NBA FINALS: HEAT VS. NUGGETS

June 8, 2023

Haywood Highsmith

Miami Heat

Practice Day

Q. My question to you is, playing in this beautiful city, how do you avoid distractions? There's a lot to do here.

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: For me, it's pretty easy. I just stay at the house. If I'm not playing basketball, working out, I got a daughter, so I spend a lot of time with her, family. I spend time with my family, focusing on what my goals is, not letting distractions to get to my head.

Q. Is there anything around here that you like to do to get away from basketball?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: Sometimes I do get on the boat, a yacht, go in the water to get some fresh air, enjoy time out there with friends and family.

Other than that, maybe go to the playground with my daughter every now and then. That's about it.

Q. Whose yacht are you on?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: We rent a yacht.

Q. A bunch of guys on the team?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: No, just me and my family.

Q. How do you bounce back after last night?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: Yeah, we just going to have to play more harder, play more together, play with more effort. It's a good team, so they're not going to give us anything easy. Everything is going to have to be fought for. We have to play with that same urgency and energy that we played with in Game 2.

Q. How do you contain Jamal Murray?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: He's a good player. We're going to have to lock in on him. Him and Jokic's two-man game is a pretty hard action to stop.

We got great defensive players, some of the great two-way players in this game, Jimmy and Bam. We're going to figure it out. We got a lot of different bodies with we can throw at Murray as well. We'll be ready for them.

Q. You've been playing basketball your whole life. This seems like a special group you play with. How enjoyable is that to play with a bunch of guys like that?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: No, it's definitely fun. We have a great connection off the court, so it really translates well to on the court.

Like you said, unselfish, we're very connected. It's kind of the same group we had last year. We're all familiar with each other. It's a pretty fun time for everybody being in the Finals. We still got three more wins to go, so we're excited about that and we're going to get that going.

Q. This deep in the Finals, how much is it adjustments versus effort?

HAYWOOD HIGHSMITH: That's a good question.

I think it's a little bit of both. Definitely some things we can adjust on. It's also about a little bit more effort, just doing more. You always need more, always can do more. Like I said, this is a good team, so we just got to be well-prepared and ready for them. Yeah, we definitely have to make some adjustments on both ends of the court, but we'll figure it out.