Jones just keeps on delivering
Small forward emerges as Heat’s energizing super-human flyover
SALT LAKE CITY — This was before the emotion of Dwyane Wade’s final game against LeBron James, before the stars arrived Monday night at Staples Center, before one of the Miami Heat’s most compelling efforts of the season, even if it did result in a loss.
No, this was hours earlier, at the Student Activities Center at UCLA, with Bam Adebayo in the midst of a morning interview.
“Wait,” the second-year center said to his questioners. “Did you see that? Did you? No?” So Adebayo insisted on a replay. “Hey Derrick, do it again, do it again,” he shouted across the gym, as if conjuring one of Spike Lee’s classic Mars Blackman Air Jordan commercials.
So Derrick Jones Jr. did, leaping from the foul line toward one of the practice rims, spinning in a 360 and delivering a dunk so fierce it landed with the thud.
“Nah,” Adebayo said, “he didn’t put it through his legs that time. You missed a better one.”
Hours later, in the theater setting of Staples, one charged with the drama of Wade-LeBron, Jones
created similar wonder, with the type of youthful exuberance than once defined the games of James and Wade.
Just as he was during summer league, which essentially served as his Miami Heat coming out statement, Jones has become a thing again. A game after establishing a career high with 11 rebounds in a victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, he bettered that total with 14 in Monday night’s 108-105 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. There also were three blocked shots and a dunk every bit as fierce and frightening as the one on the UCLA practice court.
At a time the Heat were expected to be thinning their rotation, the lithe 6-foot-7 21-year-old is creating a new challenge for coach Erik Spoelstra.
“Derrick, he makes you watch him, and then he makes you play him,” Spoelstra said, before turning his attention to Wednesday’s game against the Utah Jazz, the fourth stop of this season-longest six-game trip. “And that’s what you want with young players. When they get their opportunity, nothing is guaranteed. We all had an impression from the last game.”
The thought Monday was that Jones would be spotted as an energizer, with the Heat getting Josh Richardson, Tyler Johnson, Goran Dragic and Wayne Ellington back in the mix.
Instead, Jones was utilized for 29 minutes, in for all but 22 seconds of the fourth quarter in a game that stood tied with less than three minutes to play.
“I thought it would be half the minutes of that, maybe 10 minutes in this game,” Spoelstra said. “But it got to a point where we couldn’t afford to take him out.”
Because even as the emotion of the night caught up to many, Jones turned into the embodiment of energy. Eight of his rebounds came in the fourth quarter. No other player on either team had more than three in the period.
“If I see the ball bounce high, then I know nine times out of 10 I know I’m the person that can reach those heights,” he said.
And then there are the moments when the ball already is in his hands.
“I mean electrifying dunks, everybody gets hyped up for dunks,” he said. “That’s one thing that I try to do a lot. And even if my teammates dunk, I’m going to be the first person to jump off the bench. That’s something that gets me hyped.”
Having a human flyover as a teammate does, however, provide its own challenges.
For Adebayo, it means having to secure rebounds before Jones makes one of his over-the-top efforts.
“That has never happened to me and it never will,” Adebayo said after Monday’s game with a smile almost as big as the one that witnessed Jones’ practice-court dunk earlier in the day. “I never will let him grab a rebound over me. But when I see him do it from an innocent-bystander point of view? I like it. Oh, it’s incredible. It’s inspiring.”
Heat at Jazz
When/Where: TV: Scouting report: This is the second game of the two-game season series . . . The Heat won the first meeting 102-100 Dec. 2 at AmericanAirlines Arena on a late pair of Dwyane Wade free throws, surviving an errant 3-point attempt by Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell just before the final buzzer. The Heat overcame an early 19-point deficit, getting 23 points and 20 rebounds from center Hassan Whiteside . . . The Heat have won the last four meetings, their longest streak since a similar four-game run that ended in 2010 . . . The Heat have won three of their last four visits . . . This is the fourth stop on a sixgame trip for the Heat that concludes in Memphis and New Orleans . . . It is the lone home game for the Jazz in a five-game stretch . . . The Jazz enter 4-6 at home . . . Dion Waiters (ankle) and Hassan Whiteside (personal reasons) are out for the Heat, with Yante Maten and Duncan Robinson on G League assignment . . . For the Jazz, Tony Bradley, Tyler Cavanaugh and Naz Mitrou-Long are on G League assignment.