Bam Adebayo strengthens All-Star case with triple-double. Takeaways from Heat win over Magic
The second half belonged to the Miami Heat, and so did the game.
The Heat (32-14) opened the third quarter on a 22-4 run on its way to a 113-92 victory over the Orlando Magic (21-27) on Monday at AmericanAirlines Arena. Miami improved to 3-1 on its five-game homestand and to 21-2 at home for the season.
Behind a strong third quarter, the Heat won the second half 59-44.
With the Heat falling to the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday, Miami moved to 13-1 after a loss this season following Monday’s victory.
The Heat also jumped to second place in the Eastern Conference. Despite owning the same record as the Toronto Raptors, the head-to-head tiebreaker puts the Heat ahead in the standings.
Miami closes its five-game homestand Tuesday at 8 p.m. against the Boston Celtics.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Magic, which was playing on the second night of a back-to-back ...
1. Heat center Bam Adebayo continues to prove he’s one of the best passing big men in the league ... and an All-Star.
With another standout stat line that included 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists on Monday, Adebayo recorded his third triple-double of the season. He also notched his team-leading 26th double-double and finished a game with seven-plus assists for the ninth time this season.
In the Heat’s big third quarter, Adebayo tallied six points, two rebounds and five assists.
“It was about honoring Kobe [Bryant],” Adebayo said of his performance. “I feel like every player wanted to do that the next game after his death. I feel like I had the ‘Mamba Mentality’ tonight. He had been my idol since I was younger. I looked up to him and I never got to meet him, but he was here by spirit.”
Adebayo, 22, is averaging 16 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.1 blocks this season. He’s one of only two players averaging at least 15 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block this season — a short list that also includes reigning MVP and Bucks All-Star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo.
If those averages hold the rest of the way, Adebayo would become the first player in franchise history to finish a season with averages of at least 15 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block.
With the seven All-Star reserves from each conference set to be announced Thursday at 7 p.m. on TNT, Adebayo will receive serious consideration to earn his first trip to the All-Star Game because of his unique all-around skill set.
“I hope so,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked if he believes Adebayo should be an All-Star this season. “In some ways, it can be an unpredictable process. ... Right or wrong, I try to let his game and our winning and potentially what I say after the games and before speak for itself. I don’t contact coaches one-on-one [to campaign for players]. Maybe that’s wrong. I just don’t feel comfortable doing that. I don’t like receiving those random texts out of nowhere when I haven’t spoken to anybody all season long. Your play should speak louder than anything else. I just feel in my core, in my heart that Bam’s play has spoken loud enough to be an All-Star and our winning should be proof of that.”
In addition to Adebayo’s strong night, the Heat also got a quality performance from Duncan Robinson. The second-year forward finished with 21 points on 6-of-9 shooting on threes.
No Magic player scored more than 13 points Monday, with Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic both reaching that mark in the loss.
2. The Heat’s Kobe Bryant tribute spilled into the game.
The basketball world has been left in a state of shock after Bryant was killed Sunday along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
“I think the world is in shock and in disbelief because what he has done as a brand, what he has done for the game of basketball and how he has influenced so many people in so many different ways,” Heat wing Jimmy Butler said. “When you say ‘Mamba Mentality,’ Kobe Bryant, Bean, however you put it, man. We realize he was more than just a basketball player, but he influenced everybody in an incredible way to be great at whatever you’re doing. It’s special.”
Just minutes before Monday’s game, the Heat honored Bryant and Gianna with a tribute video that included various highlights from Bryant’s playing career and ended with a photo of Bryant and Gianna. Then there were 24 seconds of silence in the arena, honoring the No. 24 jersey Bryant wore for the second part of his career. The crowd capped the pregame tribute with chants of “Kobe!”
The Bryant tribute continued at the start of the game, when the Heat took a 24-second violation on the first possession and the Magic followed by taking an eight-second violation on the next possession in honor of the two jersey numbers Bryant wore during his NBA career.
At halftime, Bryant’s Oscar-winning short “Dear Basketball” was played on the AmericanAirlines Arena video screen. It drew more “Kobe!” chants from the crowd when the six-minute film was over.
