While the Miami Heat fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves Monday night, 112-108, there was a bright side to the loss. The game marked the return of stars Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro.
The two significant players spoke after the game to talk about how they're feeling and about the reasons for the loss against the Timberwolves where once again, they blew a big lead and lost. Adebayo spoke to the media to express how he was felling physically, but also mentally after the game.
“Came out unscathed. I walked off the court healthy and happy,” Adebayo said. “Just getting that joy of competition again. The main thing was to go out there and compete, get some of his rust off and be back at it.”
One would think in Adebayo's first contest back in seven games, that Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra would limit his playing time. However, it was the exact opposite as the big-man played a team-high 36 minutes. Adebayo said in his post-game presser that he's glad he got the resting period after suffering from his nagging hip injuries.
“Pain tolerance. My whole career, I've tried to play through stuff. Take my mind off of it. Once you get in competition, you seem to forget about it and obviously it was limiting me to be who I was,” Adebayo said. “Coach kind of took it out of my hands and was like ‘you got to sit' so it was great that I got that rest period. But I'm healthy now we gotta get back to the winning column.”
Adebayo would finish the game with 22 points and six rebounds in what was a solid night. It could've been a more efficient night however as he was a bit rusty on offense making 10 out of his 22 attempts, but still a performance to build off of.
How Tyler Herro is feeling after his first game in a while
As for Herro, he played 33 minutes and scored a team-high 25 points as he's missed action since early November where he had a Grade 2 right ankle sprain. He said to the media that he felt “really good” after the loss, though he still needed to catch his wind.
“Overall, I thought I felt really good. Obviously my wind was still needing to catch up, but I felt good, I felt more rhythm than I anticipated,” Herro said. “You know, but I thought I did a good job over that time rehabbing my ankle and just staying on top of my routine and, you know, I knew I'd be back and I didn't want to fall out of their routine. So I stuck with it and tried to prepare for myself as best as possible to come back tonight.”
Herro's performance Monday night caught the eyes of Spoelstra who said he made “winning basketball decisions.” It goes beyond the scoring according to the head coach as he mentioned the details that don't get highlighted in the stat-sheet.
“It was good. I thought he made a lot of good, winning basketball decisions when the ball was in his hands. That's not an easy thing to do when you've been out that long and he just made a lot of right plays, particularly, the first two and a half quarters,” Spoelstra said. “I was trying to get him out at the end of the third quarter. But he made a lot of right plays, wasn't just scoring. He was getting off the ball when you needed to, getting the ball where it needed to go. And then you can see how dynamic he can be in a lot of different places to score the basketball. That will continue to get better.”
The Heat still unable to sustain leads
As for the game itself, it was again another Heat game where they built up a huge lead early, this time it was 17 points, but they can't find a way to close it out. Adebayo said to ClutchPoints that he feels like the team lacked on the defensive side of the ball which led to the 35-point quarter from Minnesota in the fourth period.
“I feel like we're starting to rely on offense a lot. We got to pick that up on the other end,” Adebayo said. “A lot of times we will let dudes on islands by themselves. Obviously defense is not a one on one game, even though you gotta guard your yard, we've got to help each other build our string again.”
Herro provides another interesting reason for the questionable performance from the Heat in the loss to the Timberwolves. Because the team has been used to playing without the likes of Adebayo and Herro, the team was rusty in their chemistry. He didn't say it, but the team's depth can be a blessing and a curse in a game like this.
“It's absolutely never easy given up leads and being with it. You know, but that's a part of the business we're in, we're playing against talented group of guys on the other side that can go on the same kind of runs that we can,” Herro said. “So just being able to sustain for the full 48 minutes with different lineups, different units. Guys coming back like me and Bam, some roles changed. We have to just figure out a way to to make everybody feel like they're playing at their best with the guys that we have on the court because we have a very deep team because we have a bunch of different guys that affect the game on both sides.”
Spoelstra credits Minnesota
Spoelstra would give credit to the Timberwolves and in particular, center Rudy Gobert and star Anthony Edwards who finished with 32 points.
“Look, they're the number one defensive team in the league for a reason. We're able to make a lot of shots, playing with great pace, ball was moving and then they walk on down and more. And that second half go there had a massive impact in that fourth quarter as we all saw, as a deterrent on basically whatever action we were running and you have to be extremely detailed, you have to be intentional, and then find ways to be aggressive and then make the right decision and then Anthony Edwards was just terrific down the stretch. And he did it in a lot of different ways.”
The Heat go 2-2 on this four-game home-stand and are now at 15-12 on the season which puts them at seventh in the Eastern Conference. Up next, they face the Orlando Magic on the road on Wednesday.
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