Heat’s Erik Spoelstra doesn’t want Terry Rozier to be targeted 

Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra played Rozier for 40 minutes, which was a team-high as the team was missing their leading scorer in Tyler Herro. Rozier finished the game with 12 points on three for 14 shooting from the field, only making one of his eight attempts from deep, and didn’t make any of his eight shooting attempts in the entire second half.

When asked before Friday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves about the thought process of playing Rozier when he was struggling heavily in the second half, Spoelstra downplayed the decision, saying he doesn’t “want Terry to be a target right now.”

“I don’t want Terry to be a target right now, that’s easy,” Spoelstra said. “I mean, this is the thing, when we’re playing all these tight games and really close, competitive games, and this is what I remind the locker room, we have to stay so laser focused into the process and not just the result. Everybody just watches the end result. Any one of these games, if we finish it off and a lot of this narrative, a lot of the dialogue, it just quiets on its own. And that’s the lesson. If we want to quiet the noise, we find a way to win, we have to take all the responsibility if we don’t.”

Before Friday’s game, Rozier is averaging 11.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game while shooting 39.9 percent from the field and 29.4 percent from beyond the arc.

Heat’s Terry Rozier receives defense from Erik Spoelstra

Rozier has struggled this season for the Heat as he’s been open about turning his year around after being traded from the Charlotte Hornets before the 2024 NBA trade deadline. Rozier began the season in the starting lineup and had a few good outings before getting on a shooting slump and eventually relegated to the bench.

It got to the point where Spoelstra benched Rozier for two straight games until he was put back into rotation, especially recently with the Heat’s injuries piling up. Spoelstra would speak more on how Rozier was “instrumental” in the team coming back against Cleveland.

“The thing the other night, and this is what’s happened several times and it is tough and I’m not going to go into all of it, there’s not enough time, but we’re on a 16-5 run. It’s easy for anybody to say, ‘Make a change right then.’ That’s really not what you’re thinking of making a change, they call a time out, we’re up seven. It’s easy to say afterwards when it’s a result-based deal, ‘Well, he should have made a change.’”

“Then Davion was at the table at five, and then the game just kept on going. But I’m not going to get into all that,” Spoelstra continued. “You know, Terry, it was on the flip side, was really instrumental, him and H [Haywood Highsmith] were dynamic in our zone defense, and that group got us to a seven point lead down five or whatever, it was up to seven, it just felt like we had the momentum to push to a win, and we have to live with all the noise and the second guessing afterwards, that’s part of the deal.”

Miami is 28-31 which puts them seventh in the Eastern Conference before Friday’s game against Minnesota.