Norvell sees growth, but wants more consistency
Mike Norvell has seen a steady amount of growth in the Florida State program in the 16 months since his arrival. But as the Seminoles wrap up their final week of spring football camp, the secondyear coach wants to see more consistency out of his team.
“When you look at the big picture comparison to what we’ve done in the past to where we are now, it’s much improved,” Norvell said following practice Tuesday. “But our standard needs to be the best that we possibly have every single rep and there were too many moments today whether it’s on body language, whether it was accelerating through the finish on every play … It wasn’t consistent play in and play out to what you want.”
Norvell has been upbeat about the team’s progress through the first 13 practices of camp, but after a sluggish performance on Tues
of it. But we’re going to have to play damn near perfect basketball against these teams that we’re going up against.”
Butler said it all starts with one element. “I think for us it’s consistency, playing great basketball for 48 minutes, maybe even more, if we hit overtime,” he said. “We’ve been up and down all year long. Hopefully we hit a stride where we’re playing the right way and we’re stringing together wins. That’s it, be playing your best basketball at the right time, when the playoffs get here.”
Spoelstra said it still comes down to defense, with Thursday viewed as a step forward in the wake of Tuesday night’s loss to the Grizzlies.
“At times I thought it was adequate,” Spoelstra said of the defensive showing against the Lakers. “We’re still building our habits and trying to do things consistently. In terms of doing things with focus and discipline, that was better than it was the other night, certainly. So we’ll just have to continue to be able to build these habits to be able to sustain.”
Special shoes
Adebayo wore specially designed Jordan Brand sneakers Thursday against the Lakers, with a social-justice message addressing “racial inequality at large in the African American and Asian American communities with the shoe design.”
The shoes featured colors representative of both communities, as well as symbols depicting messages about stopping hate and ending racism.
“Racism is a virus. With these shoes, I want to use my platform to honor victims of recent Asian hate crimes and address racism in our society,” Adebayo said in a release announcing that a replica version will be offered in a sweepstakes at HEAT. com/bamsweeps, in conjunction with Mountain Dew and Walmart.
The promotion includes a donation to the Overtown Youth Center.