesting to see Miami respond to what could have been a really aggressive

environment there because the hornets, the fan base has something to cheer about now.

The calls were definitely not going their way.

This is a good team that's been on a hot streak lately.

And just from Miami to respond to it, I just, I was really impressed with the way the

team had.

I have expected.

Tyler Hero made that big three pointer, one of the big three pointers that he made

late.

And he looks over to the sideline.

I have expected purple shirt guy to jump off the off the court side seat and just show

the way that Tyler Hero was sort of playing to the crowd.

Maybe we'll show him.

Is there a little personal beef with Lamello Ball, you think?

Because I think I saw a little hero in the two.

Hero in ball?

Yeah.

They both are kind of cut from the same cloth in the sense that they have a very high

opinion of themselves.

And they're both sort of entertainers.

That's the thing I always sort of appreciated about Tyler Hero, even going back to the bubble,

right?

Like he kind of recognizes the moment.

Yeah.

Hey, this is fun.

What's happening here, whether it's the snarl and the bubble or whatever, like Tyler

Hero will play to the crowd.

And that's not something I always enjoy that.

You know me.

I have a soft spot for players that do that.

And I've always sort of had a soft spot for Lamello too.

He's more of like a fun house mirror version of that.

A caricature of him.

Yeah.

He's like only playing to the crowd.

One of the, I heard this on a podcast recently and I thought it was a really, it was a

well said of how Lamello Ball approaches the game of basketball.

He approaches every possession with the idea of what's the coolest thing that I could

do right now.

And that's what he doesn't go about it.

Like what's the right basketball play?

He's like, what's the coolest thing that I could do with the basketball right now?

I'm going to go ahead and do that.

So as a non hornet's fan, it's always very entertaining to watch the Mellival because of

that.

It's for better or for worse, right?

But right now, but credit to Lamello, he's dialed it back a little bit and the hornets

have been playing really well.

A little bit.

I do sense that, right?

Like Hero and Lamello Ball probably look at each other and they're just like, I'm

better than you and I need to prove it right now.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

But you're right.

I mean, I think there is a little something there.

They are both entertainers.

But last night, I think really showed the difference between Lamello Ball and Tyler

Hero because I think I know Tyler can be a little bit too erratic for some heat fans.

And I get all that.

But nothing comes close to the erratic levels that we see from Paul.

Like the heat check kind of mentality that, you know what, I just hit one.

I'm going to try to hit the next five, three-point attempts, no matter how wild they might

be.

I'm just going to put up these shots, no matter what range they might be from.

That's, I think, a little concerning.

It's not like Tyler always has the best shot selection, but he's definitely much more focused

on trying to get a good shot.

And he's able to get to the lane.

The floater was there.

The ability to get to the rim was there.

The three-point shot, as you said earlier, was definitely there.

He had a phenomenal game.

Like I can't take anything away from what Tyler did because I think he really was a lot

more in check than Lamello Ball was, recognized in a moment, was consistently good throughout

the whole game.

I had to give him five credit because I can't do anything but that.

Like, yeah, I think he deserves that kind of performance.

Without Tyler, by a wide margin, they don't win last night's game.

And I think he had his best game of the season and against, in a crucial game against

the horns.

His fourth quarter was tremendous.

The shot-making ridiculous.

He do not win this game without Tyler Hero, as you said.

What really impressed me outside of the shot-making, and you're right about a shot selection, and

look, somebody on your team is going to have to take dumb shots.

Sure.

That's the thing about basketball.

Somebody's going to have to have the hootspa to just go out there and take that ill-advised

shot.

And you know what?

Sometimes that shot goes in.

It's the no, no, no, no.

Yes, shot.

Somebody on your team has to take that shot.

And usually it's your star player.

And the heat without that superstar level player, that responsibility is as strange as it

seems, falls to Tyler Hero, and he is the best shot maker on the team.

He's the three-level score.

He's the best shooter that they have.

And I'm okay with him taking those shots, frankly, because like I said, somebody has to

take him.

And if anybody's going to take him, I want Tyler taking them.

What really stood out to me in that game was his play-making, 9 assists.

And what Hero has done this last week with the lob game has really opened up parts of

Miami's offense, and given them really important, easy relief buckets at the rim, obviously,

that are so important.

