Bam Adebayo was filled with rage.
It was the morning of Game 3 of the 2022 Eastern Conference finals in Boston, less than 48 hours after the Heat center had scored only six points in a 25-point loss to the Celtics at home. His Game 2 performance had invited another round of his critics’ favorite question: Is Bam aggressive enough? Ever since Adebayo became a starter in ’19, the expectations for him as an offensive force have grown. When he signed a max contract extension in November ’20, it seemingly added pressure for him to produce more points.
Adebayo was not only upset with how he’d played in Game 2, he had also been gassed up by his big brother, Udonis Haslem, after the performance. As Adebayo recalls, Haslem had a conversation with him the following night about Bam envisioning the type of showing he wanted to have in Game 3. The two watched “about 10 seconds of film” before Haslem and Adebayo had a grown-man conversation about the latter’s responsibilities.
