The Heat get their first win of the season and improve to 1-4, while the Hawks fall to 2-3.<\/p>\n
Bam Adebayo got everything he wanted Wednesday night: the first Miami win of the season, the game ball and a record he chased for years.<\/p>\n
Adebayo is now his team\u2019s career leader in rebounds, passing Udonis Haslem for that spot in Miami\u2019s 129-117 win over the Atlanta Hawks \u2013 the first Heat victory in five tries this season. Haslem had 5,791 rebounds in his 20-season career with the Heat; Adebayo, who grabbed nine on Wednesday, now has 5,794.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, I can\u2019t really put it into words,\u201d Adebayo said in the televised on-court postgame interview in Atlanta, as a member of the Heat staff secured the game ball to present to him. \u201cThe person I\u2019m passing has been so close to me throughout my 10 years in this career, from the time I walked in until now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haslem held the record since November 2012. He was Miami\u2019s longtime captain, a role that Adebayo assumed when Haslem retired. And now, Adebayo \u2013 who had an 83-point game last season, the second-biggest scoring effort in NBA history \u2013 has taken over for Haslem on another list as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really special moment in the locker room,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, beaming at Adebayo\u2019s accomplishment. \u201cSo well-deserved. He\u2019s done it with an iron will, a work ethic that\u2019s unmatched. That\u2019s a lot of rebounds in traffic, getting hit, banged in there. To be able to do it and break the record of his brother, UD, that\u2019s a really special moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adebayo is No. 2 on Miami\u2019s scoring list behind Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, No. 3 in assists, No. 3 in steals and No. 5 in blocked shots. Only nine players have grabbed more rebounds since 2017-18, Adebayo\u2019s first season in the NBA after the Heat took him with the No. 14 pick out of Kentucky in the 2017 draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came into this league just wanting to make an impact, leave a mark,\u201d Adebayo said. \u201cAnd to pass some of the people who have been with me on this journey, can\u2019t do anything but thank God but also appreciate the people that have been around me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Heat get their first win of the season and improve to 1-4, while the Hawks fall to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,102048,102047,82923,7,677,6],"class_list":["post-870654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlantahawks","tag-bam-adebayo-career","tag-bam-adebayo-rebounds","tag-bam-adebayo-record","tag-basketball","tag-hawks","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117523069271890385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870654","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=870654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}