Heat offense by 5-man unit (Haslem/Bosh suck together!)

[mopper8]

This data is culled from basketballvalue

So here's what I did. I sorted all ~200 or so of our 5-man units by descending Offensive rating (points per 100 possessions), and then used my rudimentary paint skills to delete all the lineups that have played too few minutes to find any statistical significance. The results below. Ps, the column headings for the big block of numbers are: minutes played, Heat possessions, opponent possessions, heat points, opponent points, Heat offensive rating, opponent Offensive rating, and then differential between Ortg and Drtg. So the offensive rating column is 3rd from the right. Sorry I forgot to add that when I made the graph in paint



Sorry about the size...unavoidable. You have to open in a new tab and give it a couple zooms to get a readable chart

Consider that league average Ortg is 104.4. Also, on the season Miami's Ortg is 108.2, and 109.9 is tops in the league. So, the Heat have 11 lineups with an Ortg over 108, up to 125, and then there's a big drop from 108.81 to 104.84 (11th best Ortg to 12th). Then look at those below average to just plain awful lineups (Ortg below 105), and the one thing that stands out is the frontcourt:

Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Pittman
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Haslem/Bosh
Bosh/Anthony

The 2/3 combos in those lineups aren't nearly as consistent, and feature a lot of Wade or Lebron + shooter:

Battier/Lebron
Battier/Lebron
Battier/Miller
Wade/Lebron
Battier/Lebron
Wade/Lebron
Wade/Battier
Wade/Lebron

Although Battier's name jumps out there too, he's also in a bunch of lineups with Ortgs of 108 or better, 5 where he's paired with Lebron at the 2/3 and 2 with Wade at the 2/3 (and one with Miller and Lebron at PF).

Haslem/Bosh, on the other hand, are only in 2 lineups that are top-shelf offensively:
Cole-Wade-Miller-Haslem-Bosh
Wade-Battier-Lebron-Haslem-Bosh

Joel only makes 1 appearance in the bad lineups, though its really awful lol, Starters with Cole in place of Mario is just atrocious. But Joel is in 7 of those 11 great offensive lineups. Very surprising.

[mopper8]

Just for reference:

Haslem/Bosh, from the 19 lineups, have 990 possessions together, with an Ortg of 103.54
From the remaining 11 lineups, all other frontcourts have 2025 possessions together, with an Ortg of 111.31

That's a shocking difference. When Haslem/Bosh are on the court (in those 19 lineups), Miami scores at roughly a similar rate to New Jersey. All other frontcourts score at a higher rate than OKC, by a significant margin.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Bosh taking it easy when he sees undersized yet fierce UD try to get all the rebounds lol

[GreenHat]

I've been saying all year that Haslem, Cole and Battier have been holding back the offense, specifically the first two.

I would guess that the Haslem/Bosh lineups are bad offensively because then we have two big men who are out there shooting long 2 point jumpshots leaving less shots for Lebron, Wade and Chalmers.

I've said before that the good thing about Joel is he doesn't shoot. Those extra shots go to Lebron and Wade instead.

[RexBoyWonder]

intersting stuff, good job mopper. UD had an horrible strech when he couldnt hit anything but he's looking better lately. in any case, our front court is an issue that needs addressing ASAP.

[mopper8]

I've been saying all year that Haslem, Cole and Battier have been holding back the offense, specifically the first two.

I would guess that the Haslem/Bosh lineups are bad offensively because then we have two big men who are out there shooting long 2 point jumpshots leaving less shots for Lebron, Wade and Chalmers.

I've said before that the good thing about Joel is he doesn't shoot. Those extra shots go to Lebron and Wade instead.

To be fair to Bosh, he hits from 10-23 feet at 45%...that's not amazing, but its hardly a bad fall-back if you can't get a good look at a layup.

[playboyj305]

The thing that stood out on the graph is when there are two or more 3-point shooters on the floor for spacing, the offensive rating is higher. When we have limited 3-point shooters on the floor teams pack the paint and we turn into jump shooters or take a bad shot. That why at the end of games our offense (half-court game) is pretty bad.

[GreenHat]

I've been saying all year that Haslem, Cole and Battier have been holding back the offense, specifically the first two.

I would guess that the Haslem/Bosh lineups are bad offensively because then we have two big men who are out there shooting long 2 point jumpshots leaving less shots for Lebron, Wade and Chalmers.

I've said before that the good thing about Joel is he doesn't shoot. Those extra shots go to Lebron and Wade instead.

To be fair to Bosh, he hits from 10-23 feet at 45%...that's not amazing, but its hardly a bad fall-back if you can't get a good look at a layup.

Oh yeah Bosh isn't bad at shooting from there (Haslem has been) but we should be able to get a better shot than that.

Also a three-point shot by any of our shooters is a more efficient shot as well (obviously as long as it isn't under extreme duress)

[Jan_Sobieski]

Having UD , who is like a better rebounding yet poorer scoring version of Bosh might have them contrasting with each other when he plays with Bosh. There games are very similar.

