JJ Redick also shared the same thing about Bam Adebayo being the key if the Heat are going to go on and win the championship.
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The Miami Heat are locked in an intense battle with the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals with the series at 2-2. The Heat took game 1 when Jimmy Butler took over but the Celtics won Game 2 thanks to the returning Marcus Smart. Miami scraped past Boston in Game 3 but could not take win Game 4 as most of their starters were clamped by the Celtics and held to single digits. Former NBA player and pundit Jalen Brown said that for the Heat to get past the Celtics, they will not only need Jimmy Butler but Bam Adebayo as well to perform well.
Speaking on ESPN’s Get Up, Jalen Rose said, “They are going to need him (Jimmy Butler) to be terrific offensively and he has to mix up his game, get steals, get on transitions and get easy ones. Continue to work mid-range on the post. Get to the free-throw line. That is when Jimmy Butler is at his best. But as we continue to talk about Jimmy Butler and he does need to step up clearly, the elephant in the room for me is the lack of productivity, particularly in losses from Bam Adebayo.
“In the previous series, he had his two highest-scoring games when Embiid was out. This series, he had his best game in Game 3 when Robert Williams III was out. In Game 3, he had as many points, rebounds and assists basically as he did total in games 1, 2 and 4. So they are going to need Bam also to be productive, to be aggressive and to understand that there is a sense of urgency tonight because obviously in my opinion, if they lose tonight, they are going to lose two in a row and go home this season.”
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Fellow pundit and former player JJ Redick echoed Rose’s sentiment and alluded to the fact that this was the same Celtics team that Miami beat in 2020. Redick also shared the same thing about Bam Adebayo being the key if the Heat are going to go on and win the championship.
Redick said, “Bam to me is the key for the Heat to win this series and to eventually contend for a championship. If we go back to 2020, in the Eastern Conference Finals against these very Celtics, Bam led them in points, rebounds, assists, and steals and we got that version once so far in this series and that was in Game 3. So as good as Jimmy Butler has been and as good as he needs to be for this team to win, the key for the Heat to me is the aggressive version of Bam that we saw in Game 3 and that we saw in 2020”, he concluded.
