The Culture Report: Ware's week & it's not the end of the world for Bam

Welcome to The Culture Report! A Weekly report rounding up everything that you need to know about the Miami Heat to get up to speed on what’s been going on. This will be through “What’s Been Heating Up” where we go through all of the games and main takeaways. There will be additional breakdowns and pieces either on Simply Ballin or AUCH that dives in deeper into other topics and questions compiled here with additional thoughts. Following that is a Weekly Ramble to share any unscripted, unplanned thoughts, before going into The Heatle Things where it’s everything in between + compiling any other best Heat work from other creators.

What’s Been Heating Up

We’re starting off the report by going through thoughts from the games, a bunch of film and Xs & Os. This will include going through an individual’s performance, key reasons why they won/lost, and a handful of little takeaways. If you missed a game or if you want to dive into some of the main takeaways, this is for you.

• ORTG: 115.8(133.3, 112.6, 101.)

• DRTG: 119.1(108.6, 122.1, 126.7)

• eFG%: 53.7% vs 55.7%

• TOV%: 10.4% vs 9.7%

• ORB%: 26.0% vs 26.9%

• FTr: 12.7 vs 15.3

128-107 WIN vs San Antonio Spurs

Oh, man. This game was something. Being an NBA fan in Europe, you don’t often get to watch games live(if you like to sleep). You also don’t get to watch your favorite team even more because you may be lucky to 3-5 games that start early enough.

The Heat only have three this year, one that I couldn’t watch, one that’s the last game of the season against the Wizards, and the Spurs. It started off in a way that I thought it sucks for this game to be the early one. I want to experience something fun. Luckily after 18 or so minutes, the fun came.

It was a struggle at first on both ends. In the first quarter, the Heat had an 83.3 ORTG and a 120.0 DRTG. Poor defensive possessions after poor defensive possessions. There wasn’t much being exploited, other than communication, rotations, and effort.

Offensively, that was even worse and it looks worse when 3s aren’t falling. That’s why in the first half, they only had 46 points because they shot 4/13 from 3pt, but also only shooting 15/35 from 2pt. That’s 43% inside the arc.

There wasn’t anywhere to get the offense. Butler still wasn’t as involved in the offense as you may want. Herro was getting face-guarded by Stephon Castle like mad. Some of the possessions really had Highsmith trying to create something out of nothing and it didn’t work.

But the turning point was in the second quarter with a couple of transition possessions and Spoelstra finally going for Adebayo-Ware minutes. That sparked the defense and the whole energy shifted. When Adebayo checked in, it was 39-32. When the quarter ended, it was 41-46. A 14-2 run is insane. That was primarily defense and Robinson being “prime” Robinson.

Then in the second half, it was a whole bunch of 3s. Out of their 18/33 3s for the game, 14/20 came in the second half.

That’s absurd but that’s how the Heat were able to score “checks notes” 82 points in a half.

And with that came also three stories of the games. The first was Robinson taking my tweet personally because he ended up being a much-needed scoring boost going off for 21 points with 5/7 triples a couple of nice highlights to Adebayo on the lob and a poster for himself.

Then we also had, the player of the game Kel’el Ware who outplayed Wembanyama, finishing with 25 points and 8 rebounds on 9/14 from 2pt, 1/5 3pt, and 4/4 ft.

This was a game for him and he did everything right on offense.

And finally, it was the fact that we saw Adebayo and Ware together. That was something different. That was something new and it worked however it did. It was mainly the impact on the defensive end that sparked everything:

This is what sparked the run in the second that only allowed two points in six minutes and what carried on into the third.

This was the most fun win this season so far

107-116 LOSS vs Portland Trail Blazers

It really is a roller-coaster with this team. After the kind of game that they had against the Spurs, I don’t know how many fans would’ve expected this kind of performance.

The final score of the game was far closer than what it really was. The Heat were down 27 points at one point in the third. They entered the fourth down 20 and it wasn’t until around four minutes left that the lead was cut to 10.

It’s hard to pinpoint what went wrong too, given it was multiple things going wrong. Up until 2:48 in the third(before the usual starters checked out), they were down 24, 92-68. They had a 103.0 ORTG with 49.2% TS and 139.4 DRTG with 65.7% opponent TS. It was an issue on both ends of the floor.

Offensively, it was just a bunch of nothing. In the first quarter, they were saved by some 3-point shooting going in off poor process and at times getting bailed out. Because after the first quarter, they scored 39 in the following two.

A big reason for that was Jimmy Butler. This is a game without Tyler Herro(his first game out) and up until he checked out, he had 13 points on 9 shots in 26 minutes — Bam Adebayo, Kel’el Ware, Terry Rozier, and Nikola Jovic had more shots. That can’t happen from the best player on the court and expect an offense, especially when he did have the ball in his hands a lot. This was him making decisions and it wasn’t good. Lack of aggression was a big part. Too many times there was a mismatch and he didn’t take advantage.

