Observations and other notes of interest from Friday night’s 143-107 NBA Cup victory over the Chicago Bulls:
– The development hits keep coming.
– Following Wednesday night’s victory over the Warriors, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said forget the stats and instead consider how Dru Smith changed the tone of that game.
– As in undrafted Dru Smith.
– This time, with the Heat shorthanded, Spoelstra had to dig deeper.
– So he turned to another undrafted Heat developmental prospect.
– This time Keshad Johnson, undrafted Class of 2024.
– In response? Eight first-half rebounds by Johnson, tying his career high.
– And he kept going, closing with his first career double-double, with 14 points and 12 rebounds.
– “Been putting in work the whole season just staying ready. Opportunity came tonight.”
– That it did.
– At times this offseason, and even at the start of this season, there were questions about the Heat guaranteeing Johnson’s salary at a time when the team was tight against the tax.
– Then came Friday night and the need, with Nikola Jovic and Andrew Wiggins out, for anything resembling a power boost.
– Enter Johnson.
– Whose energy burst turned the game in Friday night’s second quarter.
– Such is what you need from a minimum-scale player at the end of the bench.
– The ability to turn a game or two along the way.
– Which is what Johnson did, making his entrance with a 3-pointer.
– And then turning his focus to the glass.
– Why Keshad Johnson?
– Friday night offered a hint of why.
– With Wiggins out and Bam Adebayo back for a second game after missing six with a toe sprain, the Heat opened with a lineup of Adebayo, Kel’el Ware, Pelle Larsson, Norman Powell and Davion Mitchell.
– Of going without Wiggins, Mitchell said it meant missing out on contributions on multiple levels.
– “I mean a lot of everything,” he said. “Wiggs is a big part of our defensive scheme, of him guarding the best players.”
– With Larsson called for two fouls in the opening 2:35, it led to an earlier-than-usual entry for Jaime Jaquez Jr. as sixth man.
– Simone Fontecchio followed.
– With Smith and Johnson then following together for the night’s primary nine-man rotation.
– Spoelstra said the fact that it was an NBA Cup game played into the atmosphere.
– “Cup games are fun,” he said at the morning shootaround. “Regardless, it’s Heat-Bulls.”
– The game was a rematch of last season’s play-in round opener.
– “I think for us, we try to take one game at a time. Every game is I think important to us, especially because of the position we lost last year in the first round. So we’re just trying to get better each game,” Mitchell said.
– And, yes, the Cup tiebreakers were on players’ minds.
– “Granted, it’s a Cup game, so we’re gonna try to score a lot of points,” Mitchell said.
– Seventy first-half points followed.
– That came after the Heat’s lowest-scoring first half of the season Wednesday night against the Warriors (49 points).
– Adebayo’s first conversion from the foul line gave him 2,000 for his career.