They have played just seven games together this season, but on Monday, the Miami Heat finally got back both Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo from their respective injuries—Herro with a grade 2 ankle sprain that has kept him out since early November and Adebayo with a hip pointer that kept him out since November 30.
Both acquitted themselves well, with Herro racking up 25 points in 33 minutes, on 10-for-18 shooting and Adebayo scoring 22 points on 10-for-22 shooting, adding six rebounds in 36 minutes.
The problem on Monday was that the Heat were facing a Minnesota team that has started 20-5 this year and has won seven of its last eight games. The Timberwolves won, 112-108, and despite being happy about his return, Adebayo saw something he did not much like in the Heat on Monday—they were too offense-happy, and not looking like the grinding defensive team they’re known to be.
He warned his teammates that needs to change.
“I feel like we’re starting to rely on offense a lot,” Adebayo said in his postgame press conference. “And we gotta pick that up on the other end. A lotta times we left dudes on islands by themselves and obviously defense is not a one-on-one game, even though you got to guard your yard, we gotta help each other, we gotta be on a string again.”
Miami Heat Finally Back at Full Health
Still, just having Adebayo and Herro back in uniform for the first time together since the eighth game of the season—they’ve only played together seven times this year—is encouraging for the Miami Heat, who have been getting by with chicken wire and bubble gum in the absence of two of the team’s Top 3 players.
Credit coach Erik Spoelstra, as usual, for getting the team to 15-11.
Adebayo said he felt good on his return, and was happy to get back to game intensity. “I came out unscathed,” Adebayo said. “I walked off the court healthy, happy. Just really got to enjoy competition gain. That’s the—I kept the main thing the main thing, go out there and compete. Get us some of this rust off and we back at it.”
Herro, too, said he was not worried too much about rust because he’d worked hard in his rehab.
“Overall, I thought I felt—obviously my wind was needing to catch up—but I felt good, I felt more in rhythm than I anticipated,” he said. “But I thought I did a good job over that break where I was rehabbing my ankle just staying on top of my routine. I knew I’d be back and I didn’t want to fall out of that routine. So I stuck with it and tried to prepare myself as best as possible to come back tonight.”
Bam Adebayo Warns on Defensive ‘Blow-bys’
In the first half, it did look like offense might be enough to carry the Heat through on this night, as they racked up 66 points and held a 12-point lead. But Minnesota is the best defensive team in the league and the Miami Heat, as Adebayo mentioned, are not. That showed in the second half.
The Heat were the No. 9 defensive team in the league, allowing 111.8 points per 100 possessions when Adebayo went out to close November. Since then, they’ve been 21st in the NBA in defense, with a rating of 119.4. Minnesota was able to hammer the Heat in the middle with 21 makes in the restricted area.
The problem, as diagnosed by Bam Adebayo, defensive M.D.: blow-bys.
“It’s complicated in a sense, but for us we call it, blow-bys. Straight-line blow-bys,” he said. “This league is tough. You got guys who are stickers and you’re closing out to guys and trying to get them off the line and it’s swing-swing-swing. And that’s where we get caught where they get to be in the restricted. They get a blow-by, a couple passes, and we have to get back to that part where we keep defending, we keep sustaining for the whole 24 seconds.”
Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA and NFL for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney
