Heat wants to be better defensively. So far, so good in the bubble. A look at the numbers
The Miami Heat’s defense is still a work in progress, but there have been signs of improvement since the season resumed last week.
It’s a very small sample size, but the Heat entered Wednesday with the sixth-best defensive rating during seeding play among the 22 teams participating in the restart at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami has allowed 108.5 points per 100 possessions in its first three seeding games, which is the second-best defensive rating among Eastern Conference teams at Disney behind only the Toronto Raptors.
This is important, considering the Heat entered the restart working to improve on this end of the court. Miami arrived at Disney with a statistically mediocre defense, posting the league’s 14th-best defensive rating during the 65 games it played before the season was suspended.
“We were able to drill on defense a little bit more,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, referring to the three weeks of team practices at Disney before seeding games began. “I also don’t want to understate the fact that we added some new guys. Coming out of training camp in October for about six weeks, our defense was pretty solid. Then that’s when we started to find some inconsistency from that point on. So we were just honing in on the details and our habits. The guys have been, I would say a little bit more locked in in these games.”
The results have been positive, with the Heat winning two of its first three seeding games. Next up for Miami is a matchup against the team with the league’s top record, the Milwaukee Bucks, on Thursday at 4 p.m. (Fox Sports Sun, TNT).
The Heat’s solid defensive start at Disney has come against quality competition, too. Two of Miami’s first three seeding opponents — the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics — feature a top-10 offense and the third opponent — Toronto — is just outside of the top 10 in this category at No. 12.
Maybe the Heat’s most impressive defensive performance since the season resumed, considering the circumstances, came in Tuesday’s win over the Celtics.
Even with All-Star Jimmy Butler unavailable because of right ankle soreness and on the second night of a back-to-back set, Miami was able to keep a potent Boston offense in check. The Celtics shot 43.5 percent from the field and 10 of 33 on threes, but they also helped the Heat by missing 11 of their 13 wide open threes Tuesday, according to NBA Advanced Stats.
“I see great potential with our team defensively,” Spoelstra said. “We have size, we have versatility, we have speed, we have big wings. We just need to get a little bit more comfortable and committed to our philosophy.”
The big question is: Can the Heat’s defense continue to trend in the right direction?
Expecting a team to miss 11 of 13 wide open threes, like the Celtics did, is not sustainable.
But the addition of wings Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala has helped, All-Star center Bam Adebayo continues to prove he’s one of the league’s elite defenders and Butler could earn his fifth All-Defensive selection this season. Quality personnel is sustainable.
The Heat has posted an elite defensive rating of 84.6 in the 17 minutes that Adebayo, Crowder and Iguodala have been on the court together during the first three seeding games. This trio allows for Miami to play as a more versatile team and make more switches on the perimeter, which is one of the reasons Spoelstra recently replaced center Meyers Leonard with Crowder in the starting lineup.
The All-Defense quartet of Adebayo, Butler, Crowder and Iguodala has played just a few seconds together during seeding games, probably because there just isn’t enough shooting in that lineup to hold up on offense. But if Miami needs defense late in games, it’s an option Spoelstra could turn to.
The bottom line is the Heat has to be better than mediocre defensively to have success in the playoffs, which begin Aug. 17.
Miami has had a top-10 offense for most of the season, and it currently owns the NBA’s sixth-best offensive rating. But the Heat, which has finished with a top-10 defense in each of the past four seasons, can’t just rely on its offense to win games in the playoffs because it’s a formula that has not proven to be effective in the past.
So far, so good in the bubble.
“We pride ourselves on being top five defensively,” Heat captain Udonis Haslem said. “That’s something we’ll continue to work on. And we’re not going to be satisfied until we get to that point. We understand that we can score points. But I think to win championships, which is what our ultimate goal is, we have to be able to get stops. And we have to do it consistently. ... That’s something that we’re going to keep working on. We’re not going to let up. We’re going to keep driving that boat until we get it.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 12:51 PM.
