The Miami Heat head tactician has been proving that he is also one of the best at doing it.
After a game-winning inbound play on an alley-oop to Andrew Wiggins against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Erik Spoelstra has been in the headlines throughout the day with a 140-138 final score.
Despite it being just a regular season, the two-time champion coach still deserved the credit as they won without Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro.
Spoelstra said that he had those weapons in his pocket for already four years, when it was the best time earlier to execute with 0.6 seconds left.
“I’ve had that play on my card listed as CQ for 4 years. When it got to that point, Quinny [Chris Quinn] said we should run that. I said, you know what, there’s no better person to diagram it than the one who came up with the dang thing. So I just had him diagram the play,” Spoelstra said.
Aside from the play itself, he also tipped his hat to the players Norman Powell and Nikola Jovic for a good sell and great pass right on the rim to Wiggins.
“It worked beautifully. I thought Norm [Norman Powell] sold it really well. WiggTs [Andrew Wiggins] made a great cut on it, and then Niko [Nikola Jovic] just put it right on the rim. Couldn’t have made a better pass. If it would have been anywhere else, it would’ve been 0.6 (seconds). So it was a great execution to get that,” he added.
The Miami Heat is a great team, but there were not many expectations from them to stand against the former first-seed Cavs last season, also having the absence of their shooters and big man.
Spoelstra has been going through a lot, considering his home incident last week, which might have distracted him from doing his job, but he still managed to do it, leading the Heat to the 3rd spot in the East with a 7-4 win-loss record.
