Before Game 2 of a series that Miami now leads 3-0, Erik Spoelstra had something to say.
“Nobody was paying an attention three years ago to how Bam [Adebayo] was playing, and now everyone has an opinion on whether he needs to shoot it, where he needs to shoot it, how aggressive he needs to be. He’s doing the right things for our team. That’s the only thing that matters. Everyone else can stick it up you know where.”
The money quote at the end made the rounds on Twitter, but the message was clear. If all you’re looking at are the makes, misses and points, you’re missing the point. Adebayo is more than any one column in the box-score. He’s more than any one role. For the HEAT, he’s everything. And from whom much is demanded, much is expected.
So, let’s look at the totality of Adebayo in Game 3. Start to finish. This is a Bam Game.
1. First possession of the game, the HEAT appear to set up a designed lob for Adebayo going backdoor. When Duncan Robinson isn’t able to set a clean screen, Adebayo resets, collects the ball and flows immediately into a handoff for a Robinson three, perfectly timing the rotation of his body to afford his shooter the inches he needs.
Only Nikola Jokic and his Denver backcourt ran more handoffs than Adebayo and Robinson, and no duo was as prolific as the HEAT’s was in posting 1.33 points per possession when attacking, per Second Spectrum data.
After the Toronto Raptors limited Robinson to just one make on four attempts from deep during seeding games, Adebayo stated plainly that it was ‘unacceptable’ for Robinson to have so few opportunities.
“I can’t dictate if Duncan’s shot goes in or not, but I can dictate if he gets an open look,” Adebayo said. “That’s my whole goal. If he gets an open look and he misses, then I can live with that because he has an open look and Duncan has made millions of those shots.”
2. ‘O’ is a strange movie in the basketball sphere. The finale in Julia Stiles’ turn-of-the-century trilogy of modern Shakespeare reimaginings, it nevertheless features Josh Hartnett as the modern-day Iago lamenting his under-appreciated role on a private school’s basketball team alongside Mekhi Phifer’s star player, the updated Othello.
“I’m considered a utility man,” Hartnett’s character says. “I rebound, I can shoot, I play guard, forward, power forward. You name the position, I play it.”
Sounds a bit like Bam’s possession-to-possession role, though with considerably less upside. Adebayo was fourth in the league in screen assists this season, posting 5.1 a game, and that’s carried over right to the playoffs. In Game 3, he led both teams with eight.
But where Hartnett’s Hugo-as-Iago complains about his lack of recognition for such things, as that story heads toward tragedy, Adebayo’s teammates do nothing but sing his praises.
“He’s a huge part of the team success, my success, everything,” Robinson said.
3. Pacers coach Nate McMillan swapped out Aaron Holiday for his sweet-shooting brother Justin in his starting lineup for Game 3, and the HEAT quickly tried to take advantage of the slender defender. Some teams might choose to do so by putting that player in pick-and-roll and hopefully drawing a mismatch they can exploit in the post.
The HEAT do just that, but they invert it as they ask Adebayo to handle. Despite the screen not forcing the switch, he gets to the cup.
After running about one pick-and-roll with the ball every four games his first two seasons, Adebayo increased that rate nearly ten-fold this season, producing 1.07 points per possession.
4. They can do things the traditional way, too. Adebayo’s post-up rates have fallen since his rookie year even as they grew in volume by way of simply playing more minutes, but these plays represent the future of where Adebayo’s game can eventually be. Just as with mid-range jumpers you can’t expect a massive change overnight. You need reps for that. This is playoff basketball, though, and the more switches there are the more mismatches you have to find ways to punish.
5. Start on Myles Turner.
Switch onto TJ Warren.
Switch again onto Justin Holiday and cut off the drive.
That all happens within five seconds.
Since Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill joined the HEAT’s roster in full on February 9 following the trade with the Memphis Grizzlies, Adebayo has switched 144 pick-and-rolls. Only P.J. Tucker, Houston’s defensive cog, has switched more.
As a team, the HEAT are switching at a Houston-like rate in the playoffs, inducing the third-most isolations of any postseason team. It’s a scheme that only works because Adebayo, as he’s long shown, can swap to any player on the floor.
“He’s what makes us go. There’s a huge difference when he’s off the floor, on both ends of it,” Jimmy Butler said.
6. The elbow is Adebayo’s home. Only Jokic and Domantas Sabonis touched the ball at the elbow more often than Adebayo, and all three averaged the same number of assists from that spot. Nobody has more elbow touches in the playoffs.
As teams have scouted and schemed Robinson, preparing to lock onto him as he navigates screens as Victor Oladipo does here anticipating the Butler screen, Robinson has had to learn when to make the appropriate counter cut. If there’s a passing window, Adebayo hits it.
There’s a reason Robinson shot 81.5 percent at the rim this season.
7. The byproduct of all of Miami’s switching has been, by design, a ton of isolations from Indiana. Though they can’t always be picky as the shot clock works against them, the Pacers have been clear about which matchups they prefer.
"It's no secret who they're going at, they're going at me and Duncan,” Tyler Herro said.
While this is more of a forced switch due to Turner pushing Herro into the post, Miami’s scheme is doing as much as it can to protect the players that need assistance. That means there has been plenty of help coming from the weak-side, as Crowder does here. And as Indiana has done what it can to move Adebayo as far from the ball as possible, that means sometimes his job is to help the helper.
“It’s up to me, Jimmy, Derrick, Iggy, Jae, the guys that are prime defenders and have great hands, it’s up to us to protect those guys,” Adebayo said.
Not only does he nail this closeout, but he has the reflexes and agility not to fly out at Oladipo. Instead, Adebayo’s staying on the balls of his feet leaves the shooter hesitating, and missing.
