Erik Spoelstra, Nikola Jovic drop first impressions of Heat's starting lineup

The Miami Heat won their home preseason opener against the New Orleans Pelicans in a thriller, 101-99, as it gave fans a taste of what's to come this upcoming season. One major aspect of this team that fans have been interested to see more of is the Heat's projected starting lineup which made its debut Sunday afternoon as head coach Erik Spoelstra and star Nikola Jovic spoke about it after the win.

In terms of the starting lineup that is expected to be trotted out in the regular season opening on Oct. 23 against the Orlando Magic, it should consist of the previously mentioned Jovic with Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier, and Bam Adebayo. While it started shaky as most units are who haven't played together a single minute against an opponent, it finished successfully as Spoelstra gave his positive first impressions.

“I thought it was really encouraging,” Spoelstra said after the game. “You know, that's the way they looked in training camp while we're in Bahamas, the group has gone at it with the right approach, the right mindset, just to roll up the sleeves and get to work on our system. Work on getting comfortable with each other, work on working to each other's strengths, and finding different ways to do that. The defense was very active. Very active and disruptive and then offensively just playing very fluid, flowing into actions without causes. I liked what I saw and I know the guys probably felt comfortable as well and that's the way they looked in the game.”

Miami Heat HC Erik Spoelstra speaks on the first minutes with the projected starting five, who haven’t played with each other at the same time before.

“It was really encouraging…” #HeatCulture pic.twitter.com/R5u2sHHxKo

— Zachary Weinberger (@ZachWeinberger) October 13, 2024

Heat's Nikola Jovic on when the starting lineup will gain full chemistry

As mentioned before, the starting five started slow as even though it's immensely talented, it will take some time before they get it all together. In the first quarter, they shot 6-18 from the field, but turned it around in the second period where they were 8-13 from the field and a +2 overall.

Jovic said to ClutchPoints that because everybody in the projected starting lineup knows each other by know, it shouldn't be too long till they are fully 100 percent have the chemistry needed to achieve their goals.

“I mean, we've known each other for a minute now,” Jovic said. “Maybe even though we never played together, we know each other from last year, and of course, like I said, it's going to take some time. some time but I think these guys have so much experience that they will for sure make it look good. Yeah, I'm sure at one point, it will look really good.”

Asked Nikola Jovic if he envisions the chemistry of the starters at 100 percent by the season opener of if it’ll be a continuous process.

“It’s going to take some time, but these guys have so much experience that it’ll for sure make it look good…” #HeatCulture pic.twitter.com/CjhFfBKw6h

— Zachary Weinberger (@ZachWeinberger) October 13, 2024

Heat's Nikola Jovic on first impressions with the new starting lineup 

The 21-year old player finished the game with three points on shooting 1-5 from the field and for sure knew that he should've had a better game. Jovic brings another dimension to Miami as he adds size and spacing to the starting lineup as he solidified his spot in the four towards the second half of the year last season.

Despite the underwhelming outing, he saw a lot of positives in the Heat's first minutes with the projected starting lineup.

“It felt great, of course it's not gonna be great from the jump and we're ready for anything that gonna come to us,” Jovic said. “But I actually felt pretty good, you know. And I think other guys felt that too, and especially in that second quarter where we got back in, you know, that that's what we want. The transition was the most important part. We showed that we can run, we have so many offensive talent that you can it's really hard to guard us. And I think we showed it was how of the ball, it was Terry in the pick and role hole, Bam running the floor. You know, Jimmy doing his thing. So it was, it's pretty obvious that we have a lot of talent. And, yeah, I think we just have to show people that we're keeping an eye out.”

The Heat are in the midst of preparing for a loaded Eastern Conference as this upcoming week will be busy as they have preseason games Tuesday and Wednesday back-to-back against the San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks respectively.