The Wizards were powerless to stop Bam Adebayo’s assault, leading the Heat to their sixth-straight win on a historic NBA night. They were undermanned at home again, using their 22nd starting lineup and still took control of the open court and never gave up their lead.

He was merciless, outscoring the Wizards by himself with 30 first-quarter points on rim attacks, freebies and 3-pointers, and eclipsing LeBron James’ record (25) for the most points in any quarter of Heat history. 

They had a 12-point lead at the start of the second, and he followed up with 13 more points via rim pressure plus extra freebies, and Keshad Johnson and Simone Fontecchio chipped in, combining for five baskets from deep and short distance. Their only concern was dealing with Alex Sarr, the 2024 second overall pick, who erupted on mostly outside jumpers and one strike at the rim.

They led 76-62 at halftime and subsequently kept a comfortable separation on the scoreboard throughout the third quarter as Adebayo refused to take his foot off the gas, pouring in another 19 points. He feasted at the line, plus he swished his sixth trifecta and nailed two more baskets at the rim, but he wasn’t finished there.

The Heat entered the fourth quarter ahead by 16, and Adebayo picked up his first two assists, setting up treys for Fontecchio and Dru Smith. Then he proceeded with rim attacks and the Wizards couldn’t defend without fouling. It was always garbage time, and they still sent him multiple defenders. Additionally, the entire bench stood up when coach Erik Spoelstra challenged an offensive foul on Adebayo with fewer than three minutes left and it was not overturned. As he approached Kobe Bryant‘s second all-time scoring record, assistant coach Caron Butler was yelling at the team to intentionally foul so he would get the ball back.

He scored his 82nd and 83rd points at the line as his mother stood, along with everyone fan in the building, at her court side seat.

The Heat won 150-129.

Spoelstra said, “This was just an absolutely surreal night. Obviously we’ve been blessed to have been a part of big moments in this arena. This one, it just happened.”

Takeaways:

• The Wizards were without the firepower of their new trade acquisitions, Trae Young (right knee injury management) and Anthony Davis (left finger sprain). The Heat were missing Norman Powell, Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins and Kel’el Ware. Still, the offense scored 127.4 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 84th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. It was also the 13th time they’ve scored at least 70 in the first half, and they are undefeated on those nights.

• Adebayo’s previous career high was 41 points in Brooklyn on Jan. 23, 2021. He wasn’t concerned with feeding his teammates since he had the scorching hot hand, and he passed his old best with 42 seconds left to go in the first half (43) on a catch-and-go move from the wing to the cup. He later finished with the Heat’s record for most points in a game by a player and the second-highest scoring game in NBA history (83). Despite the low-level competition, his outburst should keep his confidence high and was a nice boost to his scoring average. He is the 11th player in NBA history to cross 70 points and the third to break 80. 

• Adebayo scored 36 of his points at the line, in 43 attempts. Ten of his baskets were logged at close range, and three more in the paint were in the non-restricted area.

• Many coaches would have subbed Adebayo out earlier (43 minutes), but coach Erik Spoelstra allowed a special moment to continue. His teammates showed great respect to keep pushing for it, too. Aside from the championships, it’s hard to point to a more noteworthy night in the team’s history. Adebayo came in as a defensive player with a limited arsenal. He even passed up open mid-range jumpers in his fourth season plus at times in his fifth. Now he’s comfortable shooting from anywhere.

• He may not have made an All-Star team this season, but he may be in play for a selection on Third Team All-NBA when counting how he has played since Jan. 10.

It was a track meet between two division rivals, and the Heat narrowly escaped Charlotte on the second night of a back-to-back. The confrontation, featuring one surging team and the other hanging on, had high stakes as both are after the coveted sixth seed, which bypasses the Play-In Tournament.

Tyler Herro got targeted, but he was the Heat’s main source of offense along with Pelle Larsson, Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware as the Heat were down three going into intermission. Charlotte had found production from second opportunities and transition strikes, while Brandon Miller made six baskets at short and long range.

The team subsequently had trouble finishing at close range in the third quarter but that was offset by their scorching 3-point shooting which was needed to match Charlotte’s long-range assault. Herro and Davion Mitchell scored four shots apiece on mostly jump shots from long range, yet they ended the period still down three. 

Herro’s rampage continued, and the game shifted on three straight possessions: he curled around a handoff for a trey off an inbound then lobbed it to Ware for a vicious dunk through traffic, and Adebayo nailed a baseline jumper, giving them their largest lead of the night (7) as crunch time began.  

