1. Miami left most of their rotation, save a few veterans to hold things together, back home tonight to give the young guys – those fighting for standard or two-way contracts – a real opportunity. As such, this being preseason after all, the beat-by-beat didn’t matter nearly as much as the performances.
With R.J. Hampton injuring his hamstring during pregame warmups, that left the HEAT with precious few ballhandlers outside of Dru Smith, which meant the offense for long stretches ran through Duncan Robinson as he flew around handoffs. Robinson didn’t end up topping his career high of seven assists, but his presence and gravity did keep the offense moving well enough, creating open looks all around the court. We’ll get to Jamal Cain in a minute, but there were plenty of good minutes from Haywood Highsmith – drawing the Victor Wembanyama assignment as he continues to look like a reliable rotation player – Smith (13 points), in his best minutes of the preseason so far, and Orlando Robinson (12 points), steady as ever, as he continues to push Thomas Bryant for backup center minutes.
This run may have been light on star power from Miami’s side, and nobody will remember much of what happened tonight, a 120-104 loss for the HEAT, but these are the games where all those undrafted, undervalued stories progress. You can’t be the next diamond in the rough making an impact in a postseason series without first earning your spot in games – the second clutch game of the preseason in two opportunities – like these.
2. Everyone wants great 3-and-D players to put next to their stars, but the reality of the league is that those who are truly great at both the 3 and the D are nearly stars in themselves – that’s how valuable that skillset is. Typically, you’ll get a good shooter who is passable on defense, or a great defender who strives to get to league average from the perimeter, and typically the latter has a bit more projection in them because those who struggle defensively often do so due to physical limitations.
All of this is to say that Cain fits somewhere along that spectrum, but his three-ball might be more advanced than it seems. He shot 37.5 percent from three with the Sioux Falls Skyforce (in 15 games) last year, on four attempts a night, and with much of the rotation back in Florida he took the opportunity tonight to drop in six threes (his regular season career high is four) on eight attempts – all of the catch-and-shoot variety, which is all his role would require – for 24 points on top of 10 rebounds, and even had a nice driving dump-off pass to Orlando Robinson after drawing help. Cain’s willingness, and capacity for proper timing, as an off-ball cutter has always suggested a good awareness of half-court offense, and his defense will certainly play with his length playing right into Erik Spoelstra’s scheme, which emphasizes help-and-recover in both zone and man-to-man. It had been a somewhat quiet preseason for Cain before tonight, but he showed exactly why the HEAT have invested multiple years in him – and why he’s a candidate, currently on a two-way deal, for a regular roster spot.
3. With this game being nationally broadcast on TNT, most around the country were tuning in to catch a glimpse of No. 1 overall pick Wembanyama. Anyone who did surely didn’t come away disappointed, as Wembanyama ended his evening midway through the third quarter with 23 points, four blocks, four rebounds and four assists in 23 minutes as he dunked off the catch, without a dribble, from the three-point line, hit crossover and pull-up jumpers and even had the wherewithal to move the ball out of double teams in ways that it takes some All-Stars years to develop. You might be tired of the hype, but Wembanyama is the real deal.
Why does this matter for Miami? Well, with the Spurs winning the draft lottery that means Wembanyama is in the Western Conference and as such the only truly impactful games Miami can play against him in the foreseeable future would be in the NBA Finals. If Wembanyama ends up being an MVP-caliber player, that distance can only be beneficial to Miami’s postseason advancement odds. The other side of that, however, is that it would have been a ton of fun to see what sort of defenses Spoelstra, with Bam Adebayo available, would draw up for one of the league’s most unique players, particularly in a seven-game series. What’s good for championship odds isn’t always what’s good for storylines – after all, the Finals was really the only time Spoelstra had the chance to truly gameplan for Nikola Jokic.