Adebayo delivers at moment of truth
SACRAMENTO — One by one, it was as if Bam Adebayo was the last man standing.
Terry Rozier was still sidelined by the knee sprain that has had him out since before the All-Star break. Jimmy Butler was banished to the locker room less than a minute into the fourth quarter after a chokehold of an intervention during a melee.
And then with 1 minute, 40 seconds to play — a decisive final 100 seconds — Tyler Herro hobbled into the locker room with a hyperextended knee.
So there stood Adebayo, with Friday night’s game in the balance against the New Orleans Pelicans at the start of this four-game trip.
What followed was unrelenting — and a reminder of what Adebayo can be when activated.
“Yeah, he stepped up,” Herro said of the victory over the Pelicans, with the Heat’s trip continuing Monday night against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.
“That’s what he’s been doing all season. That’s why he’s an All-Star, that’s why he’s our guy. We go to him in moments that we need him, and he comes up big.”
With the Heat’s defensive options limited in that decisive fourth quarter, Adebayo anchored the zone defense that left the Pelicans flummoxed.
With Herro and Butler back in the locker room, and with Rozier and Josh Richardson not available, Adebayo became the fulcrum of the offense.
And when points were needed in that fourth quarter, Adebayo nearly outscored the Pelicans in the period, closing with 12 to New Orleans’ 15 over the final 12 minutes.
“It’s guys believing in me, Coach believing in me, believing in myself to make plays down the
stretch,” he said.
“I got in a flow early. Teammates started finding me in my spots. From there in the fourth, Coach just kept calling my number.”
When the Heat needed someone to do everything, coach Erik Spoelstra turned to his everyman.
“Bam made so many great defensive plays down the stretch,” Spoelstra said. “And it’s a sign of a good team that even with Jimmy out, other guys can step up and they wanted it.
“You could feel it, that guys wanted to do it for Jimmy and just the context of everything — let’s just figure a way to finish this game and make sure it was a win.
“But you know, for sure, Bam just kind of anchored a lot of things for us. It’s not necessarily the scoring. We had somewhere we could throw the ball.
“We had a lot of our ballhandlers out. We were running the ball through him at the top of the floor, and once it got down to the three-minute mark and I took that timeout, we started to post him just to try to slow the game down.”
That was when selflessness turned into self-will.
“When our main guy goes out, somebody has to step up and my number got called,” Adebayo said. “So all those summer workouts, all the late-night stressing about making shots pays off.”
On the other end, the aggression was undeniable, Adebayo recording three of the Heat’s season-high 11 blocked shots.
“We’re trying to get to our identity. I always say let our defense be our offense,” Adebayo said. “We did that, got stops and converted on the other end.”
All, he said, while working with the proper restraint, including attempting to play peacemaker in the melee that ensued after a foul by the Heat’s Kevin Love against the Pelicans’ Zion Williamson.
“I see Zion hit the ground,” Adebayo said, “and the next thing I know guys are in a funk.
“It’s one of those things where it happened, you try to protect your teammates. I feel like it was more over exaggerated than what it really was.”
What was not exaggerated was the impact of Adebayo and the zone.
“That’s one of our strengths,” Herro said. “I think Spo does a good job of just toggling back and forth, to man, zone, fullcourt press.
“Just doing different things to keep them out of rhythm. And that’s why we’ve been holding teams under their average.”