As the Miami Heat suffered a disappointing loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, 120-113, there was another aspect of the game that made matters worse as Nikola Jovic suffered a broken hand. With the Heat looking to solve their flaws such as figuring out a consistent and productive rotation, Jovic’s absence for the foreseeable future hurts as Erik Spoelstra and Bam Adebayo shared their sadness for the injury.
Jovic would leave the game early and after receiving an X-ray at halftime, it revealed a fracture on the second metacarpal in his right hand as a Heat spokesperson told ClutchPoints. Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra would speak after the game and said that he was “shocked” by the broken hand diagnosis.
“I feel for Niko,” Spoelstra said via video from Naveen Ganglani. “I know how much he has put into this. He’s had a couple injuries previously. This has nothing to do with it. He’s not snakebitten or anything like that. He actually was playing with some force tonight. I thought he got hit on the leg, he kept on holding his leg. And I was shocked by the prognosis on it. But we’ll see how long it will take and in the meantime other guys will have to step up.”
Jovic is expected to miss an extended period since the injury is especially in his shooting hand, though there isn’t a timetable revealed at the moment with seven weeks left of the season.
Heat’s Bam Adebayo on losing Nikola Jovic for the foreseeable future
The Heat’s captain Bam Adebayo has been a huge proponent of Jovic throughout the past few seasons in how much he has grown with the team. He would also have an emotional reaction to Jovic’s injury, though has some confidence that the 21-year-old will bounce back stronger than ever before according to The Miami Herald.
“You lose a guy like that, young guy, ambitious, trying to make something of himself in this league and we want that for him,” Adebayo said. “For him, I think it’s just a minor setback for a major comeback. When we get him back, we’ll be happy to see him in the lineup.”
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Heat’s Nikola Jovic on the timing of his broken hand
Jovic injured his hand when coming off the bench for the first time and collided with Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma. He played in 15 minutes and had seven points and two rebounds as even Jovic said he wasn’t shocked when he learned his right hand was broken.
“I wouldn’t say I was shocked because it kind of got swollen quickly during the game,” Jovic said. “I just didn’t want to come out because we were doing good. So, yeah, I can say that I probably expected that.”
As the Heat look for some consistency, one aspect was finding the right rotations which Jovic was a crucial part of, but now it will change with the former first-round pick out for the foreseeable future. While Jovic will admit it’s “tough,” he has an optimistic outlook stemming from a quote said by his mother.
“It’s tough,” Jovic said. “I’ve been through some tough injuries before. My mom always says, ‘Some things just happen for a reason.’ Who knows why this happened today. Yeah, I’ll figure it out. This team needs everybody right now. Other guys will step up and show what they can do with playing time. So I’m not worried at all about the team, they will for sure do good.”
While fans wait to see what the timetable looks like for Jovic, Miami is currently 26-29 which puts them eighth in the Eastern Conference as they take on the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night.
