Minutes down for Heat’s Jaquez, but he insists confidence in self, team remains high
MIAMI – A year ago, Jaime Jaquez Jr. was a given in the Miami Heat rotation, averaging 28.2 minutes per game on the way to first-team All-Rookie selection.
This season, however, there has been a decided sophomore slowdown for the versatile wing. Going into Friday night’s game against the Boston Celtics at Kaseya Center, the 2023 first-round pick out of UCLA had not played more than 14 minutes since going 23 in the Feb. 13 road loss to the Dallas Mavericks, a game he was injected into the starting lineup because of illness and injury elsewhere on the roster.
That basically has meant a month with minimal court time for a player projected to be a rotation fixture.
“Just constantly staying in the gym, being ready whenever my name is called,” Jaquez said at Friday morning’s shootaround when asked about this uneven sophomore ride, one interrupted by ailments and illness. “What I’ve learned in this league is that things can change and they can change really fast. So just always got to be prepared for whatever comes and to always stay ready.”
Jaquez said he has remained mentally strong through the struggles.
“I mean, playing or not playing, you’ve got to be in the gym,” he said. “My confidence comes from the work that I put in every day. So whenever my name is called, I’m going to be ready.”
Similarly he said he’s seen mental strength from teammates amid an uneven run of recent losses.
“When you’re put in a position like this, you’re given two choices,” he said. “You can either cave in and let it affect you and we all go our separate ways. Or you can come together and get closer, do everything you need and really create a strong bond, especially through this very tough struggle.”
As with his own perspective, Jaquez said Heat brief is that hope can be just around the corner.
“Just focus on the positives,” he said. “You can learn a lot from losses. You can learn the bad things. You can also learn some of the good things that you’ve done, and we’re just really leaning into that and just reminding ourselves that we’re not too far away, just keep reminding ourselves that things can change in a moment. One game can start a spark and that can lead to a great stretch of games.
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“This is obviously a struggle going on right now. We as a team, we’ve just got to come together and build on something.”
Team game
When discussing the defensive prowess of Davion Mitchell last week, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra spoke of the need to contribute defensively beyond on-ball pressure.
That apparently hit home with the guard acquired from the Toronto Raptors in the Feb. 6 trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors.
“I think I’ve got to do more defensively,” Mitchell said after Friday morning’s shootaround. “I think, for me, I’ve got to make my teammates better defensively. I think, for me, I’m a lot of times kind of thinking of individually and not letting my man score, and sometimes off the ball I get some steals, but I got to do it more.
“I’ve got to help my teammates out more, I’ve got to talk more, I’ve got to be more vocal. Especially on that end, when I’m usually guarding the best players, I’ve got to be more impactful.”
Mitchell insisted the opportunity is there to so succeed.
“I think the coaches are putting me in a good position to be aggressive,” he said. “They tell me what they want out of me and it’s probably not going to be perfect, but I think at the end of the day, if I go out there and play hard, they’re going to love what I did.”
The Heat have to decide by the end of June whether to tender Mitchell an $8.7 million 2025-26 contract qualifying offer in order to make him a restricted free agent and therefore maintain the ability to match outside offers.
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