MIAMI -- Bam Adebayo has entered the eye of the storm. He will probably stay there for the rest of the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics. Should his Miami Heat get one more win, no respite awaits in the NBA Finals.
Jimmy Butler has established himself as the Heat's postseason centerpiece, the team orbiting around his playmaking at both ends. But it is Adebayo, known for his versatile defense, who has become the team's bellwether on offense.
The Celtics, scrambling to adjust their game plan and mindset after falling down 3-0, have targeted the Heat's All-Star center as they've scrapped to make it a 3-2 series heading into Saturday's Game 6 in Miami (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT).
And it has been working.
The Heat are 6-0 this postseason when Adebayo scores 20 points or more; the best version of their offense forms when it flows through him, both as a scorer and facilitator. The Heat are 2-4 in their past six playoff games where he has failed to score 20.
In Game 1 of this series, Adebayo scored 20 points with five assists. In Game 2 he was even better, pouring in 22 points, grabbing 17 rebounds and dishing 9 assists. He had 15 defensive rebounds in that game, repeatedly picking the ball off the rim and racing to the other end to start the offense, trademark plays that show why he's so valued for his versatility.
But Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla has shelved his "double big" lineup and moved Robert Williams III to the bench, and his team, smaller and quicker, has used that package to move more active defenders in front of Adebayo to cut off his playmaking options.
And for the past three games, and especially the Boston wins in Games 4 and 5, Adebayo has been forced into dribbling more, turning the ball over and assisting less.
The result: just 13 points a game, with 10 turnovers combined in Games 4 and 5, as the Heat's offense failed to break 100 points in both losses.
"Definitely more of a packed paint," Adebayo said. "Just got to pick up that sense of urgency and watch film and get back to the basics."
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who has a strong history of making dynamic in-series adjustments, said he planned to tweak the offense to unlock Adebayo before the Heat get a third chance to close out the series on Saturday night.
By the time the Heat returned to South Florida after 3 a.m. Friday, the film had been reviewed and plans were being made for how to counter Boston's focus on the Miami big man.
"We're playing in a crowd quite a bit, which there can be some good things from that," Spoelstra said. "If we read the game, we can read the coverages and make the appropriate plays. But you have to give them credit for the activity. They jammed us up several times in the paint with quick hands, strip-downs, things of that nature. We have to shore that up. That's two games in a row of that."
The basic fix is to move the ball more quickly to beat the Celtics' rotations, instead of waiting for the Celtics to bring the pressure and then react to it. Adebayo, among other Heat players, has found himself stuck repeatedly and it has led to turnovers.
"You have to make quicker decisions and be decisive with your actions," Spoelstra said. "Now that this is the expectation of how they are playing, with that type of activity, it's our turn now to respond to that."
There are non-basic fixes, which Spoelstra is undoubtedly working on too, that include possible lineup changes and new alignments.
"I feel like ... the offense has just got to get a little bit more movement," Adebayo said. "Everybody got to be aggressive."
The Heat's reliance on Adebayo is going to be a central focus for the rest of their run. If Miami is able to get one more victory and advance to their second Finals in four years, a massive test awaits with Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets.
Jokic has feasted on the Heat in his career and, though it's not solely a head-to-head matchup with Adebayo the way the Heat often use zone defenses, Adebayo has felt the two-time MVP's full force.
The last time the Nuggets and Heat played, in a tight mid-February game, Jokic made 12-of-14 shots with 12 rebounds and 8 assists. Over the past two seasons -- the Heat were the East's No. 1 seed last season -- the Nuggets are 4-0 against Miami. And Jokic has dominated.
The numbers are vicious: Jokic has averaged 24 points per game on 67% shooting, plus 13.5 rebounds and 9.3 assists in the four wins vs. the Heat. Adebayo has averaged 19 points on 43% shooting with 8 rebounds and 3 assists in those games.
That's some reward for disposing of the Celtics. But that one is indeed first -- and it's clear Adebayo and his teammates feel the urgency to strike back at Boston's strategy.
"It's on us to get [Adebayo] in better positions to score the ball, get it to him in transition and stuff like that," said Butler, who had a playoff-low 14 points in Game 5.
"When you look at the film and look at how we can be better and getting him into his spots with the ball, with the position and with the time on the clock to score, we'll be better at that."