The Miami Heat have been one of the league's most surprising breakouts during the first half of the season. Head coach Erik Spoelstra, who is in his 12th season at the helm, has been largely credited for a large majority of the team's success, with San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich joining that chorus prior to the meeting of the two teams Wednesday per Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News.

 

The Heat came into Wednesday's meeting with the Spurs with a 27-12 mark, which had them in possession of the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference. Since they lost in the NBA Finals to San Antonio in 2013-14, Miami has alternated between making the postseason and falling short.

The praise from Popovich comes from a future Hall of Famer who knows a thing or two about longevity in one place. San Antonio is in jeopardy of missing the playoffs for the first time since 1996-97, just a year after Erik Spoelstra's own playing career wrapped up in Germany. But much like Popovich, Spoelstra has been continuously pushing his undermanned post-Heatles teams into playoff action despite expectations of the team floundering as cellar-dwellers due to the lack of a star-laden roster, or any star at all for that matter.

Spoelstra is the rare NBA head coach to have made it over a decade with the same organization, while also managing to oversee multiple iterations of the franchise. Gone are the days of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, but the new era of Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo has ushered in.