The Miami Heat are coming off one of their worst performances ever. Forget just in the NBA Playoffs, when you don’t get but 18 points from your starters and with two of them putting up goose eggs in the points column, that’s all-time low territory, in general.
This isn’t about one guy, to be clear. But with that fact out of the way, you can point to individual performances to say what needs to happen moving forward.
Right now, the light is focused on Bam Adebayo. Listen, if you watch the Miami Heat, then you know that Bam Adebayo is at his absolute least effective when dealing with size and length.
Joel Embiid tends to give him issues at times and Robert Williams in this current series has certainly been a problem for Adebayo. In accordance with his Game 3 showing, the Celtics paid extra close attention to him in Game 4.
~Thread on Heat-Celtics Game 4~
— Wes Goldberg (@wcgoldberg) May 24, 2022
The Celtics countered Bam Adebayo's big Game 3 by showing him a wall in the paint, denying early post position and making him think.
Even outside of the things mentioned by Goldberg above though, there was something else really noticeable about Bam’s Game 4.
As Bam is among his most effective, offensively, when he can put his defender in the faceup triple threat position, the Celtics wouldn’t allow him to get comfortable there last night. They constantly showed him bodies and hands, ultimately disrupting his ability to get to his stuff or in an offensive rhythm.