Pelle Larsson STANDS OUT, Kasparas Jakucionis Struggles in Debut | Miami Heat vs Spurs Summer League

Pelle Larsson STANDS OUT, Kasparas Jakucionis Struggles in Debut | Miami Heat vs Spurs Summer League

The road to back-to- back summer league championships begins today as the Miami Heat take down the San Antonio Spurs 82 to69 in the first game of the California Classic. And of course, the rookie that we’ve all been waiting to see, the demon Kasparus Yakonis, the ghost. That boy was looking like an absolute bust. He was terrible. But of course, it was just game game one. I really don’t care about that. But this is overreaction season, so why not buy into it a little bit? I put a tweet out after Casper is his first shot, which was an airball. I think some people are saying he grazed the rim, so maybe he got lucky this time, but he put up like a corner three. I I don’t think it hit the rim. Uh, and I put out a tweet that said, “Casper versus airballed his first shot. #bust.” And a lot of people liked the tweet. I think people kind of understood that I was kidding. Uh, but I just I don’t know. I kind of like to overreact at the beginning of the year because it’s funny to look back five, six months from now, even five, six years from now. Uh, and just kind of see these old tweets and videos that resurface. I remember in Max Strus’s very first preseason game, I think he shot like 0 for8 from three and I tweeted out that he is the worst heat player in franchise history. Whoa. Uh, and he actually ended up turning into one of my favorite guys. So, it’s just kind of funny to joke around and look back, but we’ll get into him as we go through the games. Uh, the starting lineup was pretty interesting because the Heat pretty much went with all of their main guys. You had Caspers at the one, Carol Lewis Jr. at the two, Pella at the three, my boy Kashad Johnson at the four, and then Khil Wear at the five. Was a little bit surprised to see Wear start just because last season I don’t believe Jamez played in the California Classic. I think they saved him for the Vegas summer league, but maybe that’s because he was training with Team USA at the time. But we did see uh the He have all their guys today. Actually, they went down six-2. And for some reason, the anonymous player prop betting app that doesn’t sponsor me yet, so I will not say their name. They had the Heat at plus odds to win the first half. I threw I threw 20 bucks on that. I’m not going to throw more than that because I’m no degenerate who bets on summer league. Except I am. like I just said, but I’m not throwing exorbitant amounts of money on summer league or really in general because you shouldn’t. Like Vegas always wins. If you’re going to bet, bet responsibly. I almost never do more than five bucks, but I had a little little bonus bet promo. Anyways, that’s too much pro promotion for the the brand that does not sponsor me, but obviously that was good odds and he ended up winning the first half. They ended up winning the game and pretty much running away with it, especially since the Spurs didn’t have their number two overall pick. Dylan Harper did not play, but they did have Carter Bryant, who was their 14th overall pick. Going into the first quarter, everyone was in summer league mode. It was very frustrating. The first 45 seconds took about 15 minutes because they couldn’t figure out how to make the score 000. For some reason, it said 1 zero when no one scored, but they eventually figured it out. Casper, I think, took like the first or second shot. had the air ball uh but he didn’t get too much of an opportunity to really get in his bag uh pretty much the whole game with Kira Lewis was doing a lot of the ball handling duties there. I didn’t really uh uh I didn’t love the Heat’s offense to start. Uh five of their first seven shots were from three. The two non-threes were layups that got blocked. But you can tell all of these guys were really trying to get into rhythm, figure out how to play with each other. So take all my analysis today with a grain of salt. keep it in the context that it’s literally game one of summer league. Uh so it doesn’t there’s only so much you can analyze. It doesn’t really matter too much. Uh I didn’t like their first basket of the game was literally 5 minutes in. Uh it was a Kira lob to Khalil Wear which was beautiful. It started reminding me of an actual Heat basketball game because they couldn’t score. They couldn’t shoot at first. They only finished with 82 points which actually is not bad because these games are shorter. But that’s something that the the regular Heat team would do, too. So, these