Heat receives good news on Adebayo injury. Also, NBA says Butler wasn’t fouled at end vs. Nets
During a season filled with injury issues for the Miami Heat, a new and concerning one has arisen involving starting center Bam Adebayo. But the Heat received good news on Monday.
After Adebayo left Sunday night’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets early because of pain in his right hand, an MRI revealed a right wrist contusion and nothing more serious. He’s listed as questionable for Tuesday’s home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Also on the Heat’s injury report for Tuesday’s matchup against the Thunder: Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Kyle Lowry (left knee discomfort), Caleb Martin (left quadriceps strain), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery) have been ruled out; Udonis Haslem (right Achilles tendinosis) and Tyler Herro (left Achilles soreness) are questionable; and Dewayne Dedmon (left foot plantar fasciitis) and Gabe Vincent (left knee effusion) are probable.
Adebayo, 25, finished Sunday’s loss with 10 points on 5-of-15 shooting from the field and 0-of-3 shooting from the foul line, eight rebounds and two assists in 28 minutes. But he was pulled from game with 5:11 left in the fourth quarter and did not return because of the injury.
“There was a really hard hand contusion in the first half and he tried to gut it out in the second half, and you could see he was basically playing with one hand,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It was just extremely sore. So I had to make that tough call and take the decision out of his hands in the fourth quarter.”
Adebayo called “an easy decision on both ends” to hold him out of the final five minutes of Sunday’s game.
“I had to own up that I couldn’t shoot the ball, obviously,” said Adebayo, who went scoreless and missed each of his six shot attempts in the second half against the Nets. “So that’s why I was like, I’m cool with it.”
An initial X-ray returned negative, as Adebayo wore a wrap around his right hand and wrist after Sunday’s game. An MRI on Monday confirmed that he avoided the worst-case scenario.
Adebayo has missed four games this season — two because of a left knee contusion, one because of a left ankle sprain and one because of a non-COVID illness. The Heat is 2-2 in games without him.
Adebayo missed 22 straight games last season after undergoing surgery in December 2021 on a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb. But this latest injury to his right wrist is not expected to keep him out for an extended stretch.
“That’s not this,” Adebayo said. “It’s not like how that was. I knew I was going to miss time for [my thumb injury last season]. This is day-to-day. I call it how I see it, it’s day-to-day. Just get a lot of treatment.”
Adebayo is averaging All-Star-level numbers with a career-high 21.5 points on 53.9 percent shooting from the field to go with 9.9 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game in his sixth NBA season. Adebayo has been arguably the Heat’s most irreplaceable player in part because of the big drop-off between him and the backup center options, as the team has been outscored by 5.6 points per 100 possessions when Adebayo hasn’t been on the court this season.
With big man Omer Yurtseven expected to miss at least the next month of games as he continues to recover from left ankle surgery, the only other center options on the roster are veteran Dewayne Dedmon and undrafted rookie Orlando Robinson if Adebayo is forced to miss games.
“When it’s excruciating like how it was during the game, I feel like some of y’all would have went to the ER,” Adebayo said to reporters following Sunday’s game. “But it’s one of those things that we’re built for it.”
ROBINSON EARNS PLAYING TIME
Even before Adebayo’s injury, Robinson was starting to earn more playing time as the Heat’s backup center. In Sunday’s loss to the Nets, Robinson played ahead of Dedmon in the backup center role.
Robinson finished Sunday’s game with six points on 3-of-4 shooting from the field, nine rebounds and two assists in 20 minutes, as Dedmon received his first DNP-CD of the season. The Heat outscored the Nets by 24 points with Robinson on the court.
“I thought he just gave us great minutes,” Spoelstra said of Robinson. “Even when we had to take Bam out in the fourth quarter, that could have been an emotional downer, like a real buzz kill. But O had been playing really well and when I turned to him, everybody else was like: ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’ He’s earned the minutes and I think the way he was really sprinting to the rim on some of the pick-and-rolls and creating a little bit of confusion, really helped us generate some clean looks. His efforts on the offensive glass were really helpful. He had some really good big plays in the fourth quarter.”
When asked about the decision to play Robinson over Dedmon as the backup center on Sunday, Spoelstra said: “Basically everybody is on the table right now. We need contributions from everybody, anybody and it might differ from game to game. It made the most sense we felt tonight with Orlando and we’ll just see where it goes from here. It’s not an indictment on Dewayne at all, particularly as he’s starting to feel much better [from plantar fasciitis].”
BLOWN CALL?
Spoelstra made it clear following Sunday’s one-point loss that he believes Heat star Jimmy Butler was fouled by Nets forward Royce O’Neale as Butler drove to the basket and missed what would have been a game-winning layup with 0.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
But the NBA Officiating Last Two Minute Report confirmed the no-call was the right ruling in that situation.
“O’Neale (BKN) jumps verticality and absorbs the oncoming contact from Butler (MIA) on his driving shot attempt,” the report said.
Spoelstra saw it differently.
“I just don’t think he was vertical, I don’t think he was set,” Spoelstra said Sunday of O’Neale’s positioning on the final play. “I think it was not the classic A to B and I don’t think he was in position. I’m sure they’ll say otherwise and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. But I think that earned the right to go to the free-throw line and see if we could have won the game.”
The Last Two Minute Report did rule that a traveling violation should have been called on guard Kyrie Irving during the Nets’ final offensive possession that ended with O’Neale’s game-winning put-back with 3.2 seconds left to play.
But the result stands: The Nets defeated the Heat 102-101 on Sunday night.
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 5:30 PM.