Here are Butler’s on-ball possessions:

And without the best player creating any advantages, they were left to get the best thing available and when you also combine that with poor shooting where they shot 0/12 in the second and 2/10 in the third, there’s no offense at all. Some of the looks were open and it was at times bad luck, but there were also no counters to get any other look.

Their poor offense is also connected to their defense. If you miss, that means opponent can run, and the Blazers sure did run. They had 21 fast break points. It wasn’t even off of turnovers. There were only eight turnovers committed and eight points scored. They were running any chance they could get.

On top of that, there was no grit in their defense at all either. Outside of the fastbreaks, they didn’t really force anything tough either. Deandre Ayton had six offensive rebounds and shot 11/13 inside the arc by himself.

There was some potential of a comeback led by the “kids”, but in the end, it wasn’t enough despite fighting back to even have the game within reach.

96-125 LOSS vs Milwaukee Bucks

Another blowout. It started off well. The Heat did start the game with an 18-3 lead and led by the end of the first 30-27. Everything went wrong after that on both ends of the floor.

To start the game, they had a 120.0 ORTG. Following that was 104.2, 76.0, and 106.3(before the starters checked out. A big part of that was the 3pt shooting. It is going to be impossible to win games shooting 12/51(23%), especially when that’s over half of your attempts at 55%.

I don’t like the argument about 3s not falling being the big or sole reason for a team losing, but it does play a big part, where the bar is that you need at least be okay shooting it — for reference, teams are 77-222(25%) when shooting below 30% and 19-86(18%) when shooting below 25%. It’s not always the reason, but if you don’t hit a reasonable standard, everything becomes much more difficult.

A lot of the looks were good, wide-open looks to good shooters. Herro and Robinson combined for 7/25. I didn’t feel like a lot was forced or settling.

But then again, nothing else was easy on offense either. Herro had 21 points on 2/6 2pt and 4/13 3pt with nine assists, though — I liked his passing game. Adebayo finished with 11 points on 5/10 2pt, and 0/2 3pt. Then the bench(Jaquez, Rozier, Jovic, Haywood) combined gave 23 points on 8/25 shooting with 10 assists.

And on defense, it was a bit of everything at different times. Gary Trent Jr cooked the most, making 7/10 3s. Damian Lillard added another 29 and 11. Giannis Antetokounmpo with a solid 25/12/4 on 10/18 shooting.

The 3pt defense hurt the most because they were timely shots that made them go on a run. The defense inside wasn’t as bad for the game. The Bucks shot 14/24 at the rim and 5/11 in the paint. Equally as important, they also went 9/23 from the mid-range. That’s a great profile to have defensively. But those 3s hurt.

Once again, though, the Heat simply couldn’t score to keep up even when the Bucks had trouble scoring the ball too.

Ware’s Week

If there is anything that stood out from this week that was a 1-2 stretch, and two coming in blowouts was Ware. He had three straight 20+ point games:

• Vs Spurs: 25 points, 8 rebounds(4 offensive), 2 assists, and 2 blocks on 9/14 2pt, 1/5 3pt, 4/4 ft

• Vs Blazers: 20 points, 15 rebounds(3 offensive), and 2 blocks on 6/11 2pt, 2/6 3pt, 2/2 ft

• Vs Bucks: 22 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 stocks on 7/8 2pt, 2/7 2pt, 2/2 ft

That’s great production from the rookie. It is only three games, but averaging a 20/10 double-double against teams that also had solid, “big” big men like Victor Wembanyama, Deandre Ayton, and Brook Lopez, is pretty impressive.

It’s all done in very simple, but effective ways. A good big play can easily do a lot for the offense by just finishing on easy shots. At times, it feels like it’s a slight at the player for playing that role as if it’s not impressive. Any team will take a player who can comfortably and consistently get and finish easy shots.

That’s how Ware has done most of his damage. It’s catching lobs and cuts:

You may think that’s just getting spoon-fed easy lobs, but at the same time, not every big is capable of moving like and times those cuts so well. There is skill and IQ needed to do all of that and he plays it so well. That’s the benefit of being 7ft and jumping high. That gives the other players such a safety net where they can throw it up and he will get it.

One thing that I enjoyed from that is some of the movement of knowing when and how to cut when the defense isn’t watching him or going to help.

Related to that has been eating up missed shots on putbacks:

Again, it’s capitalizing on easy shots and it’s cleaning up other people’s misses. It’s putting points on shots otherwise, it would’ve ended with nothing.

I also liked his roll ability.

