MIAMI – After the Miami Heat beat the Indiana Pacers on Friday night, marking their second straight impressive win on their home floor, the team went through a concerning moment involving one of their young stars. On top of Andrew Wiggins’ issue, Heat’s second-year player Jaime Jaquez suffered a nasty-looking ankle injury that ended up being diagnosed as a sprain, garnering the attention of head coach Erik Spoelstra.
Speaking before Miami took on the New York Knicks on Sunday evening, he touched on the frustration of Jaquez’s injury as amidst a season of regression, he started the game in place of Wiggins and was playing well until the injury. Spoelstra would say that Jaquez has “great fortitude” and would downplay the injury, saying “he’s sprained his ankle so many times” and that “he’s walking okay.”
“Yeah, sometimes you can’t explain how things happen during a season,” Spoelstra said. “But he has great fortitude. He stays with it, he’s in good spirits. You know, this one looked, you know, really bad on video, but he’s sprained his ankle so many times, you know, he’s walking around okay, but we’ll just have to see how he responds.”
As for Wiggins, he missed Friday’s game with an ankle sprain and it shouldn’t be too far off that he comes to the team as Spoelstra said that “we’ll get him back soon.”
He wants to be out there, he loves the competitive feel of these last couple games, but we have to be smart about it,” Spoelstra said. “He’s been very diligent with his work, and we’ll get him back soon.”
Heat’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. looks to overcome another obstacle
As both Heat stars in Jaquez and Wiggins will be out for Sunday’s contest, there was no doubt more concern from the former as the replay showed him turning his ankle, leading some to believe there could be an extended absence. However, after he was ruled out of the game in the second half, the team announced that X-rays came back negative, which is a sigh of relief for Miami.
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He was having a productive game as in 11 minutes, he had 11 points on making all four of his shot attempts with four rebounds, an assist, and a steal. The team hopes he can bounce back hugely when returning as Spoelstra has been hard at work, finding the best rotations and lineups.
Heat will continue to deal with rotation changes as Kel’el Ware is part of it
With the injury now to Jaquez and already with Heat’s Nikola Jovic missing at least four weeks with a broken hand, Spoelstra has been experimenting, like he did Friday when sitting rookie Kel’el Ware in the second half. Alec Burks was put in his place as Spoelstra explains how Ware had the mental ability to not let it get to him negatively.
“Yeah, I think it speaks to his competitive character, you know, and he’s learning basically through a fire hose right now, these games have such context and meaning and consequences to them,” Spoelstra said. “He’s not being gifted minutes for a young guy, but there’s a lot of things that are scouting report related, or just competition related, or context of a particular point in a game, you know, and he’s really been good with all of that.”
“And I thought he had a really good impact, you know, in the second half, he could have, very easily, have just gone the other way mentally, you know, for whatever reason,” Spoelstra continued. “Some young players do that in this league, but those were really important minutes in the second half and good learning lessons from the first half.”
At any rate, Miami is 28-30 which puts them seventh in the Eastern Conference before they take on the Knicks Sunday evening at home.
