Budding Miami Heat Star Continues To Draw Praise From Team and Media

Although his team lost to the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night, Miami Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. added to the bounce-back season he's been having so far. The third-year forward put up 31 points on 11 of 16 shooting, along with eight rebounds and four assists.

"I’ll tell you who looks phenomenal: Jaime Jaquez Jr. He is just attacking, playing at incredible tempo, getting downhill, guys are bouncing off him," longtime ESPN reporter Tim MacMahon said on The Hoop Collective podcast. "He's finishing in the lane, he's shooting better than 60% from the floor, and most of that is attacking off the dribble. He's off to an incredible start.”

Tim MacMahon on Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s hot start:

"I’ll tell you who looks phenomenal: Jaime Jaquez Jr. He is just attacking, playing at incredible tempo, getting downhill — guys are bouncing off him. He's finishing in the lane. He's shooting better than 60% from the floor, and most… pic.twitter.com/tYux66PhPv
— Heat Diehards (@HeatDiehards) November 3, 2025

"The way that offense works, the floor is spaced and he's a good straight-line driver. He can get in the paint and kick it out. He can make plays. He's a big guy who can get a guy on his hip and get to the basket," added ESPN's Tim Bontemps.

"Yeah, he brought a force tonight for sure. He was competing," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game. "As poorly as we played, we still had almost seventy in the paint. We had thirty-six free throw attempts. Jaime was good with his decision making."

Jaquez was a huge part of that, with all 16 of his field goal attempts coming inside the paint to go along with a whopping 13 free throw attempts, a new career high for him.

"I think that's part of my role on this team coming off as that sixth man. It's to infuse life and energy. You know, give the team a spark. Whatever they need, or throw gas, you know, be the gas that we throw on the fire. So I take that role very seriously and that's kind of my approach when I get subbed in," Jaquez said after the loss.

Jaquez is now averaging 18.7 points (converting 69 percent of his 2s), to go along with 6.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 0.8 steals. Additionally, Jaquez is taking more than twice as many free throw attempts per game as he did in any of his previous two seasons, as well as taking 2.3 more 2s per game, converting more than 16 percent better than he ever has at the rim (78.6 percent).

"I'm really just trying to get downhill, trying to collapse the defense, bring defenders onto me so I can spray out and create for my team. And if I got a mismatch, I'm going to just take it to the hole."

To top things off, a case can be made that Jaquez has been the Heat's most vital player thus far. When Jaquez is on the floor this season, the Heat are outscoring teams by about 27 points per 100 possessions. When he's off the floor, they are getting outcored by more than 25 points per 100 possessions.

The team's offense plummets from an elite-level 124.18 offensive rating to a bottom-level 105.83 offensive rating. Their defensive rating drops by about 34 points per 100 possessions (from 97.22 to 131.12).

Alexander Toledo is a contributor to Miami Heat On SI and producer/co-host of the Five on the Floor podcast, covering the Heat and NBA. He can be reached at toledoalexander22@gmail.com. Twitter: @tropicalblanket

Budding Miami Heat Star Continues To Draw Praise From Team and Media

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