Heat's Andrew Wiggins' 'crazy' reaction to winning first game in hometown Toronto

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After the Miami Heat beat the Toronto Raptors on Friday night, the team featured a key performance from newcomer Andrew Wiggins who came in the trade that sent away Jimmy Butler at the deadline. As Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is excited for Wiggins’ future with the franchise, there was another aspect about the victory that hits the star close to him, quite literally.

The win in Toronto is the first time Wiggins has done so in his hometown as he was born and raised in the area in Canada where before, he was 0-6 across his career. When told after the game it was his first victory in Toronto, Wiggins could not believe it according to The Miami Herald.

"This is my first win in this building? There's no way," Wiggins said. "I didn't know that. That's pretty crazy, but I’m glad I finally got a dub here.”

Andrew Wiggins was shocked to find out last night was his first career win in Toronto

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As the Heat’s addition in Wiggins is looking to find some consistency with his new team, he had his best performance in the uniform thus far in three games. The 29-year-old would score 25 points on nine for 19 shooting from the field with eight rebounds, two steals, and one assist in a team-leading 42 minutes.

The outing would garner a response from the Heat’s lone All-Star in Tyler Herro who spoke highly of Wiggins on and off the court.

"We're all rooting for Wiggs, man," Herro said. "Great guy, we love having him here. We're super happy to have him. He's just going to continue to get more comfortable with everything we're doing. We're trying to feed as much life and as much confidence into him as possible. We're really happy for him. We got another game where we're going to really need his contribution on Sunday."

Wiggins is now part of the team’s new “Big Three” along with Herro and Bam Adebayo looking to fill the void somewhat of Butler while bringing his unique twist as he was crucial in the fourth quarter and overtime, scoring 13 points.

"They've been a great duo," Wiggins said of Adebayo and Herro. "You saw it in overtime. They started us off in overtime, getting us a nice little lead and getting in a nice rhythm. So playing with these guys, I feel like it's going to be easy. They're unselfish. They just want to win and so do I."

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The Heat needed a win after the All-Star break as they were coming off a four-game skid, looking to find some semblance at this juncture of the season. Spoelstra would speak to how integral Wiggins was during the later portions of the contest as the team once again built up an early double-digit lead, but lost it towards the end.

"It was really important," Spoelstra said. "They were draped all over Tyler and we actually were able to get some pretty good mileage on the two-man action between Tyler and Bam. But then they were loading up. So we just were throwing the ball to Wiggs and letting him make some plays. He had two really good post-ups going down the stretch.”

"It shows you his skill level and that's something that we need, another guy that you can just throw the ball to and he can go make something happen,” Spoelstra continued. “That drive he had down the stretch going to his left, great finish. And then the two-way basketball on the other side. He really had some key defensive stops against some clever offensive players. We were all just really happy for him, we're excited. Now we're able to see a little bit of what this can look like."

Wiggins now looks to build off the performance in his hometown and take that into the rest of the 28 games left for the team as they look to make a playoff push.

"Just build on this game, piggyback on this game," Wiggins said. "This was a good win. Now we got to go to Milwaukee [on Sunday], Atlanta [on Monday] and get two more [wins] and end the road trip off right. Go back home and get some more wins and keep piggybacking it."

Miami is 26-28 which puts them eighth in the East as they next face the Milwaukee Bucks Sunday.

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