Avery Bradley already helping the Heat, and not only on defense: ‘Offensively, he fits’
Veteran guard Avery Bradley arrived to the Miami Heat with a defensive reputation, but he’s proving that reputation isn’t completely accurate.
Not because Bradley has been a defensive disappointment to begin his first season with the Heat after he was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive first team in 2016 and All-Defensive second team in 2013. Bradley, 30, has actually been as good as advertised on that end of the court.
The surprise has come on offense, and it has been a pleasant surprise for Miami.
“Avery is a guy that can play in any system,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said in advance of Wednesday night’s home game against the Boston Celtics. “As long as it’s a contending team, he fits. He’s a really good basketball player. He’s a winner. And he’s a two-way player, a legit two-way player.”
Bradley, who signed with the Heat as a free agent this past offseason, entered Wednesday’s game averaging 13 points while shooting an efficient 59 percent from the field and 52.2 percent from three-point range in 23.5 minutes as a core member of Miami’s bench rotation to begin the season.
It’s still very early but among the 254 players who entered Wednesday averaging five or more shot attempts per game this season, Bradley owns the league’s third-best effective field-goal percentage (measures field-goal percentage adjusting for made three-pointers being 1.5 times more valuable than made two-point shots) at 74.4 percent.
“He has been a great shooter, really for the last several years,” Spoelstra said. “And I think our offense appealed to him, because it allows him just to be who he is, as a cutter, a guy that can move without the ball, a guy that can come off handoffs. And he’s a great spot-up shooter, when he plays on a team when the ball moves, and it’ll find the open guy. That’s one of the reasons why we liked him, too. We thought not only defensively could he really help us, but offensively he fits.”
Bradley is still adjusting to the Heat’s offense, which he says calls for a lot of “shots at the basket and three-pointers.” His early shot profile reflects that transition, as 59 percent of his shot attempts have come from three-point range, 28.2 percent have come from inside the paint and just 12.8 percent have come from the midrange, according to NBA tracking stats.
That’s a change from the past few seasons, when more of Bradley’s shots came from the midrange — 26.1 percent last season and 31.6 percent in 2018-19.
“I think it’s a product of being in a new offense. Not only that, it’s a new NBA,” said Bradley, who has shot 36.6 percent on threes during his NBA career. “So I’m just trying to take advantage of every opportunity that I get and make sure that I’m ready at all times. Right now, those opportunities have been corner threes, there have been cutting opportunities and making plays in transition. I’m just taking advantage of everything. But our mentality is shots at the basket and three-pointers. Getting up as much as possible. So I’m just trying to get used to our new offensive system here, and I feel like it can really help me and simplify the game for me.”
But defense is still what sets Bradley apart.
At 6-3 and 180 pounds, Bradley has already shown he has no problem defending bigger players. He limited 6-7 Bucks All-Star forward Khris Middleton to 2-of-7 shooting during the 32 possessions he spent as Middleton’s primary defender last week, according to NBA tracking stats, and Bradley has also accepted switches onto various frontcourt players during the first two weeks of the season.
“It didn’t take us very long, in our practices to all recognize, that, ‘Ah, OK, that’s exactly what an All-Defensive player looks like,’ ” Spoelstra said. “We have three of them [Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Bradley] on our team. We’ve had them previously. He does it in a different way, with his tenacity, his ability to get under you and speed you up. And I think that’s part of his defensive greatness, is his ability to defend bigger players and use his speed, quickness, technique, to really be a nuisance.”
A nuisance for opponents, but an asset for the Heat.
“He’s a Heat guy,” Adebayo said of Bradley. “You know that by looking at Avery and his reputation. But talking to Avery, he’s such a down-to-earth dude. He stresses himself out sometimes trying to do the right thing all the time and every time he steps out on the court. I can be a teammate with a guy like that. ... He wants to guard whoever he has to to give us a chance to win. I feel like he can be First-Team All-Defense just for the simple fact of in six games, he has done a lot on the defensive end. If he keeps this pace up, it wouldn’t shock me if he’s on First-Team All-Defense this year.”
▪ Forward Moe Harkless was the only Heat player who did not practice Tuesday after a hard fall during Monday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. He’s listed as questionable for Wednesday’s game against the Celtics because of a left forearm contusion.
Boston will be without Javonte Green (health and safety protocols), Romeo Langford (right wrist surgery) and Kemba Walker (left knee injury recovery) on Wednesday. Guards Marcus Smart (right thumb sprain) and Jeff Teague (left ankle sprain) are questionable.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 10:09 AM.