Finally, he hasn’t shot the ball well, but there’s no reluctance or hesitation. He’s firing up those 3s whether it’s a catch-and-shoot or if the defense is sagging off and daring him to shoot

I have really liked Ware this week.

Heat Check

Here is a weekly ramble where it’s me simply ranting about the Heat and giving a “heat” check on them. It’s me giving my thoughts and opinions on the state of the team and where I’m at with them. Plus some additional thoughts I may have that could be interesting or anything newsworthy to add.

Man, it hasn’t been pretty for the Heat in terms of their win-loss column(unless you’re counting for a lottery pick this year, which in that case, it’s right on track). They have won one in their last six games and three of them were almost blowouts.

But again, that doesn’t matter as much. We’re once again dealing with the Butler saga and I can’t wait until that is officially over.

He did come back after thinking that wasn’t going to happen in any circumstances and then he showed why that should’ve been the case. In these three games, he averaged 13/3/6 and hasn’t looked engaged at all. He took seven and nine shots in these last two games. He took nine without Herro when the Heat couldn’t buy a bucket.

So, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Heat looked to suspend him right away for missing his flight. That was a game suspension for these two games on the road. But again, I wonder what is going to happen after. You can’t keep suspending him like that.

But you also can’t keep bringing him if that’s how he’s going to play and change everything else for everyone.

Hopefully, this is something that the Heat will 100% do and get this done by the deadline, or at the very least, just tell him to go home(even with pay). There was this lack of good vibes from him against the Blazers when the young players were making a run. Everyone but Butler was on their feet, getting hyped and cheering. He was just softly clapping sitting on the bench.

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Terry Rozier is still playing big minutes and I really don’t see the need for that. I get you can’t just bench a player making that much money, who’s also a vet and you paid a first-round pick for, but at the same time, he’s averaging 11/4/3 and shoots 20.7% from 3pt in 2025. Through those 12 games, in six of them, he had more shots than points.

In those 12 games, the team has a -6.4 net in 333 minutes with a 108.3 ORTG. Though the Heat are also losing quite badly with him off at -5.9 in 253 minutes but with a 114.4 ORTG. The offense just goes poof.

I wonder if there’s also urgency to simply cut your losses with him.

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Moving forward, we are getting closer to the deadline, making all of this more urgent. There’s going to be more pressure to figure out what to do and set themselves up better for the second half of the season.

I am all in on riding the youth. There are still so many questions and things to figure out that are all fun to see develop.

There are three “kids” who have different strengths and potential upsides that need a lot of work. Some of the games have shown the downs and the struggles, but that’s also part of the fun. It’s looking at the development aspect. There’s also Herro and Adebayo, who are still in the stage of figuring out their games that’s going to be fun to see.

Everything is looked at with the view of the future and the next build.

Bam-Ware starting together thoughts

For the first time ever, we got a legit sample of Adebayo playing with another big. Spoelstra finally did it. He pulled the trigger and it wasn’t just a one-time thing either.

It started off with them finishing a second quarter against the Spurs which led to them starting together in the second half. Now, it also led to them starting together in the last two games. It is still just three games. It’s 48 minutes of playing together, so there is still a lot that needs to happen before you can take anything out of it.

I did a full breakdown, though, on their offense against the Spurs that went through all individual possessions if you want to check that out!

But here are some stats and thoughts on the lineup so far and projections going forward.

In 48 minutes, the Heat have a +14.7 net rating with a 110.7 ORTG and 96.0 DRTG. They are winning the minutes quite well and a lot of it has to do with the defensive end.

That part of the floor was always the least of any concerns or potential questions going forward. Some of that is on Adebayo being Adebayo and he’s like that defensively where he can make or break defenses. But surprisingly, it’s also been Ware himself. He has been solid enough defensively all year long, too. That alone changed a lot on defense for them.

Ware being a competent drop defender and able to protect the paint, eases the drop-off from not having Adebayo involved in the action. With that not being a drastic decline and now you also have Adebayo being in the roamer role to be on the wings, guard 1v1, and provide more help in gaps.

I’ve liked and I’m pretty excited about the potential of the defense from those two, as Ware continues to get better.

But already in this limited sample, we’re seeing the concerns and questions as to why these kinds of lineups didn’t happen in previous years. It hasn’t been a great fit offensively. Those concerns have shown up immediately.

That’s why the team is shooting 42.3% from 2pt. Adebayo is shooting 33.3% from 2pt and has a 34.6% TS. Ware is shooting 44.4% from 2pt and has a 53.7% TS. The guards are equally as affected whenever they go to drive, too. That showed up against the Bucks where Lopez was ignoring Ware completely. That mucks everything up.

I’m also not saying that this should be a reason that they don’t play them. I’m all for them playing together and starting together because you need to work on that.