Not only in getting, like, BAM and Kalele were going, he's throwing a couple to Jaime.

You know, what Hero is doing with the quick decision-making and transition, you go back

and watch Tyler Hero's assists in that game.

He really stands out in terms of super impressive, right?

There's no, like, oh my God, how did he thread the needle on that one?

What, how did he see that guy getting open?

Nothing was super, like, anticipatory.

He had one really nice kick out to Jaime.

I think it was in the first or second quarter that kind of got Jaime going from three-point

range.

But other than that, like, nothing really stood out, but he's making the simple reads.

He's making the right reads.

And that's really important, because he does draw defenses, right?

He will get a double team, he will get in two feet into the paint, and he will make the

right read consistently.

And that's really big for Tyler here.

I bring this up all the time.

But like, I remember being on the phone with John Calapari talking, working on a feature

for the ringer on Tyler Hero, and Calapari told me, I used to tell Tyler Hero not to pass

the ball, because more bad things happened when he passed the ball than when he didn't.

Because Hero is just not a natural playmaker, not a natural passer, and to see him develop

into what he's doing now, again, he's not Tyler's halibut now there, but consistently

making the right read and racking up nine assists in a really big game.

That's huge.

And I think it's very deserving of those five credit cookies.

I'm curious to see what the numbers break out in terms of who he's been able to assist

more of over the last few weeks, because it feels like, again, that game is expanding

a lot.

And not only is he finding the bigs there, but also creating perimeter shots for guys like

Pella, Hyme, et cetera.

So I agree with you.

It's just a Hyme last night.

That's big.

That's big.

Again, because Hyme is benefiting as well from Tyler's ability to drive in his possession

of the ball.

We saw a lot of possessions with Hyme kind of initiating offensive being the primary

ball handler.

But now he's a recipient.

He's following as a trailer.

All of a sudden, he's able to catch a lot, et cetera.

So there's a lot.

So everybody who had questions about, hey, Tyler Hero, he was at the time coming up the

bench.

Now he's starting because pal is out.

But as Tyler Hero kind of infringing on, on Hyme's kind of six minute of the year campaign

in November, Tyler Hero is out here making Hyme better, right?

He's kind of spoon feeding him a couple of baskets every game.

So that's big.

Who's next?

Yeah.

Hyme.

21 points.

Yesterday, shooting the ball extremely well, four or five from three point range.

He was able to still be a playmaker with four assists, really solid, four or six from

three point range.

Yeah.

He was really, really good.

And just every facet, when they needed a bucket, I think the Brandon Miller seemed like

he was targeting him a little bit defensively, but I think eventually they shift the coverage

a little bit and Hyme recognized it.

And I think his defense really intensified and got better over the course of the game.

So there was that one kind of weak spot that was that the Hornets were exploiting early

on.

But after that, I think he did a much better job of anticipating and understanding what

Miller was trying to do.

And look, Miller's a solid player.

He's really, really good.

And so it's no surprise that he tried to use his length of the slasism against Hyme, but

credit to Hyme, I think he was able to use his physicality a little bit more, his strength

a little bit better in order to try and contain Miller.

And again, whenever you need a bucket, he was there just creating plays.

He was really, really good last night, so I gave him two credit cookies.

I'm glad you brought up the defense stuff with him, because I do think he gets targeted

sometimes unfairly.

And he has stepped up.

I thought all season, and especially last night, like he has, he's not a lockdown wing

defender.

He could still get beat at times, but he's really stepped up.

And I think maximizing sort of his abilities on that end for the most part.

That three ball is really coming along.

I thought the broadcast made a really good point.

John Crowdy on the broadcast made this great point of how it just looks different coming

out of his hands.

Right?

The back spins good.

There's more, yeah, there's more lift under it.

He's got more lift with his legs.

I don't know what happened if he just worked on it or if he's just feeling good right now,

that's something the monitor.

Four of six from three point range is no joke.

He didn't take any threes in the second game against the nets, but went two of three in

that first game on Tuesday night against Brooklyn.

So that three ball is starting to come around, and he's, look, he's not going to be Tyler

Hero from three point range.

