MIAMI — As the Miami Heat play the Chicago Bulls over and over and over again in this three-game series that continues Saturday night at Kaseya Center and concludes Sunday night back on the Heat’s court, a study in centers is playing out.

On the Bulls’ side there is sage veteran Nikola Vucevic, an ongoing double-double machine, including 15 points and 10 rebounds in his team’s 116-113 loss Thursday night to the Heat at the United Center.

For Chicago, he remains his team’s only story in the middle, possibly to be dealt by Thursday’s NBA trading deadline, as he plays out the final year of his contract, averaging an impressive 19.1 points and 9.6 rebounds in January.

For the Heat, there is a threefold story at play.

Foremost, there is the recent play of starting center Bam Adebayo, who simply proved too fleet and agile for Vucevic to contain Thursday night, closing with 20 points and 12 rebounds.

It was Adebayo’s ninth 20-point outing in his last 10 games, his fourth double-double in his last five, lately cast solely at center after some previous experimentation at power forward.

“I’m not really thinking about it right now,” he said of this surge that yet could land an All-Star berth at Sunday’s announcement of Eastern Conference reserves for the Feb. 15 game. “I’m continuing to just stay in this flow.”

That flow to a degree has come at a cost to second-year Kel’el Ware, who has seen only limited minutes in his two games back after missing four with a hamstring strain. Thursday night, that meant only 12:03 in Chicago, despite efficiency that included 12 points, four rebounds, two blocked shots and 3-of-4 3-point shooting.

With his three 3-pointers, which gave him 54 for the season, Ware broke the franchise single-season record of 53 for a 7-footer, set by Meyers Leonard in 2019-20.

“If I was able to impact the game,” Ware said, “that’s how I look at my stats.

“I’m just doing what I can. Like I said, in my minutes, whatever minutes I get, try to work and impact the game.”

Ware has not played at least 20 minutes in a game since Jan. 6, which also is the last time he has started.

Part of the reduction in minutes has been somewhat of a revival by fellow Heat big man Nikola Jovic, who the past two games has found himself paired with Adebayo in a productive secondary lineup, while it has remained an either/or equation with Adebayo and Ware, the two no longer sharing time on the court.

For now, advantage Jovic.

“Even though some of his individual play has been a little bit up and down recently, and I know he really wants to play better and more efficiently, his units have been playing well,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of Jovic. “So I remind him all the time, that’s the bottom line.”

Jovic went 17:15 Thursday night, closing with eight points and four rebounds.

“Everybody wants to play well individually, but ultimately you want the scoreboard to be a positive,” Spoelstra said. “His units have been good with him in there.”

The Heat outscored the Bulls by 12 with Jovic on the floor Thursday night in Chicago, while the Heat were outscored by four in Ware’s minutes.

After Wednesday night’s loss to the Orlando Magic at Kaseya Center, Spoelstra downplayed Ware’s meager 6:40 in that game as factors of working Ware back from his hamstring strain and staying with a rotation that helped win the final two games of the five-game western swing that ended with Sunday night’s victory over the Phoenix Suns.

“We have two really talented young bigs,” Spoelstra said of Ware, 21, and Jovic, 22. “It’s not only Niko, but Kel’el. Kel’el gave us some really good minutes (Thursday night), in 12 minutes.

“I’m managing both of these young, promising bigs. We’re managing that second unit, which is really playing well. We’re at a point where we just need everybody contributing, whatever those minutes may be.”