A scout assesses what Miami Heat is getting with P.J. Tucker. And some eye-opening metrics
Since Jae Crowder’s departure to Phoenix, no position has confounded the Heat more during the past year than the riddle of whom to play alongside Bam Adebayo.
And in a frenetic first few hours of free agency, the Heat ultimately opted for experience, defensive acumen and switchability, veteran savviness, feistiness, and pretty good distance shooting instead of opting for youth, exceptional rebounding and elite recent three-point shooting.
And so Miami landed on the combo of P.J. Tucker, 36, and Markeiff Morris, 31, after exploring several other options.
Some feedback on Tucker:
▪ A veteran NBA scout with another team — who knew Tucker even more intimately because he played for his team in recent years — said Tucker remains a defensive gem at 36 but not to expect much offense.
“He’s a hard-playing switching forward, can defend one through five [every position],” the scout said, marveling how at 6-5, Tucker can effectively defend players much taller. “He doesn’t care if he has the ball. If he doesn’t score, he couldn’t care less. All he cares about is winning.
“Offensively it’s 4-on-5 basketball at times because Tucker doesn’t care about scoring. He’s efficient on corner threes — less so last season — but his mentality is to shut people down. He will guard anybody at any time.
“Not a lot of guys say, ‘I got Kevin Durant 1-on-1 defensively’ for a period. Nobody is saying that. He’s the type of guy who will say that. That mentality will save Jimmy [Butler’s] energy when he needs to score. And he will foul you hard.”
The scout said the lineup featuring Butler, Kyle Lowry, Bam Adebayo and Tucker “are all guys who can switch one through four [on guards and forwards]. They will be able to guard across the board. I don’t think Tucker has declined a lot. He just has a single-mindedness to defend.”
▪ Tucker’s defense in this past postseason was exemplary. Players he defended shot only 43.7 percent (115 for 263); for perspective, those players shot 49.6 percent overall.
When Tucker took the assignment on Durant during the Bucks-Nets second-round series, the Brooklyn superstar shot only 45 percent against him (35 for 77) and just 8 for 26 on threes. Durant shot 51.4 overall in postseason this past spring.
Per NBA.com, Chris Paul shot 3 for 14 when defended by Tucker in the NBA Finals. Jimmy Butler shot 2 for 12 against Tucker in the playoffs this past season, Bogan Bogdanovic 7 for 21.
Among forwards who played at least 10 playoff games this year, only six players allowed a lower shooting percentage than Tucker.
▪ But during his 53 regular-season games with Houston and Milwaukee, players shot 48.2 percent against Tucker, worse than the 47.2 percent they shot overall. That was bottom third in the league among starting power forwards.
However, Tucker’s playoff work defensively is more representative of his career.
▪ Tucker’s three-point shooting was uneven last season — 31.4 percent for Houston, 39.4 for Milwaukee. But this is encouraging:
Per Hoopshabit, Tucker has 90 corner threes during the past four postseasons. Next closest? Danny Green with 48.
He hit a corner three early in the Heat’s preseason opener Monday and remains dangerous from that spot. Draymond Green has called him perhaps the best corner three-point shooter in NBA history.
But the hope is that his three-point percentage this season is closer to 36 to 38 percent than 30 to 32 percent.
Tucker said last week that he knows he must shoot corner threes when he’s open; Heat coach Erik Spoelstra expects that.
▪ Tucker has averaged only 5.1 rebounds per 36 minutes in his career, which is subpar. But that didn’t deter the Heat because of everything else he provides.
Tucker joins Kyle Lowry, Markieff Morris and Udonis Haslem as players on the roster who have won NBA titles.
On winning a championship with the Bucks in July, told Marc Stein: “It’s surreal almost; the feeling of finally getting over the mountaintop is unreal.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 12:13 PM.
