With 35 seconds left to play in overtime against the Philadelphia 76ers and the score tied 114-114, Heat big man Bam Adebayo caught the ball on the left elbow. He didn't have a lot of options. The shot clock was down to eight seconds and counting, and Joel Embiid, who had made his life miserable for the bulk of the night, was directly in front of him. 

As I watched the play devolve, I fully expected Adebayo to face Embiid up, throw a jab step at him for a sliver of space, and rise up for a 15-foot jumper. It wouldn't have been a terrible shot. The face-up short jumper is something he works on religiously, and it's a shot he's looked for, and connected on, with increasing regularity this season. 

In fact, per Cleaning the Glass, Adebayo is taking 33 percent of his shots from the short mid-range this season, which is up from 24 percent last season and 21 percent his rookie season. This puts him in the 93rd percentile in terms of frequency among centers league-wide. 

And he's not just taking more. He's making more. Also per Cleaning the Glass, Adebayo's 44 percent clip from the short mid-range this season is a career-high, up from 40 percent last season and 29 percent his rookie year. Again, it would've been a fine shot. Perhaps even a good one given the dwindling shot clock. 

But Adebayo wasn't settling on this trip. The game was in the balance, the ball was in his hands, and he didn't care who was in front of him. With zero hesitation, he caught the pass on a short roll, immediately swung through to his left and went straight at Embiid, who promptly stoned him. 

Bam lost his dribble for a beat as he flattened out along the baseline. Now there were five seconds on the shot clock, and again Adebayo had an opportunity to settle for a short jumper, and again it would've been a fine shot given his evaporating options. 

But again Bam refused to settle. Not with the game in the balance. He regathered and went straight at Embiid again, giving him a little in-and-out dribble to get the tiniest inkling of an angle along the baseline. It was all Bam needed as he attacked straight into the chest of Embiid for a second time, powering up and through a 7-foot, 250-pound defensive monster for what Heat coach Erik Spoelstra would later call "one of the toughest baskets Bam has scored in his career." 

"Spo's one of those guys that doesn't really give me credit," Bam said when told of Spoelstra's praise for his play against Embiid. "So that's a big moment for me, hearing that from your head coach, because he's hard on me. He wants me to develop. And he feels like there is no giving credit. You earn everything in this league. So to earn a compliment from him, I feel like that's pretty great."

When I asked Bam if the bucket on Embiid was a play he could've -- or would've -- been able to make earlier in his career, he was emphatic. 

"No. Hundred percent no," he said. "I feel like I wouldn't have been brave enough to do that in such a crunch-time moment. So just really developing my skillset, and just really honing in [on my development], that's why I made the play."

It's hard to overstate Adebayo's development this season, and really over the course of his three years in the league since the Heat took him with the No. 14 pick in 2017. He's gone from a rookie getting minutes mostly for his motor and athleticism, to a second-year player with a growing reputation as a versatile defender who was pushing Hassan Whiteside to the bench for large chunks of games. Now, in his third year, he's almost a surefire All-Star. 

"And the thing is, he's not even close to his ceiling," a Western Conference scout told CBS Sports. "When he was drafted, he was pretty raw. Everything he's doing now is still new territory. Size wise, and with his skillset, he's a perfect big for what [the Heat] do with all their movement and flowing in and out of different spots in the floor. He's still just scratching the surface, I think, of what he can be, especially offensively. 

"You're already seeing what he can do as a passer," the scout continued. "[Spoelstra] puts him at that high-post area and runs a lot of offense through him, and he can do a lot of different things from there. He can put it on the floor. He's got a nice little jumper in that 15-foot range. He's really decisive as a passer, too. That really stands out when you watch him, just how comfortable he is already as a playmaker. He sees someone cutting back door, boom, he's making the pass on time and on target."

A few examples:

Look at this mid-air pass Bam makes from the baseline to find Meyers Leonard for a 3-pointer. 

Miami is one of the best, and most willing, passing teams in the league -- their 25.3 assists per game was the eighth-best mark in the league entering play on Monday. For Bam's part, entering Monday he was assisting on 20.8 percent of all Miami buckets while he's on the floor, which puts him in the 97th percentile among players at his position, per Cleaning the Glass.

Bam's 20.6 usage rate also ranks in the top 20 percent league-wide among players at his position. Miami, to the scout's point, runs a lot of offense through Adebayo, who flows between elite screen setting and rhythmic dribble handoffs with an ease that belies his relative inexperience operating in an offensive-hub role. It's not unusual to see Bam, at 6-foot-9, bringing the ball up the court or leading breaks like a traditional point guard. 

This kind of playmaking is not something many people, if anyone, saw in him coming out of Kentucky. Multiple scouting reports questioned his rebounding ability relative to his size and athleticism, but he's 12th in the league this season at 10.5 boards per game. Nobody saw him as a shooter, but every year he has expanded his range and become increasingly comfortable rising up. 

The next evolution would be the 3-point line, where he's attempted just eight non-heave shots this season, making just one. You look at Adebayo's track record of skill expansion, and the comfort of his mid-range stroke, and it's not hard to see him knocking down 3s in the coming years. 

And all of this is to say nothing of Bam's truly game-changing defense. As Leonard told CBS Sports: "[Bam] can guard one through five. There aren't many players you can really say that about." 

Until this season, this was the part of Bam's game that got the most attention. Clips of him stoning some of the best guards and wings in the league one-on-one have taken the social media tour regularly. In addition to an All-Star nod, Adebayo should be in line for an All-Defensive Team selection. Perhaps Most Improved Player, as well. At this point, nothing seems out of reach for Bam, and by extension, the Heat, who can match up with anyone in large part because of all the different roles in which Adebayo can not just function, but excel. 

"I think ultimately what you want out of this profession is to bring something more out of you, something you don't necessarily know you have," Spoelstra told reporters after Miami's win over the Sixers. "Bam is a phenomenal competitor and his game is growing, but his greatest strength is he competes and wants to take on challenges, and he is one of the best in the business."