guys fit in perfectly. Uh, but there was some nice things, too. Uh, Pella Larson was great today. He really was aggressive from the jump, had a beautiful and one, got to the free throw line a couple of times, and was really just looking for contact every single time down the court. And you could tell right away that he was better than everybody else out there. Him and Khalil Wear were kind of the two guys you wanted to see that about. and I guess Kashad Johnson. All three of their guys had their moments throughout the game, but Pella is the guy that I think really stood out stood out throughout the entire game. I kind of reminded me of like Pella is to Max Strus as Omar Yurtzen is to or as Khil Wear is to Omar Yurtzen. Remember when both those guys were in summer league, the Heat really tried giving those guys the keys and Strus really stood out while Omare showed why he’s no longer in the league. I I don’t think anymore. Not saying that Khil Wear is going to be Omar Yurtzan. Like I said, he was fine today. It’s just it was just kind of funny to see. But the Heat were down one after the first quarter. Then in the second quarter, Larson kept it going. Hit the D-Wade up fake from the mid-range. The H going to the fender. H gets up the shot. Uh you know, missed it. Got to the free throw line though. Just beautiful basketball from Pella. Really knows how to draw contact. And he’s he’s a guy that excites me for this season. No doubts. Kira Lewis got in the action a little bit more. had a beautiful dime to Kashad who had his first Showtime dunk of the day. Uh so funny enough, their two best plays today were off a couple of Kira Lewis uh dimes. And then Casper Yakon, he only played uh less than 10 minutes actually in the first half. He was 0 for three on triples. Again, didn’t get to do too much. The whole playing time thing was a little bit frustrating just because guys like Javvante Cook played more than him. Uh I think in the whole game, Cook played more than him. Eric Stevenson played more than Casperis. I don’t understand why. Like it’s game one. You know, a lot of things can change in game two. Maybe Casperis plays 35 minutes next game. I don’t know. But it’s like he should, you know, you invested a first round pick into him. He should get more minutes and more opportunity to play the point guard role that you brought him in to be, not to sit in the corner on offense or be a secondary ball handler. Um, but yeah, they were down three in the first half to Miami Heat. Uh but then in the third quarter once again, Pella Larson drew an offensive foul, not only using his body on offense, but on defense as well. Had a few really nice after timeout plays. So Eric Glass was getting in his bag a little bit uh with his head coaching opportunities. Uh they ran this one to Eric Stevenson who just cast a three off of like one of those elevator plays. Used to see the Warriors play where like two Heat players closed in to sort of set like a double screen so the defender can’t get through. But shout out to Eric Stevenson. He played pretty well today, too. Uh, and Appella Larson had a beautiful dime to Kaspar, who missed the wideopen layup. I give Kasparus credit for moving without the ball. Well, uh, you got to hit those, though. Uh, but good news is, uh, Vlad Golden did finish with a pretty nice dunk. Uh, then in the fourth quarter, Vlad Golden had a beautiful Kelly keeper where he faked the handoff, went to the rim, did a nice pump fake, finished with a pretty tough floater. So, he did show some of his skill today. Uh, that that we’ve talked about. It’s part of the reason he like him so much. Uh Casper finally had a beautiful spin move, took like a one-legged midi, missed it, but then the next possession he did get his very first basket, a sort of a breakaway layup, and then from then on uh it was pretty much uh over. You know, the Heat were up double digits most of the fourth quarter. Khalil did do a little bit of, you know, lipstick on a pig there, a little bit of of dressing it up his performance uh because a lot of his buckets were late in the game. Uh, but we’ll get into the box score real quick so we can kind of talk about some more of these guys individually. Kashad Johnson today, nine points, nine minutes. Got a lot of run, 28 minutes for him. Uh, shot three of seven, which is obviously not great, but one of the more efficient guys on the team cuz the Heat team as a whole only shot 36% from three. So, we’ll go on about how everyone didn’t shoot great today, but just keep in mind it’s literally the whole team. So, you can’t get too mad at any individual person. And I guess the reason the Heat ended up winning the game is because they uh the Spurs shot 33% to the Heat’s 36%. So summer league form game one give the guys a little bit of benefits of the doubts. But Sh had some nice plays uh defensively as well doing all the things he does. Just super active and athletic. I’m a big fan of his. The summer league is not going to change that. Let’s hope that he gets some run in the regular season. Moving on to Pella Larson. Probably the best player for the Heat today. 