With three of the top ten players in the NBA, the Miami Heat might end up seeing a lot of zone defense this year. This seems logical because teams have trouble defending guys like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh when they were the lone All-Stars on their team, and now they are playing together. Few teams (if any) have three high quality individual defenders good enough to stop these guys one on one, so the zone is the next best option. So how will the 2-3 zone work against a team like the Heat next year?
Since the Heat haven’t played any games yet, I figured we could look at Team USA’s performance in the 2008 Olympics. Now I know that the two players that are going to be playing with James, Wade, and Bosh on the Heat won’t be Olympic quality, I know that the teams playing against them are better than Australia, Greece, and Argentina, and I know that the Heat’s coaching staff won’t have two Hall of Fame college coaches to help break down the zone for NBA guys. However, this is the closest we can get to seeing how a high-quality team operates against a zone defense, and what I took away from watching Team USA’s Olympic performance is that the zone will work against the Heat, but only in stretches.
Why It Will Work
When the zone worked against Team USA in the Olympics, it was because it got them to stand around and just pass the ball around the perimeter. Here, Team USA is just going through the motions on offense, making pass after pass after pass, just allowing for the Spanish zone to rotate and stay in front of their man. There are no penetrating or attacking dribbles, and that is exactly what Spain wants. They want to see the ball being passed around like this rather than having a LeBron James or a Dwyane Wade taking their man to the basket and either finishing or kicking it out to an open teammate.
Ray Allen’s three point shooting was a very important aspect of the Heat-Celtics series that ended last night. This postseason, Allen is shooing 19-36 from the three point line (good for 52.8%). Allen is a tremendous outside shooter, and he is going to knock a few threes down, but the Heat were leaving him wide open on attempts, and that is a major factor in Allen shooting so good from deep. It happened again in Game 5, where the Heat fought all the way back to make this a close game, only to let Ray Allen shoot the Celtics to a win.
A couple things here. The rotation starts on Ray Allen’s initial drive, and the Heat do a great job of rotating and cutting off any penetration throughout the possession. However, when the pass gets made to Kevin Garnett, two defenders run at him, leaving Ray Allen open. At his age, Kevin Garnett isn’t a threat 1 step in from the three point line, but the Heat run at him like he is, and this allows for Garnett to toss it to Allen who knocks down the wide open three.
A lot of people are talking about Dwyane Wade’s 4th quarter (as they should), but in my opinion the biggest play of the game wasn’t made by Wade, but by the much maligned Michael Beasley. The Heat’s offense really became stagnant in the final minutes of the 4th quarter as the Celtics tried to make their comeback. The Heat didn’t score a point for a good minute and a half of game time as the Celtics cut the lead to 4 points. With about 1:45 left, the Heat had the basketball, and again forced up another shot. However, the Celtics didn’t box out, and it allowed Beasley to make a fantastic play:
As the ball lands in Dorell Wright’s hands, take a look at the shot clock. There is only 7 seconds for him to work with, and the Heat’s offense is once again struggling. Udonis Haslem tries to salvage the possession by setting a screen for Wright and seeing if he can get to the lane.
With last night’s game tied at 98 with 12 seconds left, the Boston Celtics had the basketball ready to inbound it on the side. Instead of running a set play, the Celtics decided to get the ball into Paul Pierce’s hands and let him work out of an ISO set. It worked out well for the Celtics, but I feel like the Heat made a few key errors that helped the Celtics out. Here is the video in real time, count the mistakes:
How many mistakes did you guys count? By my count, I had three. Let’s go over them:
Throughout the playoffs, we are going to be looking at the teams that lost their last game and look at what they can do to try and get a win.
During the regular season, the Miami Heat were one of the best teams at limiting turnovers. Their turnover rate (the percentage of their possessions that ended in turnovers) was 9th in the league with a rate of 12.77. However, against the Celtics, the Heat committed 19 turnovers. Against a tame like Boston, that is way too much.
The biggest culprit in my opinion was Michael Beasley. Beasley committed 5 turnovers during the game, and while Wade committed 7 himself, you can ignore those because he is the only option on the Heat. That means more attention on him, and with more attention comes more turnovers. Anyway, back to Beasley, while the Celtics are a good team, they didn’t really force any of these turnovers. A lot of them were ones that could have been prevented:
Here, Beasley gets the ball on an ISO set, and there is no real options for him. However, Beasley tries to force the issue and penetrate through a gap that isn’t there. He compounds the over-penetration by leaving his feet before he knows what he is going to do with the basketball. Caught in air, he tries to kick the ball out. However, Rondo is able to get his hand on the pass and make the steal.
We have talked about Miami’s solid defensive rotations here in the past, and the fact of the matter is they are very good at rotating defensively. However, last night the Heat’s poor rotations is what cost them the game:
With the game tied at 68 early in the 4th quarter, the Heat needed to get a stop. The Celtics made a pretty big run at the tail end of the third/start of the fourth and they had all of the momentum. If the Celtics were to go ahead, the crowd would get really into it, and it could effectively end the game.
Late in a tied game against the Toronto Raptors, the Miami Heat needed a stop and they got one. It wasn’t because of an individual defensive effort though. On this particular play, good team defense and proper rotation is what got them the stop (and eventually the win).
After bringing up the ball the length of the court, Jose Calderon swings it to Jarrett Jack on the wing. After making the pass, Calderon cuts through the lane coming off of a soft backscreen set by Chris Bosh.
What makes the Magic so dangerous late in games is that they have so many options. You have Vince Carter, Dwight Howard, and Rashard Lewis for starters. Late in overtime against the Heat, all three played a pretty important role in taking a 3 point lead and making it 6.
The Magic run Vince Carter off of a screen set by Dwight Howard. Dwight is going to roll straight to the rim after setting the screen.
As Dwight starts his roll, Carter returns to the side he was on before he set the screen. Michael Beasley ends up sinking in the middle, to help defend Dwight Howard on the roll.
As Vince Carter rises up to pass, Michael Beasley is actually bodied up with Howard, and Jermaine O’Neal is stuck in no man’s land at the top of the key. That means that there is no defender near Rashard Lewis.
As Rashard Lewis rises up to shoot the three, you are left to wonder who made the mistake here. Was Michael Beasley’s help designed, or did he do it on his own? I tend to believe that he did it on his own because if this was schemed there would be at least some rotation to Lewis, but there is none.
As I said at the start of the post, this is what makes the Magic so dangerous. You have a very, very, very good big man in Dwight Howard that teams need to pay attention to. Then you have 4 guys who can knock down an outside shot, and that forces the defense to make a decision. Who are they going to leave to double Dwight. Here, they picked Rashard Lewis and ended up paying for it.
Coming out of a timeout with 5:41 left in the fourth quarter, the Miami Heat trailed the Golden State Warriors by one point. After two very nice possessions (and an empty possession from Golden State), they were winning by 4 points and they didn’t give that lead up for the rest of the game. Both of these plays featured Dwyane Wade as the primary ball handler, which is a pretty interesting strategy. Here is the first:
Now, it might look like a simple ISO play, but I really like it. The Heat show a screen on one side with Udonis Haslem, take it away, and bring a screen on the opposite side with Jermaine O’Neal. It might not look like much, but look at how the Warriors are set up to defend both screens.
