This pair is next level
Adebayo, McGruder upping their game as team fights injuries
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The goal is a healthy Hassan Whiteside and a healthy Dwyane Wade in the rotation.
But that is not how this three-game trip for the Miami Heat opened, and it is why Coach Erik Spoelstra has stressed strength in numbers.
So when he needed to turn to Bam Adebayo and Rodney McGruder as fill-ins, Spoelstra did it without reservations.
“I know it’s a narrative out there that’s one of the most ridiculous ones, is that, ‘Oh, you have too much at X position or Y position,’ “Spoelstra said amid this trip, with a second stop Wednesday night at Golden 1 Center against the Sacramento Kings before concluding Friday at Staples Center against the Lakers. “Forget that, you need talent, you need players, you need to be able to withstand the normal things that happen during the course of the NBA season, when guys are out of the lineup for whatever reason.”
In this case, it is the sore hip that Whiteside took west and the sore hamstring that Wade is treating, with both again sidelined Wednesday.
“So we think all year that our depth has been one of our strongpoints and we need that depth with this road trip,” Spoelstra said.
Spoelstra was asked if he could have envisioned Bam Adebayo starting in such playoff-race games as a rookie.
“It depends on when,” he said. “If you would have asked me in July? No. He was a developmental guy in our minds. In September, we still thought he would be a developmental guy, but he’d started to raise our eyebrows with his preseason play. By the time we got to the Minnesota home game [on Oct. 30] where we threw him in when Hassan was out, he was doing more than even making us watch him play. He was making us figure out how to get him on the floor even when Hassan was back.”
Those early-season starts amid previous Whiteside absences made it easier for Adebayo to prepare for these playoff-race moments.
“I feel like Coach is trusting me for what I’ve done and produced on the court,” the first-round pick out of Kentucky said. “So it’s just building that bond between me and him, and he is showing that he can trusts me by putting me in late games and leaving me in. I’ve developed a good relationship.”
Adebayo said the preference would be Whiteside at 100 percent, but he has grown to appreciate that the NBA schedule doesn’t always allow for complete health.
“The same thing I said earlier in the season, when I wasn’t playing, was always be ready because you never know when your time is,” he said. “So I’m just always keeping that mindset and being positive.”
Then there is McGruder, who has been back for three weeks after previously being sidelined since preseason leg surgery, now needed with Wade out and Josh Richardson ailing with a sore left foot.
“The whole thing with Rodney,” Spoelstra said, “has been getting him in game condition and his rhythm. So the last three weeks have been pivotal for him. So to go to Sioux Falls, and find some minutes in our games, and then it culminated with a 20-miniute game the other night [at home against Washington, where he really looked a lot more like the Rodney that we were accustomed to seeing.
“It’s just a matter of time. There’s nothing you can do to replace five on five, game action in this league.”
McGruder said that does not mean he tries to be Wade when playing in place of Wade.
“Just catch a flow of the game, see how the game is going, and whatever needs to be done and I have that opportunity, seize the moment,” the second-year guard said.
At this moment, the goal is to seize on the conditioning needed for the playoffs.
“I feel good,” McGruder said. “Like I’ve been saying, the training staff and everybody, they’ve been doing a great job with just getting me back on track with my conditioning and getting rhythm. Playing in the G League, that helped out a lot. So just all the things leading up have helped put me in a great positon.”