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Inside Erik Spoelstra's Comments Following Road Win Over Suns cover image

Spoelstra praises his team's spirit after a tough road win, highlighting clutch performances from Jaquez Jr. and unexpected contributors.

 On holding leads and finally extending in the fourth quarter after early leads slipped away:

"It was a fun two games. This was a tough turnaround and I'm not making an excuse for it. I'm just saying when we got to bed at 6 and have two games in less than 22 hours, it's fun. It's fun to try to rally around the challenge. This oftentimes could be a schedule loss and everybody just absolutely rallied around the opportunity and you have a moment like this hopefully it can lead to more momentum because it's a tougher type scenario. We were tested there at the beginning of the third I thought we responded then and in the fourth quarter they made a little bit of a run and we responded to that moment. That swing moment and it's going to happen. Rarely do you just pull away and stay away from your opponent. But more than anything, it was just the mentality, the collective spirit to try to accomplish something a little bit unique in a long NBA season."

On Jaime Jaquez Jr.'s strong fourth-quarter performance reminiscent of early-season takeovers:

"It really helped. I didn't plan on playing him that many minutes, but I was going to try to get him a break and then he was just generating so many good things for us offensively. They started to up their pressure. They played small, played O'Neal at the five, so we're looking for advantages wherever we could find them and the advantage happened to be Jaime, getting into the paint, making plays. In Miami, he was making plays for kickouts. In this game, he was mostly making plays at the rim to score because they're trying to stay at home on everybody else. We're at our best when he's a downhill guy for us and making the appropriate reads."

On contributions from Myron and Dru Smith in limited or key moments:

"Myron is continuing to build trust with everybody. You feel his energy right away. There's going to be something. There's going to be some kind of action. And he's finding ways to make it more positive for the team. It's just unbridled effort and energy. It's amazing what you can get accomplished if you just commit to that. Drew was great both games. He had almost like a misprint. I think he had five steals last night, but I think it was like 13 or 14 deflections. It was crazy last night and then tonight he was all over the place. Just that steadying presence when we put the ball in Jaime's hands, Drew found a way to get in the right spot. A lot of times to help us run our offense and then defensively, he's just really good, particularly against the stuff that they do. A lot of these perimeter pick and rolls, they slip out of there, they try to confuse you and that opens up a three-point window. He was just super disciplined, super aware, communicating the actions. That's why he's one of the more valuable defensive players in this league."

On Norman Powell persevering through back issues and contributing even when shots aren't falling:

"He was pretty banged up these last couple games. This one was in question because it was such a quick turnaround and the only rest we really had was on the airplane. He wanted to give it a go. He passed all the tests to make himself available. He contributed in other ways. He had 10 rebounds. He's always a threat, so there's going to be some kind of overreaction. He wasn't getting the normal foul calls. Those should have been free throws in my opinion. But he's a veteran player, so he'll find a way to make an impact whether he's scoring or whether it's just with his presence."

On the brief two-day break in January and who will benefit most from the rest:

"I'm sure everybody could use it, but the guys who really need it the most will be Norm, Bam, and Wiggins. Probably, Jaime could use some extra time as well. We'll try to maximize that as much as possible."

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