But if that becomes like a real thing for him, and if he's feeling a lot more comfortable

with that three ball, we talked about this coming out of the All-Star break.

We need Jaime to start taking threes.

Teams are just putting, they're putting bigs on him, they're playing off of them.

He's going to have to make teams pay for that kind of coverage.

And to his credit, he has, from the most part, since the All-Star break, how many cookies

did you give him?

Two.

Two.

Two.

I thought the defensive positions, I want to say like, I think that the targeting thing

is a concern because we'll know that teams will have that in the scouting report that you

can go at Jaime.

And until he does something a little differently, like he has to be a little bit more physical

in a way that maybe will scare players off.

Because I think, I think Pella was like that too.

Like I think guys were going at him specifically until they realized, you know what?

Maybe that's not such a good matchup, just because of the physicality of the fact that

he's going to draw a fouls.

He is a much better defender.

And I think until Jaime gets to that level, he's still going to show up on the scouting

report as a guy that opponents can find a way to attack.

He's also got that kind of like the role he plays, six minutes a year, big scoring numbers.

Right.

Generally defensive.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Jamal Crawford was like that too.

So, Bam and Abaya, I gave him two credit cookies as well.

I think he had a really, really solid game.

We talked about it before.

It might be underselling him a little bit, but just because he was a little inefficient

from offense, 0 for 5 from 3 point range, but 12 rebounds, 4 assists, really solid numbers

once you would block.

And just to keep positions on his stretch, maybe it's just a little things.

You know, as far as good as Jaime was offensively, I think Bam was that defensively, but he

also provided a heck of a spark scoring wise as well of just really, really good night

from him.

Yeah.

There's nothing else to say.

Sounds weird.

This was one of my favorite Bam games of the season.

I agree.

He got off to a rough start, one of eight, I think, to start the game overall.

And then really heated up.

I actually don't care about the inefficiency because he was really efficient in the second

half when it really mattered, right?

And he had 12 points in that fourth quarter.

He don't win this game without Bam.

I think you could have probably given him a few more credit cookies, maybe take some

of that.

I don't know.

They don't win this game if not for Bam's huge fourth quarter, right?

So like not all inefficient box scores are made the same, right?

Like, Bam got off to a cold start and then really heated up at the end there and was

making shots when they needed him to, again, I think that way that he responded from the

first half of the second half is why it was one of my favorite Bam.

And the defense was always great as we talked about, but I love that response from him

overall.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And his rebound was super important, by the way.

Moose Vata is maybe the best rebounder in the league right now.

And Bam went like board for board with him, and that was big too.

I gave one credit cookie to Calilware and that's where I'll wrap it up there because I

think it down the stretch, again, the block shots, he had four last night after the night

when he had seven on, I mean, really, really, really good on that end, but the rebounding,

like there were possessions there where they just had to corral the ball and he would

just stretch that long arm out of nowhere and just snatch the ball, clutch it towards

his chest to ensure that they were going to try to take the ball from him.

Those were really huge possessions.

So I really liked that kind of recognition, the aggression down the stretch to try to

make those plays and lock in those rebounds.

So I had to give him a credit cookie.

I don't know where to take the credit cookie.

I think Bam had a game deserving of more than two credit cookies, but at the same time,

I don't know where to take it away from because Tyler was so big on what he was able to

do.

Hyman was crucial on the stretch and so was Calilware.

I think we can think of where it is.

Tyler's got credit cookies to make up for because he's been out for so much of the

season.

So I'm okay with getting him a really big share here.

Bam and We're together.

They've been playing a lot more.

It's part of the plan.

This is just happening right now.

They were a minus 10 in the first half in that game, but Spowe did not yank him.

We're played 30 minutes in this game.

They were on the floor together during that decisive 11 to run that we talked about to

end the game.

And I think there was a big reason why it worked.

We'll talk about that.

Plus, it's Tyler here, just a starter now, weird question, something we got to talk about.

We'll do that next year on Lockdown Heat.

Let's go to our questions from the cookie gang.

You can submit questions and hear yourself on the post game show by joining the every

day or club and joining the all access to here for $15 a month or sign up for the yearly

subscription, safe 17%, tap the link in the show notes to check it out.

