Evaluating the Dewayne Dedmon and Bam Adebayo Front-Court Pairing

There aren’t many things that Miami wants to carry over from game two into game three in this first round series against the Bucks, but there is one thing: a revealed front-court pairing with Dewayne Dedmon and Bam Adebayo.

Many have been waiting to see these two get minutes together, and I kept mentioning that I expected it to be one of Erik Spoelstra’s post-season moves up his sleeve. But I definitely didn’t expect it to come in a game down 30, which shows that he was giving it a trial run before going to it the rest of the series.

It’s definitely been in Coach Spo’s game-plan, since Dedmon mentioned after the game that “It’s definitely something that Coach has talked about doing earlier.” Now that they’ve gone to it, there are plenty of offensive adjustments that can be expanded from those lineups, which I will look into here…

Adebayo was forced to drop with Giannis Antetokounmpo off the quick dive, and it led to a miss. And even more importantly, a rebound.

Rebounds were hard to come by for Miami yesterday as they lost that battle 61-36, and 21-9 on the offensive glass. But if anybody can continually go up and grab them, it’s Dedmon who led the team in that category by a wide margin in game two.

The other reason rebounding is key in these lineups is due to Adebayo being able to freely guard the perimeter, knowing Dedmon is utilizing his space to muck up the paint. A huge reason that the rebounding battle doesn’t fall in Miami’s favor most of the time, is that their center is at the three-point line due to the scheme, meaning it’s on everybody else to crash.

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Anyway, after that missed shot and rebound, the ball found Adebayo to push up the floor quickly. He flows into a DHO for Duncan Robinson who gets a good look, but take a glance at what happened next. Antetokounmpo matched up with Dedmon in transition, but flashed out to the perimeter on the Robinson three, leaving a runway for Dedmon to crash the boards.

He grabbed it and laid it in, giving a quick introduction to how things can look in their minutes together.

Another element to this front-court pairing is the Bam Adebayo offensive discussion. We’ve talked enough about the spacing he’s been given and the lack of comfort in his offensive role, but there’s a good chance this could open him up into different things.

For one, Dedmon was the one running most of the DHO and PnR stuff in these minutes, leaving Adebayo off the ball on the baseline. There’s been a lot of talk about Adebayo worrying about himself more than others, and there’s a chance this could do just that.

Also, this leads to that offensive creativity that I discussed earlier, which allows Erik Spoelstra to do what he does best. This play is a good example, since Dedmon drives on the roll and collapses the defense, leading to an Adebayo pin-down for a Goran Dragic corner three.

This stuff doesn’t change the outcome of game two, but it’ll be important for them to apply this in the two games back home.

When Dedmon was asked about playing next to Adebayo, he responded, “I definitely like that pairing…I feel like it worked out well and I’m hoping we can continue more of that.” And I think we see just that.

As much as this can open up Adebayo, it’s another one of those topics that come down to him. In this clip, Dedmon is once again running most of the hand-offs and setting most of the screens, while Adebayo isn’t included at all on the baseline.

If that happens, then the effectiveness of these lineups will fade quickly. But if you’re wondering what I mean by being “creative” in these lineups, why not start with some 4-5 PnR?

We always talk about getting Adebayo downhill with screens, and there’s no one better than your big man being that guy. Butler clearly needs some of the pressure off of him after his struggles in the first two games, and this could be one of Spo’s ways, possibly very early.

Some seem to think it could be the starting front-court in game three, but I don’t believe that will be the case. No back-up big doesn’t seem like a very good option, and he’s currently playing so well in his role that there’s no need to change it.

When Adebayo was asked about their minutes together, he said, “It was good to switch it up. That’s one thing about Spo, in the playoffs he’s willing to switch it up. It was good minutes to be in there with Dewayne, and you never know, you might see more of it.”

Two more losses and this Heat team is out, so it’s time to throw it all on the table. And this pairing will be one of the first things laid out in game three.

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