18 points, three boards, shot four of 12, so not good, but got to the free throw line 11 times, knocked down 10 of them. Uh, yeah, he needs someone who can get to the line. Pella is someone who can do that, at least in summer league. We’ll see how it translates. Uh, you wanted to pay close attention to his three-point ball, too. I think it’s that’s one of the biggest improvements he needs to make coming into this season. He wasn’t great today. 0 for four. He had an air ball himself. It was a deep three, but hopefully he can kind of nail down that jump shot a little bit more. And then Khil 14 points, seven rebounds. He shot five of 14. So offensively, he wasn’t great. In the second half, like we said, he did get a little bit more to go. Had a nice fadeaway, a couple nice put bags, but defensively he made a lot of reads that that I liked a lot. Had three blocks, two steals. So I think he was active. Not super active. I still feel like the Spurs got a lot of offensive rebounds or at least tipped a lot of balls. I wish he could have been a little bit more active rebounding, but defensively th those blocks were incredible. One of them he like ran out to the three-point line to block a three-point shooter in the corner. That’s not easy to do. You know, you have to hustle to do that and you have to be athletic as hell to do that. So, I do think he was pretty good defensively today. I know on offense people are going to get on him for all the threes that he took. I don’t think he made any of them. He didn’t. He shot four of them, but I’m fine with that. It’s like, yeah, he’s the biggest guy on the court, but like I’m not trying to win this game. Like, I’m trying to work on my game if I’m Khalil Wear or the Heat coaching staff. So, I like the fact that Wear got up four threes. Let him work on that now. You know, in the regular season, yeah, abuse your mismatch. If you’re the tallest guy, sit in the paint and dunk on everybody’s head, but how’s that productive in a game like today? Like, we know you can dunk. We know you’re tall. You know, he did look a little bit bigger out there. They said he put on like 25 pounds since the start of his rookie season, I believe they said. Or was it uh I think 15 pounds actually. I think they said he went from like 225 to 240, I think is what they said. So definitely looked a little bit bigger. But yeah, I mean I’m fine with him today. You know, I I don’t think he’ll play every game of Summer League. Certainly not tomorrow cuz they have a backtoback, but he’ll probably play at least one or two more games either in California or in Vegas. We’ll see how that goes. Uh moving on into Yakonis, only 22 minutes. Yeah. Played less than Stevenson, less than Cook, two more minutes than Carrie Lewis. But even in his time on the court, he didn’t get to play a lot of point guard. You didn’t see any pick and rolls. He was like the best pick and roll player in the draft. I don’t know why we didn’t get to see a lot of that. He definitely had some nice passes that didn’t lead to assists. So although he only had three points, one rebound, one assist, he could have had more assists, but for one reason or another, guys not cashing it, they missed a shot. The assist numbers didn’t exactly add up for him, but I mean that’s that’s fine. Like he’s hopefully he gets some more run and opportunity the next game. One of seven from the field, 04 from three. What are you going to do? You know, not his best performance. Jame Hakez, I don’t think was great in his first summer league game. I think in the second half he was a little bit better uh of his first game. I believe I think it was against Sacramento or in Sacramento. Uh but who knows you know like last year we Jame Hake has dominated the summer league and then he wasn’t great in the regular season. So maybe it’ll be opposite for a guy like Khil Wear for example. Maybe wear is not great in summer league dominates the regular season. I would prefer that. Wouldn’t you? But yeah, we’ll see what happens with Casper’s next game. He he is a guy that should play in the back tomorrow. So hopefully he gets some more opportunity because of that. Um and then Carol Lewis Jr. four points, four five four points, five rebounds, five assists, two steals, shot two of eight, and no one shot good. Like I said, wow, everyone was really bad. He was nice defensively. I know he was kind of a decent defender coming out of Alabama. Uh the shot never really came along, but he’s fine. You know, he’s he is what he is at this point. We’ll see if he can set himself apart as the rest of the summer league continues. Uh and then off the bench, really the story of the game was Eric Stevenson. 