8. Let’s appreciate the fluidity with which Adebayo bounces between spots here, switching first on the dribble hand-off, immediately pinching off the Aaron Holiday drive and then recovering as Butler signals another switch.
“I challenge him daily to take on all the 1-through-5 responsibilities on both ends of the court,” Spoelstra said. “He just gobbles it up.”
9. Ho-hum. Just the team’s ostensible center pushing coast-to-coast *off a free throw*, stopping his momentum when he draws two in the paint and finding the open shooter in the corner.
The full-court handle is not something the HEAT knew he could do when making the call on draft night, but it became readily apparent there was something there. After Adebayo was a game or two into his Summer League campaign, assistant coach Chris Quinn saw an opportunity.
“We give him the freedom to bust out,” Quinn said while heading the team in Orlando that summer. “You can see how fast he is with the ball.”
10. there stands the Bam Man
quarterback surveys alone
waiting until not
It seemed like a good place for a haiku. Let me have this.
11. Two things to appreciate about these last two plays:
1. Just as he does going from one switch to one help rotation to the next, Adebayo flows between offensive options as he keeps his dribble live and head up. When Robinson makes his move, Adebayo has already seen it coming.
2. In the second clip, after running a pick-and-roll with Dragic and rolling into the paint after Dragic rejected the screen, Adebayo simply pops back out to the elbow and gets back to running offense with no delay. He knows how important he is to the offense, even though he may not be getting a shooting opportunity. The cog in the machine keeps on turning.
“He’s always going to have that offense run through him,” Spoelstra says. “Whether that means he’s going to get high assists, or high scoring, or he’s just going to set up other guys, you don’t know until you see how they’re defending. That’s how we’ve played all year long. Everyone feels comfortable when the ball is in his hands. He’s unselfish, he can facilitate, and he can be aggressive when he needs to.”
12. Head on a swivel throughout the possession, Adebayo is again in position to help the helper. Though he doesn’t quite beat Brogdon to the spot, his hands are quick enough that he either deflects or disrupts the dribble leading to an Indiana turnover.
“I feel like the player that I am, it’s hard to take me out,” Adebayo said. “That’s because I do a lot of things so well . . . It doesn’t have to always be about scoring. In Game 2 I had 7 points, but everybody said I had the biggest impact on the game. It’s little stuff like that, because at the end of the day I came into the league a defender and an energy guy. When my shots not falling, when my offense isn’t going, I can always fall back on my defense and my effort.”
13. First you think he’ll go left, so he’ll show you left.
Then you think he’ll go right, so he shows you right.
But where he’s really going is…
Sometimes it is about scoring. It has to be. Miami’s offense wouldn’t work as constructed if Adebayo wasn’t a threat. The HEAT’s worst game of the season may have been November 23 at Philadlephia. The team was on a back-to-back, but they lost by 27 and Bam was a minus-26 because with Joel Embiid dropping way back into the paint many of Miami’s actions evaporated. Ever since that game, Adebayo has balanced his aggression with the need to facilitate better with each game. It wasn’t all about taking more jumpers when there was space in front of him, it was about finding ways to do the job demanded of him when the defense is all about him.
“He’s in that process of learning how to play as the guy,” assistant coach Malik Allen said in the weeks following the loss. “The center. It’s not a 20 minute-a-game sample size. This is your deal. It’s an adjustment.”
14. By nature, the HEAT are not a true rim protecting team. They weren’t when Meyers Leonard was alongside Adebayo in the starting lineup, nor are they now that switching is the name of the game. Their defense is all about containment, keeping the ball out of the paint and deterring rim shots rather than defending them.
But the defense isn’t always going to be perfect. That’s what help is for, and Adebayo is the best form of rim protection on the floor. Here, he first eliminates the intent to attempt on the first rotation, and on the second he eliminates the mere thought of a shot attempt before pulling down the rebound.
15. The plays of the game.
“Bam was getting touches, but how he really impacted the game down the stretch was those offensive rebounds,” Robinson said. “Those are backbreaking plays. Bam’s just a winner. He just wants to win. He leaves it out there every single time we play.”
16. Switching sometimes leaves his teammates in vulnerable positions, with Dragic here stuck on an island with Brogdon who had been getting to the rim at will by this point. Adebayo has previously admitted to sometimes getting caught up in overhelping for his teammates.
“He’s got a lot more experience with that, guarding on the ball and off the ball and also doing the different schemes,” Spoelstra said. “He’ll be on their main ballhandler sometimes when he has to switch out but he’ll also be in the gaps which he’s really good at, but be able to do it while also having to close out because Turner is a very good shooter.”
Adebayo playing so high up on the floor here is scheme but it’s his ability that allows him to pinch in on Brogdon twice while still being in position to retreat back to the corner shooter in Turner. Miami almost gives up points on Warren’s clever cut, but in a league where most players are commanded never to leave the strong-side corner to help, Adebayo is one of the few players who can do both.
It’s a lot. All of this. Adebayo started this season 22 years old. This is his first year as a full-time starter. It’s his second taste of the playoffs. Yet here he is, Miami’s Atlas shouldering the greatest of burdens. Challenged with a role Spoelstra has challenged so few with.
“I’m not going to mention the name,” Spoelstra said, asked if he’s demanded as much from a player before. “You guys can probably figure it out from there. But yeah, I have.”
We’ll leave that as is. If this exercise proves nothing else, it’s how rare this is. A player who can do all this, every game, never wavering in his role. A player only getting better at the things that matter.
“When I say better, everyone assumes I’m just talking about numbers. I’m talking about winning,” Spoelstra says.
As for outside opinions, those have already been addressed.
“He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. He knows who he is,” Butler said.