[mopper8]

Also a three-point shot by any of our shooters is a more efficient shot as well (obviously as long as it isn't under extreme duress)

Agree, and I actually think this might explain some of Haslem's drag on the offense. Don't know how you'd measure it, but it seems like PnR's where Joel is setting the screen are more likely to end with Wade or Lebron pitching it to the wing for a shooter to get a nice 3 or swing it around the perimeter for a hockey assist or a secondary PnR against a scrambled D

Whereas with Haslem, its just easier (and yet seemingly natural!) to dump it off to him for a bricked 16 foot J.

Look at this (which lends credence to this line of thinking).

Link looks at Miami's assists per 100 possessions, split up by when a player is on the court. Joel "leads" the Heat in this statistic. Take-away? Joel's presence seems to force Miami into better ball movement

[GreenHat]

Also a three-point shot by any of our shooters is a more efficient shot as well (obviously as long as it isn't under extreme duress)

Agree, and I actually think this might explain some of Haslem's drag on the offense. Don't know how you'd measure it, but it seems like PnR's where Joel is setting the screen are more likely to end with Wade or Lebron pitching it to the wing for a shooter to get a nice 3 or swing it around the perimeter for a hockey assist or a secondary PnR against a scrambled D

Whereas with Haslem, its just easier (and yet seemingly natural!) to dump it off to him for a bricked 16 foot J.

Look at this (which lends credence to this line of thinking).

Link looks at Miami's assists per 100 possessions, split up by when a player is on the court. Joel "leads" the Heat in this statistic. Take-away? Joel's presence seems to force Miami into better ball movement

Good find. Its good to see the numbers.

I keep getting ridiculed when I defend Joel by saying our offense works fine with him out there. I've been saying that it seems to be that be that since we don't look for Joel outside of 5 feet and he doesn't just chuck it up when he catches the ball outside we eventually work into a better shot. If Haslem catches the ball in those "Haslem Zones" you know he is putting up those shots no matter what. If Joel gets it he waits for Wade or Lebron to come run by and get the ball on a hand off.

Also your link lines up with what I have been saying regarding Joel/Chalmers being on the very top and Haslem/Cole being on the very bottom (along with Battier). I've been saying those first two should be playing more at the expense of the latter two all season. Both of those second two guys shoot inefficiently and will keep shooting it no matter what.

The other guy on the bottom is Battier. He drags down our offense too but he seems to give us something on the defensive end and at least can hit a 3 (which we both agree is a better shot than those long jumpers)

[Nupe_1911]

I have known that Haslem and Bosh are not effective when they play together since last season without the needs of statistical analysis. This is nothing new.

[GreenHat]

I have known that Haslem and Bosh are not effective when they play together since last season without the needs of statistical analysis. This is nothing new.

And I'm pretty sure there a bunch of things that you "know" that aren't true as well.

Humans have biases and are bad at estimating things so some of us enjoy having proof to back up our thoughts rather than just talking off the top of our heads.

[FlashTheKilla]

I think this is less about the combo of Haslem + Bosh than it is about how poor Haslem has been offensively this season.

I have known that Haslem and Bosh are not effective when they play together since last season without the needs of statistical analysis. This is nothing new.

And I'm pretty sure there a bunch of things that you "know" that aren't true as well.

Humans have biases and are bad at estimating things so some of us enjoy having proof to back up our thoughts rather than just talking off the top of our heads.

+1. And great job, mopper. Thanks for this.

[Nupe_1911]

I have known that Haslem and Bosh are not effective when they play together since last season without the needs of statistical analysis. This is nothing new.

And I'm pretty sure there a bunch of things that you "know" that aren't true as well.

Humans have biases and are bad at estimating things so some of us enjoy having proof to back up our thoughts rather than just talking off the top of our heads.

What bias and estimation are you referring to? I watch 99% of Heat games and have two functional eyes and a functional brain. It is plainly obvious that Haslem and Bosh don't work well together. It's been obvious for sometime and has been discussed on this board since last season.

[Flash4thewin]

Even before UD and Bosh played there first game together there was concern about there "fit" when on the court at the same time. Watching them together just reinforces the original though. Yes UD has been very inconsistant/ bad this season which doesn't help.

[diablerouge]

If we go by yesterday's game, which had a playoff feel, I think Haslem's minutes will be reduced to 15 mins in the playoffs. Our end of game line ups will be big 3 + 2 out of Chalmers/Battier/Miller.

[TheMiamiHeat3]

The best 5-man unit: Wade-Miller-James-Haslem-Bosh
http://basketballvalue.com/amofunit.php ... 60-201-319

Spo should utilize this lineup more and more as Miller gets back into shape.

[pirate_pr]

The best 5-man unit: Wade-Miller-James-Haslem-Bosh
http://basketballvalue.com/amofunit.php ... 60-201-319

Spo should utilize this lineup more and more as Miller gets back into shape.

True that is best line up but we need to amnesty Miller next season by all means and these next 2 or 3 games if he cannot get better give JJ a chance, it cant get any worse that what it is now.