Coach Erik Spoelstra delivers pointed message to critics about the Heat’s Bam Adebayo
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra delivered a pointed message on Wednesday to anyone outside the organization who suggests that Bam Adebayo needs to be more aggressive early in games, needs to shoot more or do anything else he’s not doing to anyone else’s liking.
“Everybody else can stick it up you know where,” Spoelstra said after Miami’s practice session in advance of Game 2 of the Heat-Pacers series on Thursday at the Disney complex (1 p.m., Fox Sports Sun, ESPN).
Spoelstra acknowledged “more people have opinions of how he needs to play. He’s doing the right things for our team. That’s the only thing that matters. Everybody else can stick it up you know where.
“He just continues to play how we need him to play as an All-Star player. He definitely has to quiet [people]; he doesn’t need to hear all the opinions of how he needs to play. He’s playing winning basketball.”
Adebayo’s response to his coach’s comment?
“He’s worried about the way I help this team win,” Adebayo said Wednesday. “Everybody has got opinions on how I help this team win. In October, nobody knew who I was and now everybody has got all these opinions saying how I should do things, when I should do it, how I should do it. But you didn’t have an opinion or didn’t care about me when we were in October going into the preseason.
“I respect [Spoelstra] totally for it. He understands, he knows what we came from and I’m starting to flourish now. The biggest thing is he just wants me to impact winning and help this team win. Other people got opinions, but they didn’t have opinions in October.”
Adebayo took 14 shots in Miami’s Game 1 win; only Goran Dragic and Jimmy Butler took more.
“He’s a winning player,” Spoelstra said of his third-year big man. “Nobody was paying attention three years ago to how Bam was playing. Now everybody has an opinion on whether he needs to shoot it, where he needs to shoot it, how aggressive he needs to be. He’s doing the right things for our team. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Adebayo on Tuesday joined LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal and Lamar Odom as the only Heat players with at least 15 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a playoff game.
Though he played a lot as a power forward as well this season, if Adebayo is compared only with centers, he finished second among centers in assists during the regular season at 5. 1 per game (behind Denver’s Nikola Jokic), fourth in scoring at 15.9 (behind Jokic, Nikola Vucevic and Andre Drummond) and sixth in field-goal attempts at 11.0 per game (behind Karl Anthony-Towns, Jokic, Vucevic, Drummond and Serge Ibaka).
NUNN FALLOUT
It might seem highly unusual for a player to go from starting every regular game in which he appeared and then not playing at all in the first game of the playoffs, as Heat guard Kendrick Nunn did Tuesday.
But the Elias Sports Bureau said it’s not all that unusual.
During the past 10 years, more than 20 players started every game (minimum 50) during a season and then didn’t play in Game 1, and injuries were only one factor for that. Nunn is not injured; his absence from the Game 1 rotation was entirely Spoelstra’s decision.
“It’s something we talked about as a team,” Spoelstra said when asked about Nunn’s lack of playing time in Game 1 after he started all 67 of his appearances during the regular season.
“It’s Game 1. Kendrick is a major part of our team. We will get into our depth at some point.
“So when I make these decisions, what I feel is best at that particular time but you also want to do it with a great deal of empathy. It’s not easy decisions. You have to stay ready. K-Nunn is mentally tough enough to understand that.”
Center Meyers Leonard, who started every game in which he appeared before the Orlando restart, also didn’t play in Game 1, which has usually been the case for him since the NBA restart.
“Meyers has been through it before, so he gets the big picture,” Spoelstra said. “The goal is bigger than the role. Everyone is all in on what we’re trying to accomplish.”
THIS AND THAT
Spoelstra said guard Tyler Herro has “been playing well” in the bubble. “It’s gotten a lot better as the season has gone on. He’s had good moments, had moments where he struggled as rookies naturally do but he’s stayed with it. You’re seeing the results of that. He’s been playing well in the bubble.”
▪ With his performance Tuesday, Dragic joined Tim Hardaway, Wade and James as the only players in Heat playoff history to have at least 24 points, six rebounds, five assists and four three-pointers.
▪ Before Jimmy Butler did it Tuesday, only one player in Heat history had at least 28 points, four steals and two blocks in a playoff game.
And that was among the most memorable performances in Heat history, by Wade in Game 6 of the 2006 series-clinching NBA Finals win in Dallas, giving the Heat its first championship.
▪ One big key for Miami on Tuesday was it committed only nine turnovers, including one in the second half. Indiana entered forcing 18 turnovers per game in the Disney bubble. And on the other end, Miami scored 23 points off Pacers turnovers.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
