In April, the Miami Heat signed center Dewayne Dedmon as an insurance policy.
Turns out, it was the right decision. The Heat may have to turn to Dedmon in their first-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks. Dedmon had 19 points and nine rebounds in 21 minutes in Monday's Game 2 loss in Milwaukee.
Now, he could play a bigger role the remainder of the series.
“I thought he gave us quality minutes,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “His energy, you feel it both ends of the court. He finds himself in the right spot around the ball quite often.”
There is a chance Dedmon could enter the starting lineup and play alongside Bam Adebayo, who would move to power forward. Dedmon gives the Heat more size to combat Bucks 7-footer Brook Lopez.
“I definitely like that pairing,” Dedmon said. “It’s something that [Spoelstra] has talked about doing earlier, and finally did it, especially against their size, Milwaukee. I felt like it worked out good. Hopefully, we can keep seeing more of that.”
The Heat have been outrebounded by 19 per game in the series, so the added size should help.
“We just got to be more aggressive on the offensive and defensive glass and making sure that we’re definitely boxing out their guys,” Dedmon said, with Milwaukee closing Monday with 21 offensive rebounds, “because they crash the offensive glass like no other team, especially the guards. We’ve just got to box out, make sure they don’t get as many offensive rebounds as they did [Monday] and just move forward.”
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