Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Jrue Holiday exchange love as they prepare to battle each other in coming days

Miami Intensity forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. — an individual from Group USA’s Select Group — said he’s eager to play against Boston Celtics monitor Jrue Occasion — an individual from the essential Group USA crew — before very long.

Jaquez refered to the way that both played school b-ball at the College of California, Los Angeles and referenced the current year’s first-round series between the Intensity and Celtics as justifications for why he’s anticipating going head to head against the double cross NBA champion.

Occasion was educated regarding what Jaquez said and continued to toss some commendation in the 23-year-old’s course.

Jaquez is one of 15 individuals from the Select Group. The crew is brimming with the absolute best youthful players in b-ball today: Jalen Duren, Cooper Flagg, Nigel Hayes-Davis, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Brandon Mill operator, Three pointer Murphy, Keegan Murray, Brandin Podziemski, Micah Watchman, Payton Pritchard, Jabari Smith Jr., So be it Thompson, Jalen Suggs and Langston Galloway.

Yet, strangely, three of the players on the program — Flagg, Galloway and Hayes-Davis — are not playing for a NBA group right now.

The last time Jaquez and Occasion went head to head against one another came in the current year’s first-round season finisher series between the Celtics and Intensity. Occasion’s Celtics got the better of Jaquez’s Intensity, as Boston won the best-of-seven series in five games and later proceeded to bring home the 2024 NBA championship.

However, the play of Jaquez was one of the Intensity’s solitary splendid spots in a series where they were completely outflanked. Against the Celtics, he arrived at the midpoint of 12.8 places, 3.3 bounce back, 3.0 helps and 0.8 takes per game. There’s a contention to be made that he played at a more significant level than Occasion did during the series, despite the fact that the last option’s group dominated the competition convincingly.

Occasion struggled with finding the lower part of the net against Jaquez and the Intensity, taking into account he shot 35.0 percent from the floor and found the middle value of simply 7.8 places, 4.8 bounce back and 4.4 helps per game.