And when the final buzzer sounded, “Kobe!” chants again filled the building.
“It felt surreal,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s tribute. “As everybody was chanting, I still felt great sadness. I remember those games when we played here, how electric those games were. But when the Lakers would go on a run, in particular when Kobe started to get it going, you had Lakers fans and Kobe fans coming out of the woodwork. This felt like all of a sudden it would be L.A. Yes, I loved the tribute. But it doesn’t change anything. You just feel horrifically sad about this.”
Even the AmericanAirlines Arena marquee was used to pay tribute, as it displayed a rotating series of photos of Bryant and Gianna throughout the day Monday.
“When I was in high school, I said if I make it to the NBA that I want to meet Kobe,” Adebayo admitted. “I feel like I was having an All-Star year this year and I felt like he was going to come to the game. I broke down.”
3. Even with Goran Dragic back from injury, guard Dion Waiters remained in the Heat’s rotation. But Waiters played limited minutes.
After making his season debut in Friday’s loss to the Clippers, Waiters played in his second consecutive game Monday even with Dragic (left calf bruise) back from a one-game absence. With guard Kendrick Nunn (bilateral Achilles soreness) still out, Waiters was the fifth reserve used against the Magic and played limited minutes.
Waiters finished Monday’s win with three points, two rebounds and two assists in six minutes. All of his minutes came in one second-quarter stint.
On Friday, Waiters finished with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field and 4-of-9 shooting on threes, four rebounds and one assist in 18 minutes off the bench. But Dragic’s return Monday ate into some of Waiters’ playing time against the Magic.
This has still been an encouraging stretch for Waiters and the Heat. Waiters didn’t play his first minutes of the season until the Heat’s 45th game after serving three team-issued suspensions over the first two months of the season. Making his first comments to the South Florida media on Sunday since the suspensions, Waiters said he took “full responsibility” for his missteps.
As long as Nunn is out, Waiters has a real chance to be in the Heat’s rotation. But when Nunn returns, Waiters could be left watching from the bench again. Nunn started the first 44 games of the season before suffering the Achilles injury that has kept him out for two consecutive games.
4. Butler played against the Magic despite spraining his right ankle in Friday’s loss to the Clippers.
Entering Monday’s game, Butler was listed as questionable. But the ankle injury didn’t force him to miss any time, with Butler recording 19 points, three rebounds and seven assists in 30 minutes against the Magic in his usual spot in the Heat’s starting lineup.
“This was not just based on him,” Spoelstra said of the decision to have Butler to play Monday. “It was a group decision on that. He was already starting to feel better yesterday and he was campaigning 24 hours in advance. So that put all of our training staff on alert that he was aiming to try to play and they just wanted to make sure that he just passed all the right protocols to be able to do it in a smart way. I thought he was moving better than I would have anticipated.”
When asked how his ankle felt following Monday’s game, Butler said: “I’m cool. If I’m out there, I’m supposed to hoop.”
Butler has missed six games this season — three because of paternity leave, one because of an illness, one because of lower back soreness and another because of right hip soreness.
5. Lately, wins against the Magic have been hard to come by for the Heat.
Entering Monday’s matchup, the Heat had lost five of its past six meetings against the Magic. In its previous 12 games against Orlando, Miami was 3-9.
“Overall, I told the group that was a solid professional win,” Spoelstra said following Monday’s victory over the Magic. “They were coming off a back-to-back. We had a work day yesterday. And some of the things that we’ve been trying to get better with, it showed tonight against, we feel, a high quality opponent. Our games with Orlando are some of our toughest ones of the season.”
The Heat evened this season’s series against the Magic at 1-1. The Heat dropped its first matchup against the Magic 105-85 on Jan. 3 in Orlando.
The Heat and Magic face off two more times this season, with their next matchup coming Saturday in Orlando. Miami has not won its season series against Orlando since the 2015-16 season. Considering the Magic has posted a 96-150 regular-season record over the past three seasons, Miami’s struggles against Orlando have been perplexing.
This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 9:54 PM.
