From the start of this process, as he experimented with his game farther from the basket, Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo made two things clear: He wasn’t going to listen to anyone tell him he couldn’t or shouldn’t shoot 3-pointers.
Without such resolve, there would not have been moments like the just-completed three-game homestand, when he shot 13 of 23 from beyond the arc.
“I don’t care about what anybody says about me offensively,” Adebayo said, with the Heat moving on to Monday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center at the start of a five-game trip. “They’re going to move the goalposts for me every night: If I don’t shoot enough, I’m not being aggressive. Shoot too much, it’s the wrong shot.”
Prior to the three-game run, Adebayo had gone 14 games without more than one 3-point conversion.
But that did not dissuade the attempts to space, knowing there was a seal of approval from coach Erik Spoelstra.
“My teammates, my coaching staff, they know what I’m capable of,” he said. “Obviously, every shot that I take, I work on all the time, and Spo knows that. Spo sees it.
“So it’s not a shocker that I shoot certain shots. People are looking at my shot chart saying I’m shooting too many threes.”
And yet that is what Spoelstra has sought from his entire roster, with Adebayo 6 of 10 on 3-pointers in Saturday night’s victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Kaseya Center, when the Heat shot 50 3s, making 20.
“Spo wants us to shoot that many,” Adebayo said. “I ain’t going to say that’s every night, that I’m going to shoot 10.
“But you play the right way, and you’re open, he wants you to shoot the ball. So I have enough confidence in myself to shoot.”
To put Adebayo’s 3-pointers into perspective, just past the midpoint of the season he entered Monday 51 of 143 from beyond the arc, which puts him well on pace to pass last season’s 79 of 221. Before the last two seasons and this toeing of the 3-point line, Adebayo had never made more than 15 or attempted more than 42 in a season since being drafted out of Kentucky in 2017.
While the Heat do not necessarily run a five-out offense, spacing is essential in their sets, with the more spacers the better.
“I mean, it’s another element,” guard Norman Powell said, “him being aggressive and assertive, you know, and not hesitating in his reads.”
The right shot, Powell said, is the right shot.
“He’s trying to play a perfect game,” Powell said of when doubts have seeped in for Adebayo. “We want him to be aggressive. We want him to attack. We want him to take what the defense is giving him.”
Powell went into the trip leading the Heat in 3-pointers (110), with Adebayo (51) fourth, behind only Powell, Andrew Wiggins (72) and Simone Fontecchio (65), with Kel’el Ware fifth, at 50.
“He’s playing with a clear mind, clear head,” Powell said of Adebayo, “and he’s just making a read, taking what the defense is giving him and attacking it and living with the results.”
Of course, the better the result of those Adebayo 3-pointers, the better the Heat.
“When he’s knocking down shots like that, the floor opens up for us,” Powell said, “especially with him being in the space and they don’t have a rim protector because they have a five on him.
“Or if they try to go small ball, you know, it’s beneficial to us. We can put him in a post, and now they’ve got to double team, and we can play off those actions and get into the paint. And that’s when we get into our offense.”
So, Powell said, keep launching big fella.
“Him and his versatility is huge for us,” he said, “and I want him to continue to be aggressive, continue to be assertive, even if the shots aren’t falling for him.
“We need that aggressiveness out of him because it opens everything up.”