Before, these were concerns that stopped them if they wanted to produce good enough offense to win. They also had Butler, who’s another player that lives around the same space that didn’t help with the spacing. Those two factors don’t matter anymore.

So, right now and moving forward, these concerns are just development points and things needed to improve. I don’t care if Lopez is helping off Ware, it’s more thinking about how they can counter that or make that strategy ineffective.

You’re not going to fix those issues by not playing them. This is the time to experiment, play through those struggles, and experiment some more until you hit on something.

It’s not the end of the world for Bam

Somewhat related to all of that and Ware’s recent performance has been the takes surrounding Adebayo. He has also not helped himself by being in a slump, looking off offensively, and just not having the same kind of impact as he has always had. That has made the whole experience of watching Adebayo a lot more frustrating.

But at the same, some of the takes around him that are casually flying have to be just recency bias. The way he gets talked about period and what it could be going forward with him are wild, considering what he’s also done in his career already. It’s like everything he’s done in the past hasn’t happened and he is what he is right now.

We remember that he was an efficient player in his role, not only in the regular season multiple times but also in multiple deep playoff runs.

In 2022, his shot attempts declined significantly, but he also shot 60% from 2pt and averaged over 16 points per 75 possessions on 64% TS. That was the year where no one else outside of Butler could score and he did his job. Out of the rotational players in 2022, he led them in efficiency in that run.

We also talked about his lack of rim pressure recently, but that wasn’t the case in either of those runs. Here are some of his shot distribution stats for the 2020 and 2022 playoffs:

• Rim FG%: 67.9% & 77.4%

• Rim freq: 48.2% & 48.0%

• Short mid-range FG%: 48.8% & 50.0%

• Short mid-range freq: 39.1% & 37.7%

That is elite. He was finishing at a high, high level at the rim and in the paint. He was also getting almost half of his shots there.

Obviously that’s a lot different from what he’s doing:

• Rim FG% & freq: 66.4% & 25.7%

• Short mid-range FG%& freq: 42.6% & 47.4%

That’s a significant decline and it’s understandable that frustrations are there because of it. There are also other areas where he has looked off with his poor(and at times awful) shot selection. There’s the passiveness that comes and goes. There’s the hunting that also comes and goes. It’s all over the place.

But we also don’t have to rewrite what Adebayo has done. That’s all still there and possible. I have criticized Adebayo for his game and do think a lot is on him to make those changes but in his case, it’s also a lot on the team and the coach. It’s actually deciding and accepting what he should do going forward. I still feel there’s no direction with Adebayo. And I also feel like he wants to do things that he’s also not suited for either.

A lot of that to me is just role and the upside isn’t something in theory that we haven’t seen. We’ve seen Adebayo be the second-best player on a deep run and at times the best player in a series.

The Heatle Things

To end the report, here are some random tidbits that could be stats, lineups, or anything that I found fun, as well as compiling some other content that I found interesting.

• The defense has been slipping. Before these five games, this was their stretch of games when it comes to DRTG(%iles): 106.1(75th), 103.2(81st), 96.8(91st), 104.4(78th), 109.0(66th). All are well above average. And this is their last five games: 126.7(14th), 122.1(25th), 108.6(67th), 136.6(3rd), and 124.5(18th). This is just something to note

• One reason for that is their transition defense. In those five games, they are allowing 18.9 FBPS per 100. This would rank 29th for the season and over three points worse than their season average

• Another stat that shows that is their opponent TOV%: 6.7%, 8.4%, 14.0%, 4.3%, 7.4%, and 12.0%. They haven’t forced turnovers at all.

• An old stat unrelated to this season but worth looking at in terms of certain matchups when it comes to small ball or double bigs. In 2023 against the Bucks in the playoffs, with both Love/Adebayo on and no Martin, the Heat were +4 net in 53 minutes with a 112 ORTG. With Martin/Adebayo on and no Love, the Heat were +36 in 66 min with a 136 ORTG

• Here’s a tweet of the Heat’s worst two-man pairings by net rating from Gadiel Cartagena

• Related to the Adebayo conversation, his contract is brought up usually. Here’s a tweet that looks into the cap % that he had over these years and what it looks like with the extension going forward. This is another point that with some context, it’s not as bad as it’s made it out to be. He will only be earning 4-5%(depending on the cap increase) more than what he earned in these last three seasons. His extension is also comparable to players like Sabonis, Murray, Brown, Lauri, or OG

• Here’s a random Jovic Gortat screen because I haven’t seen a lot of them or at all from anyone

• Per BBall-Index, Herro is second in the league in stable handoff PPP. He’s also 13th in spot up PPP, 59th in transition PPP, and ninth in off-screen. With just filters of 1.0 points per poss for handoff, spot up, and off-screen, there are only eight other players. He has been one of the best shooters. Period.

  

  And that is all for this week’s Culture Report!