wake of Adebayo scoring 83<\/a> \u2014 second in NBA history only to Wilt Chamberlain\u2019s mythical 100 \u2014\u00a0in\u00a0 a 150-129 blowout victory, Wizards coach Brian Keefe questioned the means to that end.<\/p>\n\u201cThe fourth quarter,\u201d Keefe said on game night, \u201cjust turned into not a real basketball game.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the wake of ensuing criticism of the look of piling on, Adebayo put the onus on Keefe.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should be blaming their head coach. Get that first,\u201d Adebayo said last month. \u201cI was not the one letting me go one-on-one the whole game until I had 70 and then you started to send a double.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday, Adebayo said he could see Wizards players potentially taking matters into their own hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, nobody wants to get 80 dropped on them,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I expect the players to, you know, they might just go off script and not listen to (Keefe) and try something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a season of Heat mediocrity, March 10 stood as arguably the most entertaining night at Kaseya Center, now with the possibility of not even a single postseason game at the Heat\u2019s arena.<\/p>\n
In the immediate wake of that game, Adebayo was unapologetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got 70 with, like, what, nine minutes left to go in the game? You think I\u2019m not going for it?\u201d Adebayo said of a night that made regular-season Heat-Wizards compelling. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the thing that\u2019s crazy when they talk about the \u2018unethical\u2019 part of the basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Wizards sitting out anyone and everyone who could potential enhance their victory chances, it could come down to whether they this time can stay out of foul trouble. In his 83-point effort, Adebayo closed of 36 for 43 from the foul line.<\/p>\n
And, no, those calls did not sit well with Keefe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey obviously kept him in the game, and there was a lot of foul calls, 16 free throws in the fourth quarter,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cHe still got some free throws 40 feet from the rim. Can\u2019t explain some of those calls, but that\u2019s all I\u2019ve got to say on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
So perhaps more double-teams this time around?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s their coach\u2019s decision,\u201d Adebayo said Friday with a smile.<\/p>\n
Whether there is pushback or not, it\u2019s not as if the two matchups against the Wizards necessarily can be considered givens, considering the Heat this season have lost twice, including last Sunday, to the tanking Indian Pacers, as well as losses to the tanking Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll still play them twice,\u201d Spoelstra said of the Wizards, with the Heat 2-0 in the four-game season series. \u201cWe\u2019re not looking for help from anybody. This is up to us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Adebayo\u2019s numbers could be debated, the victory over the Wizards was significant at the time for the Heat, part of a seven-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
This time around, it\u2019s about play-in seeding, leaving neither the Heat nor the lose-a-thon Wizards in a great place entering Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake it one game at a time,\u201d Adebayo said when asked about his team\u2019s play-in reality, with the Heat having dropped 8 of their last 10 and the Wizards 18 of their last 20. \u201cWe\u2019ve got five games left. And after that, we\u2019ll figure it out from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 On March 10, there was no pushback from the Washington Wizards, merely Heat center Bam Adebayo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,165,189,6,66,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-696203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-miami-heat","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-washington","14":"tag-washington-wizards","15":"tag-washingtonwizards","16":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116341868562056054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}