Erik Spoelstra isn’t sweating about both Max Strus and Caleb Martin’s cold night that served as an impact on the Miami Heat’s 104-93 Game 1 loss against the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals.
Spoelstra shrugged off any kinds of worries around his focal shooters as he believes they will be able to regain that magic offensive touch.
“They’re fine. They’re not going to get sick,” he said of Martin and Strus. “If they’re shooters, you are not always going to be able to make all the shots that you want.”
Throughout over 21 minutes of play, Strus went scoreless in his 10 field goal attempts (nine treys). Meanwhile, the Game 7 East Finals hero against the Boston Celtics in Martin didn’t maintain his hot hands after going 1-of-7 from the field en route to a lowly three markers.
Spoelstra stressed out that shooting the ball from long range doesn’t entirely dictate the outcome of the match, as players can still contribute in other departments to win matches.
“You have to find different ways to impact the game. Our game is not built just on the three-point ball. We’ve proven that time and time again we can win games, we can win series regardless of how the threes are going.”
In the end, the longtime mentor won’t remove his faith and confidence in his troops that they’ll be able to respond heading to Game 2 on Sunday.
“We also have ignitable guys. You see a couple go through, that all of a sudden it can become an avalanche. One way or another, we just got to find a way to get the job done,” Spoelstra concluded.
