Twin centers
Whiteside, Adebayo give team effective twin-center lineup
Whiteside, Adebayo pair up successfully.
The approach is a hybrid for both Erik Spoelstra and in today’s small-ball NBA.
To Hassan Whiteside, playing in a twin-center lineup with Bam Adebayo is almost a crossover to another sport.
“It was great man,” Whiteside said of the nuance the Miami Heat put into play in Friday’s victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. “It was a couple of times we were just playing volleyball with each other on the rebounds. It’s a lot different when he’s out there. It’s really athletic.”
Spoelstra hinted at the approach early last week in the wake of the shoulder injury that has sidelined Kelly Olynyk the past two games and has his status in question going into Tuesday’s game against the Toronto Raptors at the end of this current three-day break. He then put it into play in the victory that snapped the Heat’s five-game losing streak.
Whiteside and Adebayo were on the court for 10 minutes together against the Bucks, with Whiteside closing with 12 points and 16 rebounds, Adebayo with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
“I like those minutes,” Spoelstra said.
As did his big men, if only because it does not mean having to split a mere 48 in the middle. Whiteside played 25:35 against the Bucks, Adebayo 32:22.
“I feel like we try to wrestle each other for rebounds,” Adebayo said, furthering the crossover analogies. “I know we were at the free-throw line and I took one from him because it was my 10th. But we ran on the court smiling about it.
“But I love playing with H. Two shot blockers, two athletic bigs and
we both can facilitate.”
There even was a moment of imitation as a form of flattery, with Adebayo catching a blocked shot.
“I ain’t never seen that,” Whiteside said. “He surprised himself. I told him you, looked like me, man. I told him I messed his highlight up on the other end, but it was a spectacular catch block. I give it an Aplus.”
Having two big men who can keep blocked shots in play provides Spoelstra another means of getting the Heat’s sluggish offense in motion.
“When he caught that one,” Spoelstra said of the play by his first-round pick out of Kentucky, “now we have two players who not only can block shots, but can keep them inbounds.
“And they’ve both shown the ability to catch them legally which is even better. Keeping it inbounds, you keep the possession and it turns into an outlet pass.”
Adebayo said he surprised himself with the play — and the fact that play continued.
“This happened one other time when I was in college — only two times it’s happened,” he said. “I usually just block it and it goes out of bounds.
“I was in the moment, so I was like, ‘Oh snap.’ I thought he was going to call goaltending.”
To a degree, the Heat’s shift to a high-post dribble hand off offense has come easier to Adebayo, because it is the only NBA offense he has known. For Whiteside, it has been an ongoing adjustment to his preference of pick-and-roll and low-post play.
It is among the reason Adebayo’s minutes have been on the rise and why he played more than Whiteside on Friday night.
“Offensively, a subtle nuance on the other end, we were able to run offense through Bam for that stretch, end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter,” Spoelstra said of when the Heat pulled ahead of the Bucks. “He settled us. He got a couple of actions that broke Wayne [Ellington] free, just the ability to run offense through him.”
The Bucks’ length allowed Spoelstra to comfortably to play big. That wasn’t the case in Wednesday’s loss to the Houston Rockets, but could be the case Tuesday against the Raptors’ Jonas Valanciunas and Serge Ibaka.
“I try to just bring out the energy in H,” Adebayo said. “Any time he does something, I’m always the first one to slap his hand and keep him motivated, because sometimes he can get down on himself when he messes up. But it’s time to make plays and he’s playing well for us.”