Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is thrilled with how the fallback game plan has been going with Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro out of the picture.
With several players sidelined due to injury, the Heat was forced to make the most out of the 10 players they have available in their last two games. Seven of them were undrafted.
On behalf of injured stars Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, undrafted Heat players such Duncan Robinson, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent were tasked to step their game up. And they did not fail to deliver.
In fact, in the Heat's 115-105 win over the Orlando Magic on Friday, Max Strus scored a career-high 32 points on 8-of-11 shooting from beyond the arc. Gabe Vincent, on the other hand, also scored a career-high 27 points. All undrafted players combined for an impressive 83 points in total and coach Erik Spoelstra is pleased.
“These guys, they’re the lifeblood of our player development program,” Spoelstra said via Miami Herald. “Guys that haven’t been drafted that have big dreams, are willing to put in the work and gradually incrementally get better over time. That’s what you have seen with both of these guys. This is not something that just happened overnight.”
“Obviously, neither one of them were selected during draft night,” he added. “It takes an incredible amount of perseverance, belief in yourself and a crazy work ethic to keep on working every single day because you have a lot more days of adversity when things aren’t necessarily going your way or you’re not getting playing time or you’re not really seeing progress.”
The Heat will be hoping to have Butler, Adebayo and Herro back when the they face the Indiana Pacers at home on Tuesday.