On Spo changing up PnR coverage:
The Heat have had their big men drop back on the pick-and-roll or slide side to side at the level of the screener. It is damn near conventional NBA defense by a team that has been unconventional in almost every way since Pat Riley constructed it.
There were lots of reasons for the adjustment, including the coaching staff’s recognition that playing hyperactive defense wore down an aging team. But Indiana really coaxed the change. It punished Miami’s traps by having its screeners slip down toward the foul line before even really setting the pick, allowing Indiana’s ball handlers to loft easy entry passes ahead of the Heat’s traps.
[snip]
“They used our aggressiveness against us,” Shane Battier told me the morning of Game 4. “They were the first team to really do that.”
[snip]
And so the Heat swallowed hard and dialed back the trapping, shedding what had been a core part of their identity.
“West is very tricky,” Chris Bosh said. “We just couldn’t keep jumping out there as usual, because they took advantage of it every time.”
The change has neutered the Pacers’ pick-and-roll attack from the center of the floor in three consecutive Heat wins. The Pacers have no one who can turn the corner, and without a hard trap to exploit, the Pacers’ ball handlers have too often just dribbled aimlessly toward the sideline. That is death against Miami, which feasts upon weak cross-court passes. Indiana’s huge lead in Game 3 vanished under an avalanche of turnovers along the right sideline. “You just gotta tip your hat to Spo [Erik Spoelstra] for that,” Hill told me at shootaround on Monday. “He changed the way they defend us.” Hill said he took no pride in forcing a concession from the champs.
Over their last three games, the Pacers have scored 0.69 points per possession when a pick-and-roll ball handler finishes the play,1 per Synergy Sports. That would have ranked dead last in the league, and Indy coughed the ball up on 41 percent of those possessions — a number so huge, it is almost hard to believe.
The Pacers haven’t been completely helpless. They have been able to find the roll man at a healthy rate, and good things happen when they do that. They also shifted a ton of pick-and-roll action toward the left side of the floor, clearing their three other players to the other side of the court.
That is where they face the remnants of Miami’s trapping heyday. The Heat still blitz pick-and-rolls along the side of the floor when the ball handler is dribbling toward the middle. They want to force that ball handler backward, making him pass against his body’s momentum — giving Miami’s defenders behind the play time to rotate in chaos mode.
Indiana has used that action to generate those old 4-on-3s, and this series often feels like it will come down to which team wins those mini-battles. Over four games it has been Miami, with bursts of near-perfect defense that combine manic energy and precision.
On Shard getting minutes:
Lewis had no clue the call was coming. “When your body starts to break down, you really just spend most of your time in the training room,” Lewis told me between Games 3 and 4. “When [Spoelstra] called my name, I sat there like, ‘Did he just say my name?’ And he looked at me, like, ‘Let’s go!’”
lol. I can picture Spo's face perfectly.
On why Bosh doesn't post up much
Critics will read this as softness, but they’re wrong. Bosh is playing the way Spoelstra wants — a style that confounds traditional big men and leaves the block for Wade and James. The Heat reserve post-ups for their best passers; post plays draw double-teams, and you might as well leave the reading of those double-teams to the smartest assist guys you have, especially if they can operate without a big man nearby — thanks to Bosh.
On the fans and setting in the arena
• Miami fans get some deserved criticism, but the crowds for Games 3 and 4 were outstanding. The arena was filled before tip, and the fans were loud. The Heat’s in-arena production value is strong. I love the way Michael Biamonte, their public address announcer, says Mario Chalmers’s last name in a “CHALM-ERS” sing-song, and playing “In the Air Tonight” as the players mill around before tipoff is a genius touch. It produces a vibe of focused intensity as Wade runs around the court, urging different sections of the crowd to cheer.
Lots of other good stuff in there as well.
great article. Nice find mopper
