An aggressive Bam Adebayo, and other takeaways from the Heat’s preseason opener
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 121-111 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves to open the preseason on Tuesday night at FTX Arena:
This was not the Heat’s preseason dress rehearsal.
The preseason opener isn’t often used as the dress rehearsal, but that much was confirmed when Heat coach Erik Spoelstra announced that Jimmy Butler, Victor Oladipo and Gabe Vincent would miss Tuesday’s game because of rest purposes. All three players are expected to be part of Miami’s rotation this season.
Butler only played in the first quarter of Monday night’s Red, White and Pink Game, but Oladipo and Vincent were also held out of the intrasquad scrimmage.
The good news is none of their absences seem to be injury related, although Vincent missed one training camp practice last week because of a knee issue.
Even with Oladipo undergoing two surgeries on his right knee in the last three-plus years, Spoelstra said the team’s decision to hold him out of Monday’s scrimmage and Tuesday’s preseason opener did not have to do with an injury.
“He had a great camp and the workload was pretty significant,” Spoelstra said of Oladipo prior to Tuesday’s game. “So he’s been doing work the last two days behind the scenes. We want to rest him a couple days before he gets out there and competes.”
As for Butler, he was given preseason games off last year, too. He played in just two of the Heat’s six preseason games last season.
Heat starting point guard Kyle Lowry, 36, did play on Tuesday. He finished the preseason opener with four points on 1-of-3 shooting from the field, three rebounds and one assist in 16 minutes before being given the second half off.
The question now becomes when will the Heat’s preseason dress rehearsal be? Miami has four preseason games left to play, with a road back-to-back set up next against the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday and Memphis Grizzlies on Friday.
Butler’s absence created an opportunity for the Heat to explore its two-big lineup for extended minutes on Tuesday.
With Butler out, the Heat used a starting lineup of Kyle Lowry, Tyler Herro, Caleb Martin, Omer Yurtseven and Bam Adebayo in the preseason opener.
There are a few things worth nothing about this combination:
▪ It appears that Herro, who won the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award last season, will be promoted to a starting role this season.
▪ Martin continues to look like the front-runner to start at power forward — a spot P.J. Tucker occupied last season before he signed with the Philadelphia 76ers this summer. Martin recorded 12 points while shooting 5-of-8 from the field and 2-of-4 shooting from three-point range, three rebounds, two assists and one block on Tuesday.
But the most interesting aspect of the Heat’s starting lineup to open the preseason is the Yurtseven-Adebayo frontcourt.
Adebayo is a lock to start, while Yurtseven is simply competing for a spot in the rotation this season after spending most of last season out of the rotation.
The double-big look of Adebayo (6-9, 255) and Yurtseven (6-11, 275) is one that continues to intrigue and even gained some buzz coming out of training camp last week.
Spoelstra was hesitant to play them together last season, as the Heat was outscored by 13 points in their 18 minutes on the court together.
But Spoelstra didn’t waste any time in trying out the Adebayo-Yurtseven pairing this preseason, as they played 20 minutes together on Tuesday. The Heat was outscored 56-47 during that time.
Yurtseven, 24, finished with 11 points and nine rebounds in 27 minutes before fouling out in the preseason opener.
Spacing on the offensive end is one of the concerns surrounding the Adebayo-Yurtseven look, with Yurtseven needing to prove he can hit enough threes to create space for that unit to operate. Yurtseven finished 1 of 3 from deep on Tuesday.
There are also questions defensively, as the Timberwolves looked to target Yurtseven’s defense and had success doing it.
“They’re working on it,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s offensive spacing with Adebayo and Yurtseven on the court. “That’s why we’re spending a lot of minutes. They’re not going to play this many minutes together, if they play together. We’ll figure that part out. But that takes more time than some of the space or speed lineups. That’s why we’re dedicating time to that now in the preseason and in training camp.”
The Timberwolves’ two starting bigs, Karl-Anthony Towns (returning from illness) and Rudy Gobert (rest), were held out of Tuesday’s game.
The Heat wants Adebayo to be more assertive with his own offense and take on a bigger scoring role this season. He’s off to a strong start this preseason.
Adebayo’s aggressiveness stood out in his 25 minutes of action, as he totaled 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field, 1-of-1 shooting from three-point range and 3-of-3 shooting from the foul line, six rebounds, two assists and two steals before sitting out the fourth quarter.
In the third quarter alone, Adebayo scored nine points on six shot attempts.
This is obviously a small sample size, but Adebayo finished Tuesday’s loss with a rate of 24 shot attempts per 36 minutes. He averaged 14.4 shots per 36 minutes last season.
“The assertiveness is what we need,” Spoelstra said.
The other question surrounding Adebayo’s game entering this season has been whether he would begin incorporating the three-point shot into his offensive repertoire. After hitting three threes in Monday’s intrasquad scrimmage, he made his only three-point attempt of the preseason opener on a catch-and-shoot opportunity with 2:25 left in the third quarter.
Adebayo finished last regular season 0 of 6 from beyond the arc.
There was a bit of an injury scare for the Heat in the preseason opener.
While Herro looked to dribble past his defender, he banged knees with Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels early in the third quarter. Herro immediately went down to the court and grabbed his right knee in obvious pain.
Heat trainers and coaches went out to check on Herro. But the scare was brief, as Herro was able to shake if off and walk to the bench under his own power.
“I knew I hit knees,” Herro said afterwards. “It just hurt a little bit, more than normal. But I knew I just banged knees. So it was a scare, but I told Spo right away that I was good.”
Herro, who signed a four-year extension with the Heat worth $120 million and as much as $130 million on Sunday, actually stayed in the game. He finished with 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field, 2-of-5 shooting on threes and 6-of-6 shooting from the foul line, six rebounds and four assists in 26 minutes.
With three expected regulars not available, it was hard to get a real read on the Heat’s rotation in the preseason opener.
As Butler, Vincent and Oladipo sat out, the Heat went with a 10-man rotation in the first half.
While Lowry, Herro, Martin, Yurtseven and Adebayo started, the first five used off the bench were Max Strus, Dewayne Dedmon, Haywood Highsmith, Duncan Robinson and Marcus Garrett.
With 17 available players on Tuesday, the seven who were not in the first 10 even with three rotation players out were Nikola Jovic, Darius Days, Udonis Haslem, Jamaree Bouyea, Jamal Cain, Orlando Robinson and Dru Smith.
Smith, Orlando Robinson, Jovic and Cain entered the preseason opener in the second half.
Jovic, who the Heat selected with the No. 27 pick in the first round of this year’s draft, made his first appearance of the night with 5:47 left in the fourth quarter. The 19-year-old scored five points on 2-of-3 shooting from the field and 1-of-2 shooting from beyond the arc in his limited playing time.
Bouyea, Haslem and Days were the only available Heat players who did not appear in Tuesday’s game.
This story was originally published October 4, 2022 at 9:53 PM.
