Bam Adebayo has struggled to open the 2024-25 season, but has now shown some life in the last two games for the Miami Heat. After registering a 20/12 double-double on 8/13 shooting in the Detroit Pistons loss earlier this week, Adebayo showed out in the Heat’s 124-111 win Friday night against the Indiana Pacers.
He dropped a game-high 30 points to go along with 11 rebounds, 7 assists and 5 steals. More importantly, Adebayo finally showcased his shooting efficiency going 10/17 from the field (58%) and 2/3 from 3-point range. After showing some struggles at the free throw line earlier this season, he has shown improvement there as well, going 8/9 from the charity stripe in Indiana. Adebayo’s +22 plus/minus was also good for a game-high.
His two-way presence was felt throughout the night, with his outside shooting coming as the icing on the cake. He stepped into back-to-back triples during the fourth quarter, essentially putting the dagger into the Pacers. Miami is now 2-0 this season when Adebayo drops over 30+ points, with each of those wins coming as double-digit victories.
The Heat were able to get impactful contributions from their entire rotation in the win. Coach Erik Spoelstra went nine-deep majority of the game, starting Terry Rozier, Tyler Herro, Haywood Highsmith, Kevin Love and Adebayo. The four main guys off the bench included Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Josh Richardson and Duncan Robinson.
Love opened the second half of the game providing a huge spark, finishing with 15 points and 7 boards on 6/8 shooting, 3/4 from deep. The veteran continues to be effective in limited minutes for the Heat, and has looked like a nice lineup switch in the frontcourt alongside Adebayo. Highsmith’s impact was also felt with his 3 and D skillset, totaling 14 points on a perfect 6/6 shooting in 25 minutes.
Outside of Adebayo and Herro, the most minutes in the rotation came from Jovic playing with a face mask from a nose injury. He totaled 30 minutes and added impactful point forward production, finishing with 11 points, 6 rebounds and plenty of ball handling in relief of Herro and/or Rozier. Even with an off night from Herro shooting wise, he still found a way to contribute 20 points of his own, continuing his All-Star caliber season.
The Heat and Pacers matched up evenly in terms of shooting efficiency, assists and rebounding. But the discrepancy of the game came in the turnover department, as Miami had great control of the basketball to limit themselves to just 10 turnovers compared to the Pacer’s 20.
The bounce back win improves Miami’s record to a 5-6, with a chance to sweep their back-to-back set of in-season tournament matchups in Indiana on Sunday, and go back home salvaging a 3-3 record from this road trip.
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That was a good game, and Bam was a star of this game. Lets try to steal another one. Indiana is vulnerable.
Great team effort with several bright spots, including Bam, Love, Highsmith, Jaquez, Jovic and team’s overall defense. 16 steals tonight, including 4 by Love and 5 by Bam. Good pace and fast breaks. Didn’t miss Butler at all. Much to learn and take forward from this game!
Jovic is much better as point forward on the second team than as starting power forward. He just needs time to mature and develop.
Ware is in same boat. He needs playing time with the second unit to find his sea legs and flourish. Other NBA rookie centers are already playing more minutes and starting to produce and be recognized, including:
Sarr (25.3 mpg),Missi (22.7 mpg),Edey (20.3 mpg),Filipowski 17.1 mpg),Clingan (15.8 mpg),Ware (7.2 mpg) is second lowest minutes played on the Heat, higher only than Dru Smith (7.0 mpg).
If Spo isn’t going to play Ware regularly, he should be sent to Sioux Falls to get playing time and gain experience and confidence. His wasting away on the bench does no one any good.
Here’s one view on this year’s team’s ranking out of 30 teams.
23. Miami HeatThe Miami Heat has been all over the place to start the season. But despite the individual talent that they have on their roster, the Heat continues to struggle against good teams. That’s part of the reason why they’ve gotten off to such an uneven start to the year. At some point, if the Heat continues to leave much to be desired, something will have to give for the team. In theory, the Heat is built to win a championship. But the truth is, they’re not very good. With a big decision on Jimmy Butler’s future on the horizon, there’s a chance the team could get ahead of that before the offseason.
Will they? I can’t imagine they would. That’s not generally how the Heat have done business over the past few decades. But, more than anytime before, the argument could be made that the Heat needs to blow up their roster. Aside from Bam Adebayo, the Heat can’t feel great about any part of how this team has been built over the past few seasons. Miami is not a contender and, at this point, they may not even be a playoff team.
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