The Miami Heat were blown out by the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Bam Adebayo was singled out for criticism.
The Giannis Antetokounmpo era started with a loss for the Miami Heat, with 45-points from Anthony Edwards clinching a dominant 133-106 victory at the Kaseya Center.
Giannis did exactly what you expect from him. He dominated offensively and scored 35 points. But it all felt a bit like Milwaukee, where he did not get enough help.
The next highest scorer for the Heat was Bam Adebayo with 15 points. And that simply is not good enough. Adebayo shot 6-12 and only contributed 7 rebounds.
Speaking on SportsCenter, ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins called on Bam Adebayo to raise his game.
Perkins said: “Giannis is a generational talent. We know what he’s going to bring to the table but when is Bam going to take the leap from being an All-Star caliber player, to an All-NBA caliber player?
“Averaging 18-20 ppg, that’s not going to cut it. You got to average 25. It’s time for Bam to elevate his game.”
Perkins went on to point out the Miami Heat’s loyalty to Adebayo ever since they drafted him in 2017, and feels it is time for the big man to step up a level.
There was excitement among Heat fans at how the team would look around Giannis, but this was a night that showed the team chemistry could take a while to gel.
One fan on social media let his frustration show, asking: “what did Bam work on this summer?”
Last season Bam Adebayo scored an incredible 83 points in one game against the Washington Wizards. This helped pump up his season average to 20.1 ppg.
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Bam Adebayo admits defensive mistakes
Bam Adebayo spoke after the game to the media and said he wants the Miami Heat team to be more vocal as a group.
“My thing is like we weren’t vocal enough. I feel like you can talk each other into your spots. You can talk each other into uh a scheme. We can talk each other into cover one another. And I feel like we didn’t we didn’t excel in that area.”
He admitted that the team needed to be more aggressive and not make defeats like this a habit.
“I feel like we weren’t swarming as much as I would have liked. I feel like we showed spurts of that every once in a while, but uh, it’s got to be 48 minutes of swarming defense, rotating, scrambling, doubling, whatever we got to do.”
Erik Spoelstra will have the team studying and trying to fix the defense, but when they come up against an elite scorer like Anthony Edwards, the best-laid plans can fall apart.
Perkins wants to see Adebayo become a more reliable scorer, and this would certainly alleviate pressure on the defense.
However, with a 16.2 ppg career average, it’s uncertain if Adebayo is capable of becoming the 25ppg player he is being encouraged to be.
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