Bam Adebayo is asking for patience with his partnership with Giannis Antetokounmpo after a difficult opening stretch for the Miami Heat.
Following Friday’s 128-111 loss to the Detroit Pistons, Adebayo offered a brief response to the early problems surrounding Miami’s new frontcourt.
“We’ll figure it out,” Adebayo said.
Through Miami’s first two regular-season games, the pair had shared the court for 34 minutes. In those minutes, the Heat scored 101.2 points and allowed 148.1 points per 100 possessions, a net rating of minus-46.9.
Those figures describe an ugly beginning, but they also come with a substantial limitation: The sample does not even cover a full game’s worth of minutes.
It captures Miami’s opening problems without establishing how the combination will perform across a season.
The immediate challenge is more specific than deciding whether the two players can coexist.
Miami needs Adebayo involved offensively, available to defend without foul trouble and working within a group that can protect possessions together.
Bam Adebayo’s foul trouble complicates the early picture
Adebayo’s performance against Detroit gave the Heat little opportunity to assess that combination under normal conditions. Adebayo had four points, six rebounds and three assists in 23 minutes, with a 2-of-6 mark from the field.
He missed both of his 3-point attempts and both free throws. Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, supplied 36 points, 12 rebounds and five assists, making 15 of his 26 shots.
| Player | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Field goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bam Adebayo | 4 | 6 | 3 | 2-of-6 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 36 | 12 | 5 | 15-of-26 |
Statistics from Miami’s Oct. 23 loss to Detroit.
The difference in shot attempts illustrates how uneven their offensive involvement was that night. It does not, by itself, explain whether the cause was Miami’s spacing, the distribution of touches or Adebayo’s interrupted playing time.
Treating the box score as proof of a permanent fit problem would skip that distinction.
The interruption was significant. At halftime that Adebayo had played only 7:32 after collecting three first-quarter fouls. He had not scored before the break.
That left Miami trying to establish a rhythm while one of its central pieces spent most of the half watching. Adebayo’s foul trouble is therefore part of the explanation for his limited production, even if it does not account for everything that went wrong around him.
The offensive question also goes beyond asking Adebayo to match Antetokounmpo’s scoring. A more productive partnership would allow both players to influence possessions, including those that finish with a teammate taking the shot.
Adebayo’s six field-goal attempts against Detroit leave a much narrower picture of his role than a normal night would provide.
Spoelstra sees a difference between the shots and the results
Erik Spoelstra did not describe every part of Miami’s offense against Detroit as broken.
The Heat coach said he believed the starting group created quality opportunities despite its poor beginning.
“I felt like our process was right tonight,” Spoelstra said. “And I know that’ll seem crazy, starting the game with a 17-2 run. But I felt like we were getting a lot of good quality shots. They do a tremendous job of protecting the paint, like anytime Giannis would put the ball on the floor, there’s four guys in the paint. And I thought we were making the right reads. We had good, open looks to start the game. If I had to judge it, I think our threes were more open than their threes.”
The results still put Miami in a difficult position. Its starting five was outscored by 18 points in 13 minutes against Detroit after finishing minus-7 in nine minutes against Minnesota.
That creates two separate questions for the Heat. Are they generating the opportunities they want when opponents crowd Antetokounmpo, and are they converting enough of those chances to make that defensive approach costly?
Spoelstra’s assessment offers some support for the first part. It does not resolve the second or explain away the defensive failures.
It also keeps the conversation from becoming a simple demand for Adebayo to take more shots regardless of what a possession produces.
Miami retained the same opening unit for Saturday’s Charlotte matchup, as Davion Mitchell, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Antetokounmpo and Adebayo.
That decision gives the group another opportunity together. It should not be read as a promise that Spoelstra will keep every role or rotation unchanged.
Timberwolves coach Chris Finch after Wednesday’s opener said integrating two big men is more difficult than integrating smaller players, pointing to spacing and understanding how to play together.
“Trying to mesh bigs is a lot harder,” Finch said.
That assessment offers a reason for patience without dismissing Miami’s results. The adjustment involves what each player does when the other controls the ball, not simply whether both can score.
It also identifies something to watch beyond the shooting percentages: whether the two players’ positioning helps create opportunities for each other and their teammates.
Miami’s defensive problems extend beyond the two big men
The shared-floor numbers also show why the discussion cannot stop at offensive spacing. Miami’s defensive performance with both stars playing was poor through the first two games, too.
Mitchell addressed that broader concern after the Detroit loss.
“I think that we’re really good individual defenders,” Mitchell said.
He went on to emphasize the need for better team defense and for players to cover for one another. That places responsibility on the entire unit, including the guards and wings sharing the floor with Adebayo and Antetokounmpo.
The concern follows Antetokounmpo’s calls for greater effort and trust after the Minnesota loss. Miami was already discussing collective execution before its second defeat.
For Adebayo, staying out of early foul trouble would provide a cleaner opportunity to address both ends of that problem. For the Heat, the more useful test is whether their shared minutes begin producing better possessions, rather than whether either star produces an impressive individual total.
Adebayo’s response expressed confidence in the partnership. The opening two games showed why Miami still has work to do to support it.
