A LOOK BACK:

Having coached Udonis Haslem at the University of Florida, Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan offered his perspective on Wednesday night’s timeout dustup between Haslem and Butler. “He has no problem confronting anything that he feels may be getting in the way of winning or the team doing the very best it can,” Donovan said of Haslem “For the public, when they see guys going at it like that it’s, ‘OK, they don’t like each other.’ That’s the furthest thing from the truth. That’s just how it is when you have highly competitive guys.” Arriving to FTX Arena one game after the dustup, veteran Knicks forward Taj Gibson said,“That’s normal when it comes to championship-style basketball. You’re going to have little outbreaks. Not everybody’s going to have a cool head all season. That’s just a test of camaraderie.’’ Or, as former Heat guard Dragic said, “That’s normal. I was here for seven years. This is how we operated here.”

For all the Heat scouting staff has accomplished, and there has been plenty, from the draft picks in recent years of Adebayo and Herro, to the mining of undrafted talent such as Robinson, Gabe Vincent and Strus, the 2020 draft stands somewhat as an outlier. Even with Heat No. 20 pick Precious Achiuwa beginning to come into his own with the Raptors, the Heat’s draft slot still comes off as one that got away. Consider that at No. 21, the Philadelphia 76ers walked away with Tyrese Maxey, who schooled the Heat with his 28 points in Monday’s victory. And then consider that at No. 30, the Memphis Grizzlies landed Desmond Bane, who this past week put up a combined 77 points in three victories that helped clinch a playoff berth. Considering Achiuwa was a lynchpin to the acquisition of Lowry, the selection seemingly met the Heat’s needs. But it also was an example of how talent can be found later in the first round, with the

Heat projected to select toward the end of the 2022 opening round.

CASE FOR BAM: ESPN provided some compelling numbers when it comes to Adebayo’s case of consideration for Defensive Player of the Year. Per the website’s breakdown on contenders for the award, “According to Second Spectrum, he has switched 11.9 times per game when defending on-ball screens, by far the most in the NBA this season and on pace to be the most in a season since player tracking began in 2013-14. … When his perimeter assignments try to shoot over him, they fail most of the time. He’s defending 4.6 3s a game, and his matchups are shooting just 29.2% from 3, the second-lowest mark among centers. His matchups are shooting 6.5% worse than their overall average from 3 when being defended by Adebayo, which is the highest differential among all centers.”

THE HEAT EXAMPLE: In noting his team’s unexpected success, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love recently cited the Heat’s example.“I look at a team like a Phoenix, that’s incredibly well respected, they all play for each other, really share the ball, share the wealth,” Love said, “and genuinely want that next guy to do extremely well and when it happens, celebrate them. We’ve been able to do that here. I think Miami does the same thing. There’s teams in this league that really have each other’s back through thick and thin, through ups and downs, through wins and losses they really stick together.”

15

Heat division titles since capturing their first in 1997. Over that span, the next closest teams are the San Antonio Spurs with

13 division titles, the Lakers with 10 and the Oklahoma City Thunder/ Seattle SuperSonics with eight.

NUMBER