Miami Heat Cap Off Winless Preseason Even With Strong Norman Powell and Bam Adebayo Games

Miami Heat Cap Off Winless Preseason Even With Strong Norman Powell and Bam Adebayo Games

Hey, welcome on in guys. Tobin here with you and thanks for checking out the channel. Your Miami Heat, they have finished mercifully the preeason. Uh they fall to the Memphis Grizzlies today. Your final score was 141 to 125. Fourth quarter was an absolute annihilation. It was a very close game before that. He were actually leading going into the fourth quarter in this one. Uh, but they just got absolutely run off the floor. I think they started with a it was going on at the same time as the Kane’s ending. So, like when I saw the score and I’m watching it in the fourth quarter, I think Eric said it was a 163 run at one point, it was it was just it was so the team was so dead in the water at that point and then they started putting in the Sou Falls guys and you’re just like, “All right, whatever.” They finished okay big they finished winless in the preseason. Not great. Nobody likes to have an O in front of their name. It’s not it’s not an enjoyable thing, especially when you lose to a Grizzlies team that was also winless coming into this game and a team that doesn’t have a a ton of their regulars. You know, they had some Jaylen Welds is going to play for them. Ty Jerome’s going to play for them. Kavia is Cowwell Pope. They had their all-star in Jiren Jackson Jr. Sandy Dam is one of their go-to guys. Cedric Coward’s their first round pick. So, you know, they weren’t uh they weren’t without all the guys. as they obviously didn’t have their star in John Marant. They don’t have Zack Edy, their first round pick from last year, but um and that but they haven’t been good defensively. This is a team that you know the Heat putting up a big number on the scoring front. Not surprising based on how Memphis has basically looked this preeason. So you you probably had an idea that this was going to be a high-scoring affair going into this one. Now the Miami Heat, they had as many healthy bodies as they’ve had. They did not play Nico today, though we did practice. He still being cautious with his back, but we did get a lot of the main rotation in there. We got to see Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell, Bam Adabio, Kelwear, and DaVon Mitchell. I’m not surprised DaVon Mitchell started. I I know a lot of people were like, “Oh, they’re going to keep him in that bench roll.” I I think they’ve just been trying to be cautious with his calf, bringing him along slowly, and he was I mean, he was very efficient with the scoring today. Everybody in the starting lineup, you look up and down, had a had a pretty nice scoring night tonight. Uh Norman Powell probably looked the best amongst everybody. I mean, the guy was an absolute sniper. He uh he’s just smooth, you know, like I I I just really dig the way that he plays in this game. But I I think probably the guy who had a game that I think you needed to see him have a a really good performance, and you know that he always gets up for these performances, is Bam Adabio. He finishes with 23 points today. He was nine to 17, two of six from downtown. Got to the free throw line five times. He was 305, eight rebounds, four assists, two steals, a block. Um he was uh he was really it was a strong performance from Bam tonight. It he he looked really strong and he looked comfortable. He was in the flow of an offense. He didn’t look clunky. And you know, I think right away one of the things that I liked is, you know, he was out and aggressive. He was getting deflections. He was getting steals. He had Jaylen Wells on him and he’s like, I’m going to go take advantage of this and try and get fouled. He had the touch on his runner tonight. There was a uh there was a a great sequence early on and I really like it was it was interesting. I like seeing, you know, we haven’t seen a lot of Bam and Wear together and the the injury last game. Um they looked really strong. Uh especially in the first quarter. There was a great sequence where like Bam hit a runner and then on the next possession down uh Kell Wear breaks up an alley oop to Jiren Jackson Jr. and then Wear tries to get the bucket on the other end and Bam is right there to follow up and I’m just like boom size like the way that it’s looking. You had um you know just just really really pretty drives from Bam and he looked strong. They capped off that that uh that first quarter. You got three balls from Fontekia who looked pretty comfortable tonight. Haime Hawkins Junior got a wing three again. Defense was pretty optional in this game, but guys did look in a flow. It’s not like an exactly that’s not that’s not an oddity to this uh preeason that defense is optional and the Heat have looked pretty clunky for the most part. Today they did not. The offense looked pretty strong until we got to the fourth quarter. Um, there was another nice sequence. I think uh, you know, like I said, Bam was uh was really strong going up against Jiren Jackson Jr. bottling him up, get an offensive rebound, then he was getting fouled going to the rim. Um, you know, uh, Norman Powell just see so much great stuff from him, man. like he’s really comfortable getting to his spots. There’s no rush to his game, but he’s got good burst. Um he’ll put up threes. He’s got a nice release point. So, it’s been really cool getting to see what he’s got. And then, uh he got a beautiful he set up KL Wear for a beautiful alley oops, some nice ball movement from Drew to get some nice fast break buckets. Happened a few times with Kell Wear, which is always I think people were like, “Hey, is is he going to be ready to rock in transition and run?” He wasn’t on a few occasions today. He got one from Haime Hakez which had Wiggins out and