The Miami Heat squared off against the Los Angeles Clippers Thursday evening. The struggling Heat team was coming off of a two-game skid with hopes of turning things around. Miami has looked out of sorts to start the season, starting before .500 for a large chunk of the year. Bam Adebayo and company knew they had work to accomplish if they did not want to fall too far down the standings before it was too steep of a climb, and it started against the Clippers.
No Backing Down
Miami came out of the gate playing a little bit of catchup as Paul George and the Clippers were looking to push the pace. Bam Adebayo put his foot down and solidified his performance, though. Bam played his heart out, posting 31 points and 10 boards. Adebayo was all over the court, getting teammates involved and always moving without the ball, and playing lockdown defense.
However, no team can win on just one player alone, and that’s where superstar Jimmy Butler came in. Butler was incredible with 26 points; he looked for every opportunity to keep the Heat in this back-and-forth game and held on just long enough to secure the win. Butler was dominant down the stretch and looked to have the rock in his hands when big moments arose. “Big-time players make big-time plays”.
Clippers Keep It Close
On the opposition, the Clippers didn’t play poorly by any means; they just came up quite short. Star player Paul George finished with an all-around great game, contributing 29 points, eight rebounds and dishing out seven assists. George said after the game when asked what went wrong: “We just had too many breakdowns is what it came down to tonight… they’re a good team.” L.A. gutted it out all night but fell short in the end when Jimmy unleashed the beast.
Coming Up
Miami squares off against San Antonio on Saturday at home as they look to finally build momentum.