Jonah writes in, I think Lowe might have turned a corner.

What I love about the game was that he didn't really stuff the box score with points and

boards, but made an immense impact regardless, especially that one defensive rebound in the

clutch after he lost position on the offensive board, the possession before.

I think Wares rebounding has really taken a leap here in his sense because it's like

that one in there.

Test driving it, just seeing if this works, made it my swerved out of my lane.

It's been a rise for a little while.

He's getting these out of area rebounds now, pretty consistently on both ends defensively

and offensively.

That's doing stuff, that's changing the game, materially changing the game, getting a rebound

that you had no business getting on either end.

I've been really impressed with the way that Kaleh is rebounded.

I want to go back to what I was talking about before.

I do think one of the reasons that the Kaleh and Bam pairing is working lately and it

has been a huge net positive lately.

It's one of the best two man lineups in the league since the All Star Break, Bam and

Wares together.

What we're seeing lately is the use of a lot of zone.

I was surprised.

We haven't talked about this, David.

I was surprised by how much zone they play down the stretch against the Hornets, which

is a really good jump shooting team.

You typically don't want to play zone against a great jump shooting team.

They eat, went to their zone, they play their zone, they pick up guys early, so it's

not your typical zone, they're going to defend you in that zone.

The use of the zone with Wares and Bam, I thought Wares was inconsistent in that first

half, especially in pick and roll coverage, and then Spogos to his zone in the second half,

it covers up some of Wares' deficiencies as a pick and roll defender, and I think that's

a big reason why you're seeing that pairing work lately is those guys anchoring that

back on the zone.

It's really hard to score against that kind of length in a zone.

Yeah, absolutely.

The combination is, look, we talked about it, they needed to work through these kinks.

I think with the games increasing in importance and magnitude and what they mean in the context

of this point of the season, you had to figure it out.

You can't afford not to.

It's one way of creating an advantage for a team that doesn't have that superstar player

on the roster to create an obvious advantage.

You've got the two bigs there, the quality, they both stretch the floor, they both do things

well, the rebound, the defense, the complimentary one another, and we're starting to see that

more and more.

I'm grateful that Spogos has realized that and left the two out there so they can figure

out the connection a little bit better, and I'm curious to see whether that continues

to get better because I think it will.

Here it writes in, we need to give the Heat Front Office some credit for what I think

is a phenomenal job finding good players outside of the lottery.

Do we need a unicorn?

Sure.

But most teams really stink at those parts past the lottery picks.

I've brought this up before.

I think this Heat Team has done a really good job drafting, guys.

You're not going to always find a Yanis or a Koai in the middle of the first round, this

guy who just blossoms into the superstar finals MVP caliber player.

But finding rotation level players consistently in the middle to the end of the first round,

Kaleleware, Himehaka's Jr., go back further, Tyler Hero in all star, Bam out of bio,

in all star.

These guys were not top 10 picks.

The Heat don't have a lot of straight up misses in the draft lately, and that's really

hard to do.

You can make the argument that nobody's drafted better than the Heat lately, considering

where they're drafting and the players that they consistently find.

It's easy to draft well when you're picking in the top five all the time.

That's not what they're doing, and they're finding guys who can play real minutes in

important games.

I think they mentioned that on the broadcast yesterday, Charlotte has had four or five

rookies of the year, and I hear the statistic, of course, Miami hasn't had any, and I'm

thinking to myself, why is that?

It's like, oh, right, because they get top three picks all the time because they continuously

suck.

That's what happens when you do.

When you're always drafting in that range, yeah, you always get guys that wind up boss

me.

Guess what?

Either they leave, or their career never pans out.

You can hit a Lamella ball, or a Campbell Walker, or a lawns and mooring Larry Johnson,

all these type of players that have thrives in Charlotte, but you know what, they have

to really translate to much success.

Three.

Lamella in 2021.

Ameca Okafur in 2005.

With the Bobcats?

Yeah, he would, that would, Bobcats era, and then you go back further.

So they're including both.

So they do this weird thing with Charlotte, because they still include the prior to the

move history in this current iteration of the Charlotte Hornet's history.

So Larry Johnson in 1992 was the other one.

