Sometimes it gets raw and it gets real, when a team meeting is more than an exercise in placating. Such was the case for the Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra and Bam Adebayo.
PHOENIX — Sometimes it gets raw and it gets real, when a team meeting is more than an exercise in placating.
Such was the case for the Miami Heat ahead of Saturday night’s 147-116 victory over the Utah Jazz at the Delta Center.
This wasn’t just coach Erik Spoelstra admonishing in the aggregate. There were words for team captain Bam Adebayo and then blowback. This was, based on the comments that followed the private session, genuine angst about too much middling for a team yet again attempting to escape the play-in round.
“Spo kind of went off on us, especially on Bam, which I think kind of set the tone,” forward Nikola Jovic said, as the Heat turned their attention to Sunday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns at the close of their five-game western swing. “When you start talking to the captain first, we just knew we had to take more responsibility and be more locked in. So I think it’s simple as that. Just maybe we had a little more pressure on us and it helped.”
No umbrage taken, said Adebayo, who went for 26 points and 15 rebounds in the victory.
“I mean, it definitely’s clearing the air in the room,” Adebayo said of the candor of that Saturday morning session. “All that being said, we like when coach confronts us. It’s just he’s gotta be prepared when we bark back.
“We’re all grown men at the end of the day, so we don’t like what he said, we can always have a man-to-man conversation.”
Spoelstra said a focus in that session was defense and aggression, still with a bitter taste from Thursday night’s 127-110 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers in the middle game of the trip.
“We talked about in our meeting that we did not defend in the Portland game,” Spoelstra said. “It doesn’t matter what the stats were. It’s just there’s a feeling, and the Blazers did not feel us enough. And we paid the price for that.”
So against the Jazz that Heat attacked from every angle, but mostly on the glass, where they closed with a massive 64-34 edge, including a staggering 26 offensive rebounds, their highest total since January 1994. All of that with center Kel’el Ware sidelined for a fourth consecutive game with a hamstring strain and back in Miami receiving treatment.
“We wanted to make sure that we came out with more force, and Bam set the tone for that,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat improving to 24-22 with the victory. “It was on the offensive glass, it was defensively calling out schemes, rebounding the defensive glass, and then knocking down shots.”
So somewhat contentious in the a.m., resolved in the p.m. with a needed victory.
“I’m always going to lead by example,” Adebayo said. “That doesn’t have to be said. My job is what it is, to lead by example, and I’m going to continue to try to do that every night.”
Late scare
The lone downside Saturday was rookie Kasparas Jakucionis having to be helped off the court late after taking an inadvertent blow to the head.
“I just kind of got hit in the head, I think, and fell down, got up,” the 19-year-old guard said. “But I’m good, so everything is fine.
“I stood up and I was fine. So just had to check in with the doctor, and we’re good.”
Jakucionis started in Utah in place of Davion Mitchell, who is recovering from a shoulder contusion.
It marked the rare time that it wasn’t Heat teammate Pelle Larson taking the blow to the head.
“I’ll ask how to handle it,” Jakucionis said with a smile of seeking such counsel.
Said Larsson, “I hope he’s doing OK, but he took it like a champ.”
Source: Utah News