Bam Adebayo pushes the Heat into the NBA Finals to face LeBron James and the Lakers

Adebayo didn’t come by the bookend victories accidentally. His high-IQ defensive play, well-honed sense of positioning, shot-blocking instincts and fearlessness all came together on the block of Tatum. In keying the Heat’s 125-113 Game 6 victory over the Celtics, he relied on his power and speed attacking the basket and his ability to control rebounds in traffic. Adebayo also channeled the guilt and self-disgust that emerged two nights earlier, when he accepted the blame for Miami’s Game 5 loss because of his “terrible” play.

“My family knows how I get when I play bad and especially when we lose,” Adebayo said, after posting a postseason career-high 32 points, 14 rebounds and five assists. “I put that on my shoulders because I feel I could have done something different. Tonight, I did something different. I came out being extra aggressive and locked in.”

The Heat’s improbable run to their first Finals appearance since 2014 was a circuitous journey prompted by LeBron James’s decision to leave Miami after four straight Finals trips and two titles to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers. To get in position to face James and the Lakers in the Finals this week, the Heat passed numerous key checkpoints: the 2015 trade for point guard Goran Dragic, the selection of Adebayo with the 14th pick in the 2017 draft and, perhaps most importantly, the 2019 sign-and-trade agreement with the Philadelphia 76ers for Jimmy Butler. They also endured their share of lumps, as a series of overaggressive splashes in free agency produced one playoff series victory and three lottery trips over the first five years after James’s departure.

Entering this season, Miami was largely viewed as a third-tier team in the East. They endured some growing pains with a new roster and gained momentum in the spring and during the summer restart, finishing as the East’s No. 5 seed with a 44-29 record. They tore through the Eastern Conference playoffs with a 12-3 run, sweeping the Indiana Pacers, upsetting the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in five games and then outlasting the Celtics in six.

The crucial sequence that landed them in the Finals unfolded midway through the fourth quarter after Boston fought back to claim a 97-96 lead. Adebayo first sized up Celtics center Daniel Theis on the perimeter, driving hard to his left, turning the corner and flushing a strong two-handed dunk. Energized, he attacked again on the very next possession, working his way to a pullup jumper and drawing a foul on Theis in the process.

Adebayo’s onslaught continued moments later, when another foray into the paint drew three defenders and led to an open Jimmy Butler layup. With Boston reeling, Adebayo then worked a two-man game on the perimeter, setting up Duncan Robinson for a three-pointer that pushed Miami’s lead to five.

“Adebayo deciding that he was just going to drive the ball put us in a real bind with the shooters around him,” Celtics Coach Brad Stevens said. “Their physicality is something that I’m not sure that we probably talked about it enough. [Adebayo] dominated that fourth quarter. Even the plays where he didn’t score, his presence was so impactful.”

All told, Adebayo’s scoring and assists accounted for 11 straight Heat points and he followed up that stretch with a series of defensive rebounds to put the game out of reach.

“Bam’s one of the great competitors already in this association,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’s going to become one of the great winners.”

Those two minutes marked the defining stretch of Adebayo’s young career, and a distilled version of the Heat’s core principles. Under President Pat Riley and Spoelstra, Miami has long sought to cultivate an environment where excuses aren’t accepted and working harder is the answer to all of life’s ills. Adebayo’s rapid improvement during his three years in Miami has been a credit to Spoelstra’s culture. Ditto for the quick acclimation of Butler, who finished with 22 points and eight assists in Game 6 and who has provided a stable and experienced hand in tense moments through these playoffs.

Spoelstra, who rarely lets loose in front of the cameras, waxed Sunday about the Heat’s recruitment of Butler, which proved to be anticlimactic. Butler had already heard the full version from Dwyane Wade, his former Chicago Bulls teammate, and he saw kindred spirits in Riley, Spoelstra and the roster that they had assembled.

“[We are] a bunch of guys that have been overlooked in a lot of ways,” said Spoelstra. “A lot of guys in our locker room have been told that they are less than. They are the anti-AAU or new age analytics where you’re trying to figure out what a player can do statistically. They just want to roll the ball out and play and compete and fight for it.

“We were so aligned [with Butler] in how we viewed competition and work and culture, everything. We never even got into a pitch with him. We really just had dinner. We were talking shop and he interrupted Pat and I after dinner, probably five minutes into a conversation. He said, ‘By the way, I’m in.’ We were like, ‘What? We haven’t even given you our pitch yet.’”

Butler’s arrival in Miami marked his fourth team in four years, a rarity for an all-star caliber wing. His drive and lack of patience had rubbed some teammates the wrong way at previous spots, but in Miami he found plenty of interested parties to join him for his early-morning workouts. He took rookie Tyler Herro, the driving force behind Miami’s Game 4 over Boston, under his wing, and he quickly forged a winning partnership with Adebayo.

Butler and Adebayo had common ground: They weren’t top 10 picks, they came off the bench as rookies and they began their careers as defensive specialists before growing into two-way players. They were also willing to trust in Riley’s turnaround vision.

“[Riley] didn’t assemble this team for us to play 82 games and go home,” Adebayo said. “This is all in preparation for how we can win a championship. I love this team that he brought together. We’re the underdogs. We’re not backing down from anybody.”

Indeed, the Heat will enter the Finals against James’s Lakers as the challengers, not the headliners. Los Angeles earned the West’s top seed with a 52-19 record and advanced through the playoffs with a 12-3 run. Miami’s showdown with Los Angeles will feature a fascinating matchup inside between Adebayo and Anthony Davis, and it will rekindle memorable playoff battles between Butler and James.

“It’s been like this for a very long time,” said Butler, whose Bulls were eliminated by James’s Heat in 2013 and James’s Cavaliers in 2015. “If you want to win, you’re going to have to go through a LeBron James-led team. That’s what it normally comes down to. That’s what we’ve got to focus in on. You’re going to get the same test over and over again until you pass, and that test is LeBron James.”

Spoelstra credited the Heat’s alignment for driving this Finals run, and their key figures were in lockstep when it came to their approach to the Lakers. After nearly three months at Disney World, the Heat have every intention of extending their unexpected trip for as long as possible.

“We have to be damn near perfect to beat the Lakers,” Butler said. “We’re capable of it.”