It was a tale of two halves for the Miami Heat’s star big man Bam Adebayo this season. While he anchored the defense all season, the team’s captain came out to a sluggish start offensively.
Adebayo averaged a pedestrian 15.5 points over his first 42 games during this 2024-25 campaign. Heat Nation expressed concern early on, as the multi-time All-Star's efficiency also questionably plummeted during that span.
However, he bounced back by averaging 21.1 points over his final 36 appearances.
He submitted some dominant outings along the way, including some games with incredible clutch plays down the stretch. In a road win against the San Antonio Spurs a few months back, Adebayo stepped up with a huge buzzer-beating game winner.
Despite his teammate Tyler Herro being the lone Heat player represented at this year’s All-Star weekend, it is fair to assume that Adebayo will get back to that stage in the very near future.
The Miami Heat have a 101-77 record all-time when Bam Adebayo has scored 20 points or more during his career.
Adebayo finished the regular season averaging 18.1 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.3 steals on 49% shooting and 36% from 3-point range across 78 total games played.
He even made his mark in Heat franchise history this year, as he became the organization's all-time double-doubles leader. There is a legitimate case that regardless of his slow start out of the gate, Adebayo’s resilience had him end his eighth season in the league with All-Star caliber numbers.
And his outing to open up Miami’s first round postseason matchup was no different.
The game may have resulted in a loss, but Adebayo’s assertiveness in shooting the basketball was encouraging. He finished the night with a team-high 24 points, nine rebounds and three assists on 10 of 22 from the field. The Heat will need that aggression offensively and level of play from him again if they hope to steal home-court advantage in Game 2.
He only knocked down one of his five attempts from 3-point range in that first matchup in Cleveland, but he has been gaining confidence from beyond the arc as of late, too.
In 42 games played since January 10, Bam Adebayo is knocking down 41.1% from 3-point range on an average of 3.1 3-point attempts per contest.
— Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) April 12, 2025
He's becoming a reliable outside shooter. pic.twitter.com/wFqCrcUaYt
Miami will have plenty of work to do behind the scenes to make the necessary adjustments heading into their next playoff game. But any chance at upsetting the top seed Cleveland Cavaliers will come from Adebayo leading the way.
Aggressive Bam is the best Bam.