Despite the Hornets responding quickly with four 3-pointers, Herro and Dru Smith were there to bail them out with a pull-up jumper at the elbow and a tip-in.

The Heat won 128-120, with eight of the team’s 18 made triples belonging to Herro.  

Takeaways:

The Heat entered this game having won 14 of their last 25 games, and the Hornets had a 19-6 record, including a six-game win streak, in that span. The win gave the Heat the tiebreaker. They scored 130.6 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 89th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. Keep in mind that Charlotte had posted the sixth-ranked defense in that span.

The Heat are the fastest team in the league, but they are terribly inefficient when raising the pace. The Hornets were much sharper, logging a 12-7 edge in first-half fastbreak points then outpointed them 9-2 after intermission. 

Both squads combined for 13 3-pointers and each scored 40 points heading into the fourth quarter. It was easily one of the most entertaining sequences of their season.

Herro was the team’s engine, having the best game of his career. He logged 35 points, including eight treys on 80% shooting, with nine rebounds, nine assists and zero turnovers. His first miss from long range came on his seventh attempt.

Lots of games are won in the trenches. Moussa Diabate was a force on the offensive glass in the third quarter, supplying multiple second-chance triples. Charlotte even had 21 second-chance points before the fourth quarter started. Ware’s four blocks were some of the little things that helped the Heat survive in the trenches.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander returned to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 27 after missing nine straight games with an abdominal injury, and his squad looks like the best in the league. Keep in mind they are still missing All-Star Jalen Williams, who has been out with a right hamstring strain since Feb. 11. The San Antonio Spurs closed most of the gap with them for the first seed, but the Thunder’s proven depth gets tons of credit for maintaining it. 

The Spurs beat them four times this season, giving them the tiebreaker, and whichever team gets the first seed will have an advantage because of the extra night at home in a seven-game series.

The Thunder went into Madison Square Garden on Wednesday and showed themselves a class above their hosts. The New York Knicks weren’t concerned with guarding the arc, and their visitors turned it into target practice in the first half. On the other end, the Knicks had trouble getting the looks they wanted.

The game got tighter due to a home resurgence in the third quarter, but the Thunder prevailed because of contributions from multiple members, including the key strip by Cason Wallace on Jalen Brunson to make the last shot much harder when it was inbounded after that. And still, the Knicks got two 3-pointers off to tie in the last six seconds and the last one by OG Anunoby was a good look. 

The champs don’t hurt themselves, averaging the lowest turnover percentage in the league. Yet they aren’t some unbeatable juggernaut since their biggest weakness is allowing too many 3-pointers. Still, their physicality inside the arc permits the lowest two-point field goal percentage (49.1). Additionally, while they are only 24th in transition frequency, they are tied with New York as the most efficient team when raising the pace, scoring 1.19 points per possession. 

All of that is nice, but most importantly, SGA is the real deal. His ability to get to his spots late, as he did against Anunoby for a pull-up trey as the game hung in the balance, is what separates him from other All-Stars and All-NBA players. It’s special how he takes over a quarter (27.7) of his shots at 10-16 feet, making 59.1 percent of them, and is an above-average scorer in the in-between area (3-10 feet), logging 49.7 percent. 

He can go off like Rambo against a defense, and is good enough to make the right reads when added pressure comes. SGA and the crew have championship confidence so they’ll never be rattled. 

They are looking to be the first team to repeat since the Golden State Warriors did in 2017 and 2018.   

The Cavaliers’ front office doesn’t lack boldness, but did they make the right move?

Darius Garland was a beloved player in Cleveland. They drafted him fifth in 2019, and he made two All-Star teams. Now he’s a Los Angeles Clipper at age 26, and James Harden is a Cav. 

There’s a lot Harden does offensively that still makes him a high-impact player at age 36. Two advantages he has over Garland are his size and strength, being four inches taller and significantly heavier. 

He’s rarely gotten the credit for being the guy who took the Kevin Durant-led Warriors further than anyone, yet one questions Harden’s basketball character. He’s got a rap sheet of playoff letdowns and he wanted to leave the resurgent Clippers for guaranteed money two years from now, as if he hasn’t made a fortune already.

Combining him with Donovan Mitchell gives the Cavs two real hubs of offense. The latter being the superior player also takes pressure off Harden, but the latter can’t be a turnover machine or have games shooting in the 30s to low 40 percent range in the playoffs. 