running. So did a good job of that stuff in the in the first half of this game. I think that was uh pretty encouraging for this uh for this Miami squad going into it. Um and then you got to the third quarter and this was, you know, the last competitive quarter. Really, really strong uh offensive quarter from Adabio. Uh he had his three ball going. He got set up in an alley from Norman Powell who just had a great all-around night. Bam. Uh set up Jiren Jackson Jr. got an and one for uh Triple J’s third fifth foul of the game. Had his three ball going and even on the soft touch runner. He had that dropping for him. So Bam looked really really polished offensively tonight. The other part of this game that was interesting uh was we got to see Terry Roier. Terry Roier made an appearance. he was out there. Um, got a couple of buckets. It uh, it was not like it was definitely not riding the bike. And I think probably where this game started short circuiting is with Roier and Fonteio and Haime Hakez and Pella and Kell. They had that unit out there and it looked very much like a unit who didn’t play very much together. Like they looked clunky. They were throwing the ball all over the place and that allowed the young Grizzlies to kind of get out and run, get their threes up and just annihilate them in the fourth quarter. That’s that’s really what happened. It was uh not close. It was not close. But yeah, didn’t feel very much like Roier is a guy that um it was going to get a lot of run. I do think, you know, we got some reads on some things like Keshan Johnson got put in very late in this game. Um, which means he’s got a long way to go before Spo’s going to trust him. Precious Achu, I don’t believe played in this game, so we didn’t see him. Caspers was hurt. Um, and then the other one that’s interesting is, you know, he he was really rocking with Kell a lot. He has not given Vladislav Golden a lot of minutes on the two-way contract and and he’s been very slow to put him in. And I don’t know if that’s about him gaining a system or they’re just kind of like I don’t know did we bite too soon on this one, but that was uh that’s been kind of a noticeable thing on preeason. Haime Hakez uh that three ball that he had was his lone bucket. He did have six assists today though, you know, so so he did contribute in other in other areas, but he didn’t quite have the shot going like he did in other games. Um, but it was good to see that even with the decision-m he was trying to get guys set up and and put them in in a good position to succeed. So that’s another part of the game that Spose really wanted from Haime going into this. And they got blitz. They got blitz in the final game. So I it was good to see some buckets going. I think Bam having a strong game, really good. The starters getting going together looks really good. Andrew Wiggins kind of plays his own pace. Um, I think it was good to see Bam and Kell get some time together. I think that they look like they can have some success with one another. I thought that was encouraging. DaVon Mitchell looks really confident offensively. And, you know, all in all, I I do you want to see it with the whole piece of the pie together. I’m I am curious to see how the Yovic mix throws all this together and where things go. But yeah, it was a pretty miserable preseason. I mean, like look, 0 and6 is 0 and6 and there were a lot of games they did not play that they didn’t des there’s a ton of games they played they didn’t deserve to win and didn’t rebound well enough, didn’t shoot well enough. Today was a game defense was kind of optional other than some spurts and especially there in that fourth quarter they looked a little lost and the Grizzlies got really really hot shooting. So I think all in all the most encouraging thing today was uh seeing Adabio uh have some some some shots go in the in the in the uh the basket today and just Pal looked really strong. I mean, Pal also today had six assists along with his 23 points in 25 minutes. He’s he’s talented. I mean, like, he is going to add some offensive burst for this team. I thought that uh they showed some flashes of moving the ball in transition. Wiggins, uh Drew Smith, uh a couple of those, you know, intangible plays as he is, uh as he is one to do. So, there was encouragement there. And you know, that was kind of that like today the starters gave the best of the performances uh for Miami. But yeah, it’s it’s not a it’s not a big deal at all that they were winless, but it’s also nothing to be like, you know, I’m not I’m not happy about it. I’m not just like, “Oh, great.” You know, it’s it’s I’m not I and I said this going into this, like I think it showed some projections. None of the things none of the losses in the previous uh preseason losses were were similar to this one. This one felt very different. But also, there just wasn’t a whole lot of defense going around. All in all, what was the defensive total? Yeah, he did get the kicked out of him on the rebounds again. Um, let me see. It’s pretty weighted towards the fourth quarter, you know, so you got to keep that in mind. The fourth quarter was just a completely different game. Like in the fourth in the overall game, they got out in the first three quarters of the game, it was 3430 and then they got out rebounded by eight in the fourth. So that really skewed a lot of the numbers for this one. So, that’s that. Preseason mercifully over. Let’s get to the season already, boys and girls.

Tobin discusses the Miami Heat finishing 0-6 in the preseason. The team laid an egg in the 4th quarter. Norman Powell looked in a flow all night. Bam Adebayo found his shot in th 3rd quarter. Kel’el Ware and Bam were a fun duo. Davion Mitchell got the start. Terry Rozier makes preseason debut.
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