Having initially been listed as questionable for Tuesday’s game due to a left quad contusion, Heat big man Bam Adebayo said today that he’s playing, tweets Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald.
Adebayo, who expressed on Monday that his finish outside of the top three in Defensive Player of the Year voting was “disrespectful,” told reporters on Tuesday that he’s moving on from the perceived snub and is focused on Game 2, according to Jackson.
Here’s more on the Heat:
- Viewed as one of the Heat’s most important reserves entering the season, Markieff Morris was limited to 17 games this season due to a neck injury and was a DNP-CD in the first game of the playoffs. He has discussed his situation with head coach Erik Spoelstra, but says he “has to accept it” and hasn’t complained, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald. “Obviously, I’m one of the top guys on the team. But we’ve had success without me,” Morris said. “It happens to be one of those things – and I understand — if I’m needed, that’s when I’ll play. There’s nothing I can really do. It has nothing to do with my game or my career. … This situation now, it’s not broken, so no need to fix it.”
- The Heat have had an inordinate amount of success with undrafted players, including Duncan Robinson, Kendrick Nunn, Gabe Vincent, and Omer Yurtseven in recent years, not to mention 19-year veteran Udonis Haslem. In a story for ESPN.com, Andrew Lopez takes a look at the impressive work the franchise has done developing players who have been overlooked on draft night. “It’s an organizational philosophy of ours,” Spoelstra told ESPN. “We’ve done it now for several years. We know what we’re looking for. We’re not for everybody, but we love to be dream makers.”
- Veteran forward P.J. Tucker has embraced the idea of being a mentor for the Heat’s younger players, saying this week that he wishes a veteran had taken on that role with him earlier in his career. “I think so many times when I was younger, coming into the league, being a young player, I wish I had somebody to kind of help me, teach me little tricks of the trade, little things you got to do, how to stay focused,” Tucker said, per Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel.