Tales from the NBA Finals: The Heat’s bad babysitter, Highsmith, Bam’s mom and Butler’s hero
DENVER – It is a somewhat unrelenting process, the entire rosters of the Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets marched into the arena the day before game days for NBA Finals media sessions that range from televised podium Q-and-A’s in two separate broadcast areas to free run of the court with the other players.
Already there have been two such media days at Ball Arena, with two more this coming week in Miami at Kaseya Center ahead of Wednesday’s Game 3 and Friday’s Game 4.
But it also is a time to exhale from the rigors of practices, film sessions, and, yes, the games themselves, including Sunday’s Game 2 of the best-of-seven series.
So whether it’s why Haywood Highsmith is named Haywood Highsmith, to whom Kevin Love wouldn’t recommend from the Heat roster as a babysitter, there also has been the human side to the championship-series equation.
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The name is Haywood Highsmith, as in the defensive-minded Heat forward, not Highsmith Haywood.
But not even intrepid investigation into the genealogy of the surname at the series’ first media day was able to unearth background on the surname.
Q. “What’s the story behind your first name?”
Highsmith: “I’m a junior, so it was my father’s name. You’d have to ask his father, but he’s not alive right now. I don’t know the story behind it, honestly.”
Q. “Do you hear about that a lot? That’s like a classic name.”
Highsmith: “Yeah, I’ve heard it’s like an old name. I’ve heard it’s a last name, too. So yeah, I don’t know. I’m a junior. I don’t know the story behind it.”
Q. “What about Highsmith? You’ve got an epic name.”
Highsmith: “I’ve heard that. Yeah, I don’t know. Just my father’s last name, as well. I don’t know. I guess I’ve got like H’s in my family or something.”
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During that same media session, Heat forward Kevin Love was asked, “Who is the last guy on the Heat you would let babysit your kids?”
Love, 34, who is married to Canadian model Kate Bock, does not have any children.
No matter, Love, willing to play along, still mulled the question.
“Last guy on the Heat I would let babysit my kids? I don’t know,” he said. “Everybody’s pretty damn responsible. Probably Nikola [Jovic] just because he’s so damn young.”
Jovic, the rookie forward, turns 20 Friday.
“That’s the only thing I can think of,” Love said. “He’s still a child himself. That would be tough.”
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It is not uncommon for Bam Adebayo to pause even his televised media sessions to take a call from his mother, a concern the Heat center had during his first interview opportunity at the Finals.
“I hope she doesn’t call me during media,” he said with a smile in front of a microphone on the podium.
But the devotion and appreciation for what Marilyn Blount provided as a single mother runs deep.
Asked how he derived his confidence to make it to this stage, Adebayo did not pause.
“It’s been my mom because she’s been a leader in my life, since I’ve been born,” he said. “Seeing my mom go through every adversity, all the adversity she’s been through, my mom walked to work, my mom was a single parent, we lived in a single-wide trailer. I lived off of $12,000 a year from my mom. Having that type of person lead, I feel like it was just bound for me to be able to get in that mold.
“Definitely uncomfortable when you first start being — when people start looking at you and saying you have to be more vocal, you have to be a leader of the ship. I just look back at those days how my mom just lived for me, and it was by example.”
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For some, lining up tickets for the Finals is a distraction. For Heat forward Jimmy Butler, it is an expectation.
That had him during an initial Finals media session noting that he is counting on soccer star Neymar finding his way to Miami for one of the upcoming games.
“Yes, he’d better be there,” Butler said. “So Ney, I know you’re looking somewhere. You’d better be there. But that’s my guy, too.
“Part of my routine on game days and off days is I watch all types of sports of people who inspire me to be great. He’s one of them. So, I’ve probably seen each one of his highlight videos on YouTube way too many times, Sasha [Alexander Zverev] tennis, Carlito [Carlos Alcaraz] tennis, you go down – Serena [Williams], everybody. I love greatness in any way that you view it.
“He’s obviously a close friend of mine, so I pay attention to him a lot. But with him in my corner, I think I’ll be OK.”
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As could be expected, with so much conversation during the Finals, there tends to be a fish story, or two.
In this case, an actual fish story.
With the Heat and Nuggets two of the final four teams standing in the 2020 pandemic quarantine bubble at Disney World, both coaching staffs gravitated toward the fishing area.
“We didn’t necessarily hang out with them in the bubble,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “but competitors recognize competitors and we would acknowledge them. We didn’t have to face them in the [2020] playoffs, but we always just seemed to bump into them.
“The staffs would bump into each other out on the lake. For whatever reason, we were all fishing out there, and those were the two organizations that were doing it. I have no idea why.”
Nuggets coach Michael Malone picked up the story from there.
“They had a guy,” Malone said. “I forget the coach’s name, but this guy was catching all the fish, so there’s no fish left for anybody else.”
The coach – and fishing magician – was Spoelstra’s lead assistant, Chris Quinn.