Before the Miami Heat take on the Philadelphia 76ers on Christmas Day, head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke before the game to talk about the upcoming matchup and the players surrounding it. Each team is dealing with an injury to their star players as Miami's Jimmy Butler and Sixers' Joel Embiid will miss Monday night's game.
However, young stars such as the Heat's Tyler Herro and the Sixers' Tyrese Maxey are sure to make a large impact on the game amidst stellar seasons from the both of them. Spoelstra has noticed this first-hand with Herro and compares the Miami player to Maxey as being the “next wave of talent.”
“Probably similar to what I mentioned about Tyler. This is the next wave of of talent that you're seeing in this league,” Spoelstra said to ClutchPoints. “And they're figuring out how to really to impact winning. He's an explosive scorer, obviously has that electrifying speed, but he's reading the game, probably in a different way. And that happens with experience.”
Maxey has exploded for the Sixers this season as he's averaging 26.4 points, 6.8 assists, and 3.9 rebounds per game. On the other hand, Herro is also having an exceptional year, scoring 24.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game.
Spoelstra talks about Herro coming back to the Heat after injury
Herro had missed a sizable portion of the season after he suffered a Grade 2 right ankle sprain in early November against the Memphis Grizzlies. He came back last Monday in the loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, but seemed as he was 100 percent in the way he was scoring and being explosive.
Spoelstra said before the Christmas Day game to Philadelphia that he his “picking up where he started.” Each year, the 23-year old has improved according to the head coach and said the 30-point performance he had in the win to the Atlanta Hawks last Friday showcased that ascend.
“He's picking up where he started at the beginning of the year and there are a lot of different moving parts. He's continuing to show improvement and he's done that each year, but now he's reading the game very well. Each game won't be perfect all the way through and I thought last game was a perfect example of that,” Spoelstra said. “Started out great and we were in a rocky place the beginning of third. And he just stayed with it and then had a massive impact those last 14 minutes of the game. But he continues to improve on both sides of the floor and I think it's due to him being an ambitious player who wants to impact the game. He wants to impact winning, he wants to be known as a winning player and the winning players do it on both ends of the court. He's he's fully embracing that.”
Spoelstra talks about facing the Sixers without Joel Embiid
Focusing on the matchup tonight, Embiid will be out as said before which is a massive blow as he is the focal point of the team and was performing like he was about to capture back-to-back MVP awards. Now, the Sixers will have to look to big-men like Paul Reed and Mo Bamba against the Heat to at least try to fill the void.
Reed actually played well against the Heat when Embiid was out on March 1 of last season where the big-man had 16 points and 14 rebounds off the bench. Spoelstra admires the Sixers depth and expects the team to play in a multitude of ways, but the Heat have to bring a “disposition.”
“They have a quality depth. For us, this is about bringing great competitive disposition. Tonight, here at home, that's what we're focusing on,” Spoelstra said to ClutchPoints. “And we understand they'll play a lot differently now. They'll play with speed. You have to expect everything tonight, there could be junk defenses. It could be one through five switching, it could be small ball lineups. It doesn't matter. It's about our disposition and what we're bringing to this game for 48 minutes to try to get this thing on our terms.”
The Heat are hoping to close out the year of 2023 on a good note and it starts on the most wonderful time of the year as they face the Sixers on Christmas night at the Kaseya Center. Before they finish off the year on the West coast, Miami is 17-12 on the season which puts them at sixth in the Eastern Conference.
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