The game against the Utah Jazz was turning. The lead no longer was secure. Something needed to be said to the team.
And then, at that precise moment, as 42-year-old Miami Heat captain Udonis Haslem was about to speak, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
Based on what he had tried to cultivate these past six years, it was as if it was divine intervention.
To Haslem, to a degree it was, as Bam Adebayo seized the moment.
“In Utah,” Haslem said, “before I spoke, he stopped me, and he spoke. I was about to say something and he put his hand on me and he stopped me and he spoke. I was excited to see that.”
For all the strides Adebayo has made since being drafted in the first round in 2017 out of Kentucky, the defensive completeness, the emerging scoring, he largely stood as gentle giant.
But now, as Haslem and coach Erik Spoelstra have noted, it is turning.
“This,” Haslem said, “is an alpha-male sport, and it’s OK to let that other side come out when you step out on the court. You don’t have to be that well-mannered kid who was raised in the trailer by your mom in North Carolina.”
So in the heat of that moment, Adebayo wasn’t.
“The fouls were starting to go the other way for us,” Haslem said of that big-voiced Adebayo instant against the Jazz, “and things could have started going the other way. You could feel the energy slipping away, and he said, ‘No, no, not tonight.’ "
For all Spoelstra had nurtured, for all the Heat development staff had elevated, this was the moment when a leading man became a leader.
“He’s growing and really emerging with his voice,” Spoelstra said. “It was as loud as it’s been when they took the four-point lead. He had that huddle and he made sure everybody just was focused on that next possession and that it didn’t lead to a couple more bad possessions.
“Everybody responds to Bam. He doesn’t say something all the time, and when he does say something, everybody is paying attention. But he’s growing in that role.”
In seizing that moment, it was as if torch had begun to be passed.
“I mean, I’ve been here for six years, so I’ve got to lead in here with something,” Adebayo told the Sun Sentinel of daring to be vocal in a huddle dominated by veterans in their 30s. “I mean, it’s just growing into the player they want me to be. They want to be like The Captain, they want me to be like UD, just getting out of my comfort zone.
“When I first got here, I wasn’t saying anything. And that was just me building my trust with everybody. But I feel like it’s just trust and being an example. One thing I always did, I never liked to talk, but I would always, when I got on the court, be that standard and example. So now being with UD for six years, I’ve gotten out of my comfort zone of being not only an example on the court, but the voice also.”
It is, Haslem said, what makes Adebayo the real deal, not hollow bravado and bluster.
“At first,” Haslem said, “you have to hold yourself to a standard, or no one will listen to you. That takes work for a guy coming out of college. And for as mature he looks, Bam is only 25. So it took work to get to that point. Once you do that, and people can see that, your voice will resonate.”
As it has. Loudly. Profoundly.
“The next step as you get older in this league,” Spoelstra said, “and when winning really matters to you as a great player, which it does to Bam, then you start holding everybody accountable, including the staff. I want it to be important to everybody.
“Whenever we go through a prep, a film session, a practice, a game, a huddle, I want to hear his voice. Because he is the anchor of our defense and he has to make it as important to each one of us as it is to him. And he’s starting to find his voice now, particularly with this year’s team.”