16 points uh on 46, shooting 44 from three. Really the only efficient guy today. Uh, I looked into him a little bit once he started going off because I wasn’t too familiar with him. Played at a few different colleges, you know, uh, never anywhere too big, but I mostly wanted to see if he was like a sniper in college because, you know, I I was under the impression that he didn’t have any shooters in the pipeline. No streuses, no Cole Swiders. And they really don’t. I mean, in college, he kind of shot a lot of threes. I think his super senior season, he shot like six a game, but he was never that efficient. wasn’t bad, just wasn’t that efficient. So, I wouldn’t say he’s a sniper. I wouldn’t look at him as that after this game. But to give him credit, he hit some nice shots, hit a couple nice ones off the dribble, a nice step back. So, he shot well today. I want to give him credit and we’ll see if he continues to have some pretty good performances going forward. Uh, and then, yeah, Javvante Cook had a couple nice plays. Uh, Vlad Golden had a couple moves as well, we talked about, but they didn’t really play too much. The only other guy off the bench was uh Byron War or Bryson Warren. Yeah, 15 minutes. uh only for himself too. So we didn’t get any of the other bigs today. No Omar Balo, no Dane Danger, unfortunately. They showed Dane warming up in the tunnel. I was disappointed as hell he didn’t get to play, but like we said, where’s probably not playing tomorrow and he’ll miss a lot more time. I’m sure he doesn’t need to play all of summer league. So that’s when we’ll really get to see our guys Balow and Danger play and that I’m really excited to see. Uh I think that’s really all I got to say in the Miami Heat side of things. on the Spurs side of things. Yeah, nothing too too significant, I think. So, uh that’s all I got to say for this video. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any half court shots. Uh if y’all didn’t hear, there’s a new rule in summer league. They’re testing it out, which is like, why test it out? Just do it. Like, it’s going to work or basically if you shoot a half court shot, it doesn’t count as a personal miss. It doesn’t go against your field goal percentage. Uh if it’s, you know, beyond half court, that’s a great rule. I think more players won’t be scared to shoot them now. So, like like yeah, it should work. They should have added that a long time ago. They’re testing in summer league today. We didn’t get to see it, but I like that rule. So maybe they implement that in the NBA at some point. But let me know your thoughts down below. What do you think of Casper? Are you give me your overreactions? Just let me know all your overall thoughts. Make sure to like the video cuz it helps the algorithm a ton. And subscribe because just this morning we hit 8,000 subscribers. We hit that mark after I hit a or posted a little preview for the Heat Summer League. A lot of interesting tidbits in there. So, I still recommend y’all check that out if you haven’t already. But yeah, we hit 8K. So, that means that the grind to 9K starts today. So, make sure to hit that button if you haven’t already. I greatly appreciate the support. Y’all are the best. And I’ll see y’all in the next video. So, peace out everyone. Pull up in your city trying to get that dead face. Do it on my own. I don’t need no dead weight. Had to kill them off. Yeah, I need a head space. You know this homegrown don’t offend me.

Discussing Miami Heat beating the San Antonio Spurs in the first game of the California Classic in NBA Summer League. It was the debut of Kasparas Jakucionis. Pelle Larsson, Kel’el Ware, and Keshad Johnson all showed out. NBA and Miami Heat News featuring Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins, Kel’el Ware, Kasparas Jakucionis, Terry Rozier, Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Duncan Robinson, Kevin Love, Haywood Highsmith, Pelle Larsson, Keshad Johnson, Erik Spoelstra and more. Subscribe for more Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, NBA and NFL news.

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