The Miami Heat got a good win on Monday night and without their top two players in tow. With neither Bam Adebayo nor Jimmy Butler going against a, potentially, offensively explosive Minnesota bunch, the Heat were able to make enough shots and get enough stops to walk away victorious.
What makes that even more impressive is the fact that for a team like the Miami Heat, who have had size issues all season long and even when they have a full roster to work with, they would, not only, be without their top big man in Adebayo but also their core backup big in Dewayne Dedmon.
That meant it was to be a night where the big minutes would be fulfilled by the Heat’s other depth, mainly two Heat rookies in Nikola Jovic and Orlando Robinson. And they held up, but Robinson may have done even more than that individually.
The Miami Heat got their most ‘Miami Heat win’ of the year on Monday night and all with two backup bigs. One of them, Orlando Robinson, has caused a stir.
Making an impact in the paint and at the rim, he would end his night with 15 points, nine rebounds, and four assists across 27 minutes of action. And along the way, he would evoke questions about his opposing counterpart for the Timberwolves—one Rudy Gobert.
“After watching Gobert get outplayed by a rookie center on a two-way contract…the Timberwolves have to ask themselves if the Gobert they got in the trade with the Jazz is a shadow of the player who was such a force in Utah for so many years…”
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) December 27, 2022
- Wolves Insider @JonKrawczynski pic.twitter.com/qzbJFQTr01
While the notion hinted at above by the quoted Minnesota “insider” speaks more toward a resentment of the deal due to Gobert’s quality as a player right now, that’s really only the backend of what the real question should be.
Even at his peak, was he ever really worth all they had to give up to get him?
That’s what the real question here might actually be or should be.
With facts like the one that Gobert was outpaced by the other core Wolves big on the night, Naz Reid, down the stretch late in this game from a minutes perspective, only to come back in with a few seconds on the clock to try and help the defense at one’s disposal, there are definitely real questions worth asking.
Needless to say, he was outplayed by the Heat’s undrafted rookie two-way big and there are two sides to all this too, the one on the flipside of just the Gobert ineptitude of it all. And that is this.
No team does it like the Miami Heat, as they are the team that tends to find guys out of nowhere, virtually, that go on to outplay the guys that other teams deem worth the franchise.