Miami Heat of America youngster, Bam Adebayo has admitted this his team’s chances of winning this year’s National Basketball Association (NBA) league title are now very slim, following their third defeat by Los Angeles Lakers in the ongoing Finals’ series.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Wednesday’s loss in Game 4 took the series to 3-1 in favour of LA, and Adebayo, who returned from injury that ruled him out of Games 2 and 3, admitted his side have their backs against the wall after falling to LeBron James et al in a 102-96 defeat.
The Heat failed to turn the tide and level the series even with Adebayo back in action after copping shoulder and neck injuries in Game 1, and he went on to play 33 minutes of the latest fixture in the 2020 NBA Finals, during which he contributed 15 points and seven rebounds, but he could not save his team from falling.
With 39.5 seconds left in the game, Lakers’s in-form forward, Anthony Davis settled matters by hitting a clutch three-pointer over Adebayo, after receiving a kick-out pass from Rajon Rondo, which summed up another pathetic outing for the side from Miami, who relied heavily on their Nigerian-born star and never fared better with him not fully fit to play.
The vastly-improved centre, Adebayo, who also cited moments of ill-disciplined play by Miami as the decisive factor in Game 4, admitted he was not 100 per cent fit on the night he made a much-desired return to action, but he still insists The Heat retain hope of winning the series.
Game 5 takes place in the early hours of Saturday, with Adebayo already confessing that he is hoping that a three-day break will give him enough time to recover fully, while also according his tam’s equally injured starting point guard, Goran Dragic an extra opportunity of returning to action after injuring his foot in Game 1.
Adebayo, who acknowledged that an extra day of rest will truly benefit him and his teammates, added: “Collectively, we all need two days off. It’s not just me, it’s not just Goran. We all need a couple of days to readjust and re-align.
“Our backs are against the wall. But it’s not like has never been done before. We still hold out hope. We are going to fight until the end, start to finish. We can’t have so many pockets of undisciplined basketball. I feel like that dictated the game a lot.
“We had certain spurts where (we took) early shots in the shot clock and giving up easy baskets in transition. We have got to get back to the drawing board and find some solutions. Bottom line, I have got to be better. You can’t give him too much air-space.”
