---

Miami Heat (51-16) swingman Eddie Jones is a natural shooting guard but has been playing small forward alongside Dwyane Wade and Damon Jones, and doing a great job of it, averaging 12.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.1 steals per game. InsideHoops.com editor Jeff Lenchiner caught up with Jones a few days ago in Madison Square Garden for an exclusive interview, just before the Heat won their 10th game in a row.

InsideHoops.com: Talk about the team in general. Things are clicking for you guys, now more than ever.

Eddie Jones: I think our defense is playing pretty well right now. Rebounding the ball pretty good. I think when you get defense and rebounding together, it creates great transition points, and I think that's what we're really getting good at. Transition points, easy points in transition, so I think that's why over this nine-game win streak we've been really blowing teams out by like 16, 17 points.

InsideHoops.com: And during the season, you've been playing small forward, which makes you play bigger than you are, and the backcourt is small as well, but as a team you've been able to make it work.

Eddie Jones: Definitely, because you have to get the effort. I think when you're small, you have to come out and play with a lot more effort. And knowing that the matchups are going to be fairly the same, when you're small you really have to come out with a lot of effort. What I try to do against the bigger and more powerful small forwards, I try my best to not let them catch the ball. Then I go on the offensive end and try to out-quick them. If I can do that continuously, every night, I think we have a good shot.

InsideHoops.com: That's just it, constant motion and making them work harder than they want.

Eddie Jones: Whatever works. You try your best to make good things happen out there.

InsideHoops.com: As for Shaq and Dwyane Wade, they clicked quickly, and have it going even better now. Chemistry developed and kept improving.

Eddie Jones: It takes time. Not just for them, but for the entire team. They're big, big pieces of what we do, but that's not all of it. And I just think those two guys, they work great together, but when the whole team got clicking... in the beginning of the year it was just like those two guys doing all the scoring, and we still had dog fights. But now, we've really got the team together, and everybody playing together, and we know what each other likes, so now the games, to me, the games are a lot more fun.

InsideHoops.com: You guys are a championship contender. Is that on your minds, are you thinking about that at this point?

Eddie Jones: We can't think like that yet. I think this team is a veteran team, so we've been around a while, and we know that you can have a great time for a moment, but once other things adversary comes about, how will you react then? I think right now it's a honeymoon, so we have to continue to try to get better, so we don't have to have this adversary coming in.