Miami Heat preseason recap: Ethan and Brady from Kaseya Center

All right, Ethan Schoeller for five on the floor on the Five Reasons YouTube channel here with Brady Hawk. Just finished watching the Miami Heat complete a pretty remarkable comeback. They seem to do this a lot in the preseason. In the first preseason game, Tyler Hero did start, led the team in scoring. No Jimmy Butler, no Caleb Martin tonight. They did get a look at Josh Richardson and Tyler Hero together in the backcourt. Kevin Love got some run, but the story is Cole Swider again. He doesn't have a guaranteed contract at this point, and yet he hit five threes in the fourth quarter, 17 points overall. After the game, he declared himself one of the best shooters in the world. It's hard to argue with that right now, but he doesn't even have a roster spot. Brady, where is this going? Is this the next Duncan Robinson? I think I'd lean, everybody's been kind of comparing him to Duncan Robinson because he has a podcast, I think, but I think I'd compare him more to Max just because of his play style. Like if you watch him out there, he has the confidence of Max. He has the play style of Max where he can just get shots up. That's why I've kind of been pushing, when talking about Cole Swider, is he can get the ball up no matter what. You saw that earlier in this game. He remembered, somebody asked him a question about, he said, you started the game one for five, and he's like, one for four. He knows what's going on throughout the game and what his stat line is, but he's not quick getting him up. He's shooting movement shots. He was surprised on that last shot that even he was that open, but everything about his mechanics are pure. The shot is pure. His base is wide. Everything is, he has great size. All things point to him being a pretty good shooter. Then obviously seeing what we were talking about even before the explosion, you're seeing him out on the floor late in the game with the other two two-ways, Jaquez and Orlando Robinson, and you're like, okay, yeah, that guy's getting to probably the third two-way or a certain Raj Spun some capacity. So yeah, it was definitely a good night for him. Well, that might mean Drew Smith doesn't get the other two-way. We'll see how that plays out. Two other guys I wanted to focus on tonight. One is a rookie and one is somebody that they brought in here. Let's go to the guy they brought in first. Thomas Bryant gave them some activity tonight. And Eric's supposed to talk about their depth at the center position. He didn't close the game. Thomas Robinson, excuse me, not Thomas Robinson. Well, that used to be a player, Thomas Robinson. Orlando Robinson closed the game. He actually had a big put back late, but Bryant, look, we know he wants to try to score. No question about it, but he also had a block and an outlet pass to Josh Richardson tonight. It feels like if he does some of those defensive things, they're going to feel very comfortable with him. But this is one of the big upgrades from last year, like as opposed to say, Dwayne Dedman and Omer Yurtsevin, which is who they started the season with as backup centers, and then brought in Cody Zeller. They have, here's a couple of playable guys now behind Bam Adebayo. And Eric actually said after the game, Eric Spelster said it was nice to not have Bam on the floor and still be able to compete. That was a big issue last year. For sure. And I think one of the big differences is he's a different type of player. For one, he's a lot younger than these other guys. So maybe he's, his legs aren't going to die out by January, but you're seeing him kind of do some different spots of the floor. Like Tyler was kind of looking around, like, what is this guy doing standing at the elbow? And he's like, okay, let me pass to him. And he just knocks down a free throw line jumper. And he did it a couple of times. That's the game. I'm like, forget the three pointer for right now, like that just the mid range gives them a different shot profile than they're used to. Obviously they're used to it with Bam, but obviously from that backup big spot, it does things. And I'm glad to still use the word physicality. That was the word I kept saying throughout the game was like, he is very physical. I thought like just his activity in general, like his voice, like I thought he was really into the game. Like everything along those lines was like, it was just good stuff to see. The issue was we've, we've done this before where we've done this video and talked about a backup big, because all you look back, they've always had moments. They've just always had high moments where everybody talks about that guy. And then there's always a hard fall off. There can not be that hard fall off. So I think it's more about longevity and kind of keeping them fresh for as much as possible, but definitely good signs right now. Yeah. And we talk about the, you know, him being physical. Uh, he also has some touch. Uh, he draws at his spare time and he's a quiet guy. So it kind of belies the physicality. The other guy, of course, we're talking about is the rookie Jaime Hawkins jr. Tonight. Uh, he, he put a Hayward in the spin cycle, which was actually interesting because that's one of the guys he talked about in the locker room. He's actually emulated. He's had breakfast with him. He's, you know, he looks a little bit like Hayward early in his career. It looked a little like Jimmy also, but beyond just the footwork, which is something we kind of knew about what stood out to me tonight was them putting the ball in his hands to run, pick and roll over and over at the end of the game. And he did that a lot at UCLA. So this is somebody who I think when he comes in, uh, or Jimmy and some of those situations, he's not going to be in there in clutch situations doing that kind of stuff, but there will be parts of the game that they can run stuff with him initiating. I thought that was a positive tonight too. And he's not all over the place. Like he's somebody that's very under control. You hit him with Jimmy. I think if you ever see an injury report with that, with Jimmy not playing or Caleb not playing, he's subbing in for one of those guys, just because he's not a guy that's going to be all over the place and get a bunch of turnovers. Probably like he's under control. Uh, you hit on this stuff. Like he looked very good. I said before, when we were talking about Hawk as his role, I kept saying like, it's not going to be like a spot of three role. That is not him. I've watched him and I'm not saying it as a shooter, but I think in game reps, he is not a guy that you want to rely on and take you a bunch of threes. He is a very good mid range player, like a very good, in terms of just getting mid range shots, the touch around the rim, the footwork is the biggest thing that stood out that you saw all the pump fakes and spins, like you were just mentioning, seeing that all the time. Uh, and the biggest thing that I thought stood out from him was his defense, because I think that's been the big question of what he was going to look like defensively. What does he, I think we knew he was going to guard twos and threes, probably more so threes, uh, but he was held, he was really holding up. But I think the question will be around screens, if he can kind of navigate that, but one-on-one kind of holding up, sitting down, kind of an isolation, he looked good in that range. So I think very interesting stuff for him because he's a guy that spoke it clearly and you can hear him talking like it will utilize right now. Yeah. And the other guy who jumped out to us a little bit tonight was Heywood Highsmith. The shot looks much, much cleaner and Eric's supposed to love what he did defensively. He's going to find his way into the rotation one way or another for Brady Hawk. I'm Ethan Skolnick continue to follow five on the floor. Make sure you hit like subscribe and turn the notifications on. Have a good night, everybody.