Well, I guess it couldn't have been a lawns, though, because of Shaquille and I guess

he was pretty good, too, but yeah, I think Shaquille wanted that year.

Yeah, of course.

Antonio writes in, what do you think the starting five will be when Norm Powell returns?

I will say this.

Tyler Hero does not go to the bench.

Nope, he's a starter.

And I think as much as we've talked about BAM and Wear playing together, the heat when

Powell comes back, they need to figure out what Powell and Hero can do on the court

together.

We talked about this.

The team's highest ceiling might be one when they're playing together, right?

When it's Wear and BAM and Hero and Powell in the back court.

They need to figure out what those two guys can do on the court together.

There's the potential for that to be really dynamic offensively and be really interesting

going down the stretch.

Or not.

Maybe it doesn't work, but they got to figure it out.

You don't think I think you have to start both of them.

I thought so, too, but I think we've just seen that the potential for what you give up

defensively is too great.

Like obviously the upside offensively is higher, but you need a guy out there like a

day and a Mitchell.

And last night it was Drew Smith closing the game, like over Dave Young, like he was making

the right plays there.

And he was complimenting Tyler in a way that Dave Young does too.

And look, I mean, Drew Smith, yeah, there's a lot of different possibilities there.

I just, I mean, pal, I'm bench.

Yeah, I, that's a tough one, right?

That's a tough one because the same way Tyler had to accept it, this norm accepted going

into like potential contract negotiations and things of that sort, like you want to be

the beautiful soldier, but you also want to showcase yourself.

You cannot.

This is, is playmaking is too important that that's, that's that's that level that norm's

not hitting, right?

Norm's still mostly an off-ball guy.

That's what I'm saying.

If you start Tyler, do you necessarily need Dave Young's playmaking on the, I understand

what you're, I know that you're making an argument for the defensive end and I think it's

a good basketball argument.

I just don't know how you, I think, I don't know.

I just don't know how you do it.

What was the closing line up yesterday?

It was Drew Tyler, Calil, BAM, who was the,

was it Bella?

Yeah.

Is it Bella or Hyam now?

I've been Hyam now.

I've been Hyam now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm just thinking like, you have wigs in there, right?

Obviously, if he's healthy and available, he'd probably be the guy in the closing spot there.

Is that enough defensively to make up for what you give up with both Norm and Tyler?

So I just, you know, he's always going to want one of his guys out there and whether

it's Dave Young or Drew, like I thought Drew was really bad early on.

I'm like, yeah.

Handspah really loves Drew Smith.

Like I, you can see it because he's like sticking with him when Drew can't do anything

offensively.

And he's even giving up someplace defensively, getting his hands kind of cookie jar, albeit

I think unfairly.

So he was called for some files that I don't think should have gone against him.

But either way, he's supposed to stick with him, sticks with him, sticks with him,

sticks with him.

Guess what?

He wants to be hitting big free throws, big shots, getting keys, possessions down the

stretch.

It's like it just pays off.

Drew just makes things happen and makes the winds, he generates winds for this team.

It was that kind of depth that this team has talked about and not really had and actually

now seems to have, right?

Drew Smith played more minutes than conspiracy aquachonus, which was not part of the plan,

you know, these, this week or so.

But to your point, like, I suppose all something would Drew Smith, he liked something, you

know, Drew Smith at the top of that zone was really important.

I thought as a pickup point guy, late in that game, as good as Collelle and Bam were

on the back line of that zone, Drew Smith was really important at the top of the zone.

So yeah, I'm with you.

I don't know what you do.

I do you go, Dave, you can't bench Wiggits, right?

You need him.

No.

You need his size.

You need his positionality.

So it's going to be tough.

I do wonder if Davey on those is on the outside looking in just for an experimental period.

Or maybe you just swap hero and norm.

It's really interesting.

I don't see a world where you bring hero off the bench anymore.

I don't see how, he's too good.

He's too good.

You need a shot making.

I just don't see how you do it.

That's a really tough problem for Eric's bullseye to figure out.

Maybe somebody will just be injured every game and you won't have to worry about it.

Maybe that's the ultimate answer.

That's going to do it for us today here on a Saturday morning episode, bonus episode

of Locked On Heat.

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