MIAMI – In the Miami Heat's early statement win over the New York Knicks, the team displayed its new style of offense once again to impressive results. While the players are having fun with the Heat's new offense, certain stars, such as Bam Adebayo, aren't fulfilled just yet.

Despite the Knicks focusing on slowing down Miami, which came in as the fastest team in the NBA by pace with 112.3 possessions per 48 minutes, by upping their man-to-man defensive pressure and clogging driving lanes, the team overcame the adversity. It was a slow start, but the Heat picked up their momentum in creating quick offense and capitalizing in transition with 31 fastbreak points, leading to the victory over New York.

The talk throughout training camp and the preseason has been about the team's new philosophy on offense, with players citing the hard regimen they went through to keep up the pace. With the results showing through three games, Adebayo would tell ClutchPoints that he isn't satisfied just yet and that sustaining it throughout the season will be key.

“We're not satisfied, we still want to keep this pace up throughout the whole season,” Adebayo said. “It's not just the first five to 10 games; we want to do this the whole season, because when you build it as a habit and then you get into the next stage of the season, that's when it really matters. That's when people tend to slow down.”

“And you know, for us, we want to keep that pace, so when we get in the playoffs, it's kind of like, everybody's trying to play half-court offense, and we're getting the ball off running,” Adebayo continued. “And like I said, you feel alive because everybody feels involved.”

Heat's Bam Adebayo on the win over the Knicks being “fun”

Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo (13) drives to the basket against New York Knicks forward Guerschon Yabusele (28) during the second quarter at Kaseya Center.
Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

With the Heat's blowout win over the Memphis Grizzlies last Friday, the victory on Sunday, and even the opening loss to the Orlando Magic, the team has a clear focus on what their identity is on offense. It was much needed as the team ranked towards the bottom of the league in offensive rating and pace, as combining that with the “resilience” shown against the Knicks, Adebayo would call it a “fun Miami win.”

“I just like we kept fighting through, man, like that's a fun Miami win,” Adebayo said to ClutchPoints as he scored 19 points and recorded 13 rebounds in the win. “It's one or two points and you break it open, so it gets about 15, and then they break and they push it back to like eight, and then it's a nail-biter for like the last four minutes. And we've seen in the past how those can go towards us.”

“But having that resilience, that bounce back to, obviously, keep chipping forward,” Adebayo continued. I don't think we ran a play today, and those are the type of wins that you enjoy, because, like I said, you don't run a play? And you're still out there getting 115.”

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Other Heat players enjoy seeing the work pay off thus far

It also helps to have the right personnel, as besides the Heat's newcomer in Norman Powell transitioning seamlessly with his new team, the rest of the team is buying into the system. One who has benefited from it is Jaime Jaquez Jr., coming off a sophomore slump, as he had another impactful game off the bench, scoring 17 points to go along with five rebounds and five assists.

“It's very satisfying,” Jaquez said. “I think we're all happy. I think we've all deserved this. We put in a lot of work as a team every single day, grinding, grinding away at this new offense and defense that we're putting in, and it's great to see these results pay.”

As for Wiggins, while he only scored nine points, his presence was felt on the defensive side of the ball and even had a crucial three-pointer to help ice the game when the Knicks were threatening to come back with 1:20 left in the contest. He would talk about the work put in during a rigorous training camp to reach a fast pace.

“For sure, we work so hard in training camp, it was a very tough training camp,” Wiggins said to ClutchPoints. “It prepared us for, you know, these games. You know, we feel like we're in better shape than anybody. Keep pushing the wall, playing fast.”

At any rate, the work has seemed to pay off thus far with the Heat averaging 109.67 possessions per 48 minutes, the fastest in the league. Miami looks to continue its impressive play on Tuesday night against the Charlotte Hornets.