With the Miami Heat taking on the New York Knicks in the next two games, starting on Friday night, one player who will be huge is Jaime Jaquez Jr., in the midst of a bounce-back season. As Jaquez has grown tremendously with the Heat and adapted to the team's new offense, opposing defenses are throwing new strategies at him, which led to a response from head coach Erik Spoelstra.

While Jaquez has gone back to his strengths in driving downhill and attacking the paint, averaging 17 points in 12 games off the bench, defenses have been attacking the 24-year-old with bigger defenders in getting him off-balance. Spoelstra would speak on the team and the young star adjusting to that.

“I'm sure, you know, more teams will put the five on him,” Spoelstra said, via Heat Diehards on X, formerly Twitter, taken from the team. “The quicker we can get to that, what teams do consistently, the better we're going to be able to adjust and and he'll adjust. You know, even the other night, he was able to get to the rim. He missed four or five that, I know there's bigger size on him, but, you know, if three of those go down, you know, it could change things.”

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“His play-making is improving, so that will continue to be an element of his attack,” Spoelstra continued. “But, you know, us adjusting to not have him be aggressive, that's not it. We want to be aggressive. Be who he is, and we'll figure it out. He'll figure it out. And you know, I'm looking forward to seeing that tonight.”

Jaquez and Miami look to bounce back after the disappointing loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday with two games against the Knicks on Friday and Monday.