With Butler out, Adebayo blames himself for Heat’s Game 2 loss to Knicks: ‘I played terrible’
Just minutes after star Jimmy Butler was ruled out for Game 2 because of a sprained right ankle, Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was asked what would be needed from All-Star center Bam Adebayo to help fill that void.
“He doesn’t need to score 50 for us to win this game,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo. “But he has to have his fingerprints all over this competition, and the way he does it is very similar to the way that Jimmy does it. He has to do it on both ends with massive challenges for him to be able to defend everybody, anybody and all the schemes. Then offensively, all the scoring, the facilitating, all of that. But that’s what he wants.”
The Heat nearly managed to win Game 2 of its second-round series against the New York Knicks on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden without Butler, but ultimately allowed a six-point lead midway through the fourth quarter to slip away in a 111-105 loss. The series is tied 1-1.
Adebayo finished with an underwhelming stat line — by his standards — of 15 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field and 5-of-7 shooting from the foul line, eight rebounds and six assists. Adebayo scored just two points on one field-goal attempt and grabbed one rebound in the fourth quarter.
For a player who made it a goal to take 18 shots per game this season and averaged 14.9 field-goal attempts per game in the regular season, Adebayo’s 10 shot attempts in Tuesday’s loss is a low number especially with Butler out.
The Knicks’ defense is consistently sending extra defenders Adebayo’s way whenever he catches the ball near the paint or tries to drive to the basket. But Adebayo refused to use that as an excuse for his quiet offensive night with Butler out in Game 2.
“I just got to play better,” Adebayo said, with the Heat and Knicks now entering a three-day break before Game 3 on Saturday in Miami. “I feel like this game was on me and I lost it for us. I got to be better.”
The specific play that bothered Adebayo wasn’t on offense, though. It was a costly foul he committed that helped fuel the Knicks’ game-winning run in the fourth quarter.
With the Heat ahead by six points midway through the fourth quarter, Adebayo was called for a foul after running through a screen set by Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein. Adebayo was trying to close out on a three-point attempt from Knicks guard Jalen Brunson but was instead called for the foul, as he knocked Hartenstein to the ground and Brunson went up for the shot and hit the three.
“I took off too fast and I should have just let [Brunson] shoot it instead of trying to run through [Hartenstein], get around him,” Adebayo, 25, said. “Coach has been telling us night in, night out to watch the back screens on the back side, and I got caught with one tonight.”
Hartenstein made the free throw to complete the four-point play and cut the Heat’s lead to two points with 6:42 to play. That four-point possession was the start of the Knicks’ 24-12 game-winning run to close the game.
“When you’re up six in that timeout, you get a stop, have an opportunity to score on the other end,” Spoelstra said of that painful sequence for the Heat. “But all of a sudden, by the time you’re going to the other end, it’s a two-point game. So that was probably the biggest swing moment.”
Adebayo, who has been playing through a strained left hamstring this postseason, is averaging 16.9 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game while shooting 47.6 percent on 14.7 field-goal attempts per game. Those numbers are down from his regular-season averages of 20.4 points and 9.2 rebounds per game while shooting 54 percent on 14.9 field-goal attempts per game.
Adebayo’s efficiency is down across the board. He shot 67.9 percent at the rim in the regular season and is shooting 61.8 percent at the rim in the playoffs, he shot 48.9 percent on non-rim paint looks in the regular season and is shooting 44.9 percent on non-rim paint looks in the playoffs, and he shot 38.5 percent on non-paint twos in the regular season and is shooting 31.6 percent on non-paint twos in the playoffs.
This downward trend began more than two months ago for Adebayo. With more defenses trying to negate Adebayo’s paint opportunities with extra defenders, he averaged 17.3 points and 7.1 rebounds per game while shooting 53 percent on 12.7 field-goal attempts per game in 21 regular-season games after the mid-February All-Star break.
Adebayo averaged 21.6 points and 10 rebounds per game while shooting 54.4 percent on 15.7 field-goal attempts per game in 54 appearances before the All-Star break.
While Adebayo is disappointed in his Game 2 performance, he believes his impact is usually felt in more ways than just scoring. He’s known as one of the NBA’s most versatile defenders and is an above-average passer for his position.
“If you’re a real basketball person, you can’t say like he can only affect the game if he scores,” Adebayo said earlier this postseason. “I feel like that’s just a one-minded mind-set. We have great scorers in this league. Some of us, we got to do the other things to make our game complete. Some people, that instinct is like this is what I do. You have the Mikes, you have the Kobes, you have those type of guys where it’s like when they wake up, it’s 60, it’s 50 [points]. Then you have guys like Dennis Rodman, he wakes up and it’s 18 rebounds, or Ben Wallace and those types of guys. You have guys like Scottie Pippen, who score, rebound, assist, play defense, do the intangibles. And then you have the guys who switch one through five.
“For me, I can impact the game. Yes, I can go get 30 [points] and that can impact the game. But also, if I’m not shooting well, I can also impact the game by having 10 points but having 12 rebounds and eight assists and we still win. There are other ways you can manipulate the game.”
But Adebayo believes he didn’t do enough to impact Game 2. With Butler out, Adebayo walked out of Madison Square Garden blaming himself for the loss.
“I played terrible,” Adebayo said. “So, yeah. I put this one on me.”
This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 10:29 AM.
