Adams carries load against the Heat
There was nobody close to Steven Adams, and the Chesapeake Energy Crowd was well aware.
So as Adams held the ball outside the 3-point line in the second quarter of Friday’s 105-99 Thunder win against Miami, Oklahoma City fans began to shout “Shooooot!”
Adams heard it. He didn’t consider it.
It would be, Adams said, “a waste of a possession.”
“And I would get destroyed,” Adams said, gesturing toward Russell Westbrook’s locker. “Old mate over there, he
would chew my… .”
His voice tailed off, but you get the idea.
It’s not like Adams needs to extend the range anyway. Not when he can do the kind of damage around the rim that he did Friday. On a night when the Thunder’s offensive engine didn’t rev until the fourth quarter, Adams got out and pushed to keep it moving.
Adams scored 24 points. He grabbed 12 rebounds. With most of the Thunder’s top offensive threats struggling, Adams carried the scoring load and anchored a defense that kept Miami similarly mired.
Russell Westbrook took over in the end, scoring 17 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter.
It was Adams who put him in position to seal the deal.
“Steve-O was amazing for us tonight,” teammate Raymond Felton said. “The things he did — just dominating the paint, timely baskets,
timely rebounds he was getting, he was amazing. He was definitely the player of the game tonight, by far.”
Adams is second in the NBA in screen assists, a screen that leads directly to a made basket. He’s the league’s second-best best offensive rebounder at 5.1 per game. He contests 13.2 shots per game, sixth most in the league.
And Adams gets credit for those little things.
But in his fifth NBA season, he’s becoming a bigger part of the Thunder’s offense — averaging a career-high 13.9 points and shooting a careerbest 63.4 percent from the floor — while continuing to be a key to its defense.
On Friday, he showed the range of ways he can impact a game.
Scoring? Sure. He made 9 of 13 shots on a night when the Thunder shot just 42.9 percent as a team, and starters Paul George, Carmelo Anthony and Corey Brewer combined to shoot 6 of 29.
Rebounding? Always. Adams grabbed 12 of them, six at each end of the floor.
Passing? Why not? In a one-point game with 5:51 to play, Adams hit Brewer in the right corner for the only shot he made all night, a 3-pointer that put the Thunder up 82-78.
For good measure, Adams came up with a clutch bucket, salvaging a near-disastrous Thunder possession in the final minute.
After OKC nearly turned the ball over in backcourt, Adams came to meet Westbrook’s pass across across the half court line, gave it back to his point guard, set a screen, rolled hard to the basket and hammered a one-handed dunk, stretching Oklahoma City’s lead to 99-95 with 43.1 seconds to play.
“Just a great tool for me,” Westbrook said. “I’m just honored and thankful he’s on our team. He plays extremely hard, and my job is to make sure I feed him.”
That shot — combined with a steal and 3-point play by George with 38.2 seconds left — helped ice the game, but it wasn’t the only sort of play Adams made offensively.
With the Heat playing small most of the night, Adams had “a huge advantage” in rolling to the rim, Thunder coach Billy Donovan said, but OKC also was able to post him up for baskets over one-on-one coverage in the paint.
That made him a force all night. No 3-pointers required.
“Steven’s value is extremely important in that sense of, when things get stagnant — we need a possession, we need a bucket, we need a quick relief — he always comes through,” George said. “He’s very underrated, whether he’s posting up or finishing at the basket. Very underrated.”