Adebayo earns rest after success
MIAMI — The Miami Heat apparently have gotten the read they needed on first-round pick Bam Adebayo.
After pushing the big man out of Kentucky through four games at last week’s Orlando summer league and then three this week at the Las Vegas summer league, the Heat held Adebayo out for a second consecutive day in Thursday’s 91-84 victory over a similar team of young players from the Los Angeles Clippers.
After averaging 17.5 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks in his four games on the practice court of the Orlando Magic at Amway Center, Adebayo has averaged 15.7 points, 8.7 rebounds and 0.3 blocks in his three outings on the UNLV campus.
“We have seen exactly what we saw and why we drafted him,” Heat President Pat Riley said before joining the team in Las Vegas. “He’s super athletic. He’s an above-the rim-player. We’ve seen that part of his game. We’ve seen his coast-to-coast game, that he can handle. He sets great screens. I think he can be an excellent defender. He blocks shots. So we’ve seen all of that.”
With the Heat’s summer roster limited with NBA experience, Adebayo was given the opportunity to expose all of his possibilities, including bust-out dribbles after securing defensive rebounds.
“My suggestion, and I think what the coaching staff has done, is they’ve given him somewhat of a canvas to paint his game on a canvas in the summer league,” Riley said. “He has shown a number of things that we knew he could do but he’s never been exposed to.
“But as he starts to feel more and more comfortable when he’s open on a shot, when he’s ready to put the ball on the floor and go to the basket, wants to take it off the board and go coastto-coast and make a play, he’s feeling confidence right now in doing that.”
The next step comes on the Heat’s practice court, with that work beginning for the team’s developmental players as early as August, more than two months before the start of the season.
“We love the pick,” Riley said. “There’s a real upside there.”
With Thursday’s victory, the Heat will next play in a 6 p.m. Saturday quarterfinal at the Las Vegas tournament.
After sitting out Wednesday’s loss to the Washington Wizards, forward Okaro White, the lone player on the summer roster who was with the Heat last season, returned Thursday to lead the Heat with 23 points, adding nine rebounds against the Clippers. He was supported by 22 points from 5-foot-8 Justin Robinson, the undrafted point guard out of Monmouth.
“I try to come out every night and play how I play, just play hard, just take advantage of the minutes that I’m given,” Robinson said after shooting 4 of 8 on 3-pointers. “I’m trying here to prove that I belong. And so far I’m doing a solid job.”
From 0-5 in Orlando, the Heat have moved to 4-1 in Las Vegas.
“It’s a great experience,” Robinson said. “We didn’t have a lot of time together in camp, so when we got here and we started to jell after taking those five losses in Orlando, we really went back to the drawing board and just wanted to get back to playing Miami Heat basketball. So now that we’re rolling a little bit, it definitely feels good.”
The Heat closed 15 of 37 on 3-pointers against the Clippers.