Miami Heats of USA ace, Edrice Femi ‘Bam’ Adebayo was back in stunning form for his struggling team and helped them snatch their first win of the season with a haul of 24 points versus Atlanta Hawks.
Sports247 reports that the Nigerian-born star admitted he was under pressure, after his side stumbled on a run of four straight defeats in the new season of USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA), but he shook off his self-acclaimed ‘scapegoat’ label and led his side past The Hawks.
Adebayo dropped a season-high 24 points to lift his Miami-based team to a hard-earned 129-117 win, less than a week he referred to himself as the squad’s ‘scapegoat,’ amid their four-game losing streak, and the dark-skinned star is now relishing the turnaround.
His season-high 24 points came while shooting 8 of 16 from the field at State Farm Arena, where he also had nine rebounds – moving to a total of 5,794 in his career – and broke Udonis Haslem’s all-time Heats’ record.
Adebayo had 13 of his 24 points in the first half while shooting 5 of 9 from the field, then continued from there in the third quarter, as The Heat didn’t let up, and he added nine more to keep their lead at 12.
The Nigerian-born USA international player and two-time Olympic Games gold medalist helped Miami take their lead up by 18 points, but Hawks closed the half on a 7-2 run in about 90 seconds, capped by an Andrew Wiggins 3-pointer in the final moments of that period.
Dramatically, another Nigerian-born player with The Heat, Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had a triple-double in their fourth loss of the season on Monday, also got 24 points and 18 rebounds in the first win for The Heat in midweek.
Andrew Wiggins added 18 points, as The Heat shot 53% from the field, while Nickeil Alexander-Walker led Atlanta with 23 points, draining five from behind the arc, as team rookie, Kingston Flemings got 23 points off the bench, and CJ McCollum finished with 13 points.
A report about the encounter by Sports Yahoo added, “The Heat’s winless start to the season led to plenty of questions about the franchise that made a blockbuster move to bring in Antetokounmpo this past off-season.
“Adebayo looked, well, rough in the first stretch of the season, too. He averaged just 11.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per contest over the first four games, all well down from his numbers last season. Adebayo even had an 83-point outing back in March.
“After their loss to Dallas Mavericks on Monday, Adebayo said. ‘You know, it’s funny how the outside noise wants to make me the scapegoat. But, when the tables turn, just all that energy, when the energy shifts, just be prepared for that’.”
Sports247 reports that it didn’t take long for the energy to return, as Adebayo had his best game of the season just 48 hours later, and The Heat now have a tick in the win column on the NBA’s current campaign.
