(Mandatory Credit: Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
During the first half of Wednesday night’s 122-112 loss to the Denver Nuggets, the Miami Heat were dealt a massive blow with Bam Adebayo exiting the game with a left foot injury.
Adebayo was injured after taking a step during a pitch back to guard Norman Powell in transition. He hobbled off the court and headed to the locker room and did not return.
Adebayo played just eight minutes, finishing with two points and one rebound, making one of his five shot attempts.
The star center provided an injury update after the game.
“I felt a pain in my foot so I took it upon myself to check myself out and go see what happened,” he said, per the team. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll get more tests tomorrow and see how it goes.”
Why Heat cannot afford losing Bam Adebayo:
You could argue that Adebayo is, very easily, the most important player to this roster.
While the Heat have mitigated Tyler Herro’s absence with a combination of quality offensive performances from Adebayo himself, Norman Powell, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Andrew Wiggins, among others, the Heat don’t have a capable back-up big outside of Kel’el Ware.
Precious Achiuwa wasn’t a good answer (he’s no longer on the roster for good reason; he was unplayable in preseason); Vlad Goldin, currently, isn’t a good enough answer; Keshad Johnson and Nikola Jovic aren’t bigs.
Adebayo is irreplaceable because of what he provides on both ends on a night-to-night basis. He’s even more replaceable when you look at their big room. It was always way too thin to justify.
We will learn more in the coming days about how healthy the 6-foot-9 big man actually is. It’ll be next man up for Jovic, Ware and others.
There’s still a lot of season ahead, but the margin for error over any stretch where Adebayo misses time is microscopic.
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