This year has turned out favorably because they got out of the mud and now the Cavs have a solid opportunity to get back to their first Finals since 2018. They won’t catch the Detroit Pistons for the first seed, but it remains to be seen how the latter lacking a second big-time shot creator will factor in to the playoffs, presuming they vanquish the eighth seed. 

After flaming out in round two last year, it’s all or nothing for the Cavs.

The Miami Heat’s difficult quest for the sixth seed:

The Miami Heat have six games left against the league’s worst teams, and they can’t afford to lose any of them if they want the sixth seed to avoid going through their fourth Play-In Tournament. They have to be on point because the Charlotte Hornets are on their tail, and are the superior team plus the Orlando Magic have the tiebreaker after beating them four times.

They’ll need to tighten up their 3-point defense in the final regular-season stretch since they give up the most open attempts. The Heat are not good enough to get by on the strength of their offense and must commit to being the nastier team in the trenches.  If they don’t, their top-four defensive rating is not as good as it sounds.

It helps that Bam Adebayo has picked up his play since mid-January, averaging 21.7 points and 10 rebounds on 45.2% shooting. He needs to finish the year like that while keeping up his high level of defense. On top of that, Tyler Herro and Jaime Jaquez Jr. can’t fail to deliver on nights the team needs their scoring and playmaking as this will affect the defense. The more efficient they are, opponents will have to play the Heat more in the half-court because the ball will need to be checked in.

The Heat have 20 games left but two remain between them and Hornets, both being in Charlotte 11 days apart. The latter has a 19-6 record since Jan. 10,  and the Heat’s best 25-game spurt was 14-11. The Heat are one game out of the sixth seed, but are separated by 1.5 games in the standings with the Hornets.

It was easy work for the Heat as they figured out the tanking, visiting Nets by the second quarter, and earning their 19th win at Kaseya Center. The offense scored 125.3 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 79th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass.

Danny Wolf gave the Heat fits in early, cutting, shooting and driving, yet the hosts finished the first period ahead by six thanks to Bam Adebayo carrying them with his rim pressure. 

Tyler Herro then took over for a stretch, piercing the lane thrice, plus Andrew Wiggins hit the fast lane in transition for two baskets, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. kept getting to the body and nailed two triples. 

The crew had a 15-point edge at intermission, having made a dent in transition and with second-chance opportunities. They subsequently were sloppy in the third quarter, committing avoidable turnovers and guarding in third gear, but the Nets could never get within striking distance, in part because Herro had a quick burst at the end of it. 

The fourth quarter was a formality as Simone Fontecchio got plenty of burn, making multiple 3-pointers and a few freebies. Adebayo stayed in the game for a bit to ensure the Nets wouldn’t make a comeback and checked out with fewer than four minutes left. 

The Heat won 124-98, and they had six double-figure scorers log between 11 and 23 points.

Takeaways: 

• Not much can be taken away from this victory, like when a fighter cruises to an easy win against a piece of meat. The Heat will play them again Thursday, giving them a chance to bolster their record, but the public will learn more in Friday’s matchup with the surging Charlotte Hornets, who have an 18-6 record since Jan. 10.

• Adebayo being in kill-mode early set the mood for the team, yet it took the defense a bit longer to catch up despite their blocks and steals. He even had five steals and a denial in the first half. Things would be different for the Heat this season if he were that player full-time, and maybe he can be. 

• The big front court featuring Adebayo and Kel’el Ware got some more time in the first half and in the fourth, yet it will take more than short stretches against a basement team for coach Erik Spoelstra to trust the lineup. They still need some fine-tuning, working with the other three to guard, but the lineups’ intensity on the glass is an edge the Heat needs. And of course, all of their minutes didn’t come together, but they combined for 11 steals. 

• Fouling on jump shooters is a league-wide problem, but it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing and inexcusable for the Heat to keep making them if they are serious about doing things this season. It happened thrice in the second quarter, including two behind the arc. The team that bites on fewer fakes, and doesn’t commit cheap fouls and unnecessarily sags off the 3-point line can easily save an extra 10 points per game.    

• Herro has never been scared to talk but this was his second straight game getting a technical foul. On Feb. 28, he had words with Kevin Durant, and on Tuesday it was with Noah Clowney, presumably after he stepped over Pelle Larsson after a blocking foul was called.