During the Miami Heat's loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night, one bright side was the performance of star Bam Adebayo who has been in a resurgence. As the Heat's big man had slow start to the season, his year has turned around leading to a high praise by head coach Erik Spoelstra.

In the loss to Cleveland where Miami once again blew a lead late in the game, Adebayo finished with a career-high 34 points, shooting 11 of 18 from the field and three of five from three-point range. To go along with 12 rebounds, five assists, and two steals, Spoelstra would say how much of a “monster” Adebayo has been for the team according to The Miami Herald.

“Bam has been a monster for us,” Spoelstra said. “He’s doing it on both ends. He’s scoring, facilitating, handling, organizing our offense and [scoring at] the end of offense.”

The turnaround would come about once the starting lineup was vastly changed, moving Adebayo to the power forward slot while putting rookie Kel'el Ware at center in January. Adebayo would attribute the move as changing his year since it “let a load off me.”

“It gave me more energy to play offense,” Adebayo said. “I’m not in every pick-and-roll. Obviously, he’s guarding the five [the center]. A lot of four men [power forwards] don’t and do the things that fives do. For me, it definitely let a load off me where I definitely could focus more on scoring.”

The Heat's captain started the season averaging under 16 points per game through the first 40 games, but looking at the last 19 since Ware has been in the starting lineup, it's just above 21 points per game. Even with the shooting percentages, he had ranked towards the bottom in true shooting percentage and 45.4 percent from the field in those first 40 contests, but in the last 19, it's at 55.1.

“I feel like we all go through that stretch,” Adebayo said about his rough start. “It’s a part of basketball. If you ask anybody have they ever had a tough day at their job, they’re going to be like, ‘yeah.’ That one month was very tough for me. I kept the same approach, didn’t let it get to me. A lot of people would be like, ‘what’s wrong? He’s not who he is.’ But narratives flip.”

Adebayo seemed to be never worried that the slump would continue for the remainder of the season, going as far as to say that the negativity doesn't help himself and his mindset to get better.

“We are talking about six years, an [expletive] six years body of work, from the time I started playing basketball until that point,” Adebayo said. “I’m going to let a month span of the basketball not going in affect me?”

Aside from the offensive resurgence, Adebayo broke the Heat record for most double-doubles all-time as the 27-year-old has been hitting this stride at the right time. Adebayo would go as far as to say that the reason for the slump was simply that the “shot just wasn't going in.”

“It was not me committing reckless turnovers or not doing my job on defense. I’m doing everything else. The shot just wasn’t going in, and you live with that,” Adebayo said. “You have to be optimistic about it because if you let it, it can get to you. You also can start failing at other areas of your job. I wear a lot of hats here. If something is not working, I can’t just focus on that one thing. I’ve got a lot of other things and a lot of other people to worry about.”

Even besides the offensive slump, Adebayo has continued to be an elite defender with some saying he could be the best in the league. One who agrees is new teammate Davion Mitchell who mentioned how Adebayo can guard any position while also praising his leadership.

“He can guard from the Joel Embiids to the Shai [Gilgeous-] Alexanders,” Mitchell said. “If you can guard those guys.. I feel you’re the best defender in the league. He can be physical with the best of them. He can block shots, can make the shot hard on the perimeter, he can move his feet…. He’s the leader on the team.”

At any rate, Adebayo looks to continue his renaissance as Miami returns home to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves Friday.