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3ammy3uck3ts wrote:Daffy wrote:ZoStrong wrote:
Lol, Butler w a MVP level center in Embii didn't go deeper
To be fair that team wasn't built around Jimmy and Ben Simmons was a major disappointment.
Simmons was putting up 17-9-8 with all nba defense at that point
marson wrote:Bam have played the most minutes for our team, while Herro and Jimmy didn't even rank in the top 40 for minutes per game.
Meanwhile, Randle and Brunson are in the top 16 for minutes played. I'm glad Jimmy isn't being overworked in the Thibs system anymore.
Credit to Spo for prioritizing long-term goals over regular season losses.
If things go well, we might see Jimmy leading us in the playoffs again soon.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_per_game.html
SerialChiller wrote:marson wrote:Bam have played the most minutes for our team, while Herro and Jimmy didn't even rank in the top 40 for minutes per game.
Meanwhile, Randle and Brunson are in the top 16 for minutes played. I'm glad Jimmy isn't being overworked in the Thibs system anymore.
Credit to Spo for prioritizing long-term goals over regular season losses.
If things go well, we might see Jimmy leading us in the playoffs again soon.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_per_game.html
Spo's small ball takes alot out of the players and leads to more possible injuries imo...
Chalm Downs wrote:his nickname is boywonder ffs
RexBoyWonder wrote:Knicks and Sixers keep winning games they have no business winning. Thank the useless Mavs and Cavs.
It is what it is, we have to stay focused and not drop winnable games.
Anywhere from 4th seed to 8th is very possible.
greg4012 wrote:
Pretty wild with the inconsistency of lineups (which has been the case all season) and the incorporation on the fly of new pieces. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this also has seemed like a below average stretch of 3-point shooting for the team.
Smooth some of those things out with more acclimation and it reveals some nice upside. Things fall into place when Jimmy asserts himself offensively.
RexBoyWonder wrote:Knicks and Sixers keep winning games they have no business winning. Thank the useless Mavs and Cavs.
It is what it is, we have to stay focused and not drop winnable games.
Anywhere from 4th seed to 8th is very possible.
They do it on the quiet side as they don’t feature what most people think of a dominant interior presence, at least not physically speaking in the more traditional sense, but the Miami HEAT have been one of the better post-up teams in the league for years now. They weren’t always a high-volume group but they were efficient, and when Kyle Lowry joined up two seasons ago they had the setup man to get Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo the ball on time and on target, so the volume increased. Add in Kevin Love and his oak legs midway through the next season and this year a rookie in Jaime Jaquez Jr. who profiles eerily like Butler, and rather suddenly Miami is fourth in the league in post-ups per 100 possessions (8.5 per 100) while sustaining above-average efficiency.
...
“But that takes weeks and months to develop that kind of cohesiveness and to be able to get it there efficiently when you’re not just burning clock. We have some good post entry passers, that’s an underrated skill. Niko is great at it. Jaime is good at it. Bam obviously we know what he can do. K-Love is elite at it. Other guys are starting to recognize those situations earlier, and obviously Bam’s postups as well.”
...
This might all sound like we’re in the weeds a bit, but the difference between a team that has been working on these habits – every easier score matters – and one that doesn’t, or doesn’t have the personnel for it, could add up to two, four, six points in a nip-and-tuck postseason game. The HEAT can’t afford to not take advantage of mismatches against good defensive teams, particularly against those that switch.
Perhaps the best news is that after going through various adjustment periods against double teams, they’re producing 1.18 points-per-double out of the post. Granted there’s a difference between weaker defenses that double haphazardly versus teams that have time-and-space doubles built into their own habits, but if becoming a good post entry team – Miami also leads the league in entry passes per 100 possessions now – means drawing more two-on-the-ball situations, then the HEAT have put in the right work during the regular season. When Butler scores on consecutive deep seals to keep Miami’s offensive train on the tracks in a late April game, remember that those are habits you spend an entire season building.
In Butler’s case, here’s why. He’s currently averaging 21.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.4 steals while turning the ball over fewer than two times per game. You know how many players have ever put those numbers together since steals were tracked in the 1973-74 season, per basketball-reference.com? There’s Butler last season, Kawhi Leonard in 2020-21 and that’s it. Add in the somewhat ridiculous fact that Butler is shooting 45.7 percent from three and you officially have a never-been-done-before season that could go on the books in mid-April. Before this season it probably would have been enough for an All-NBA nod, but these days enough will have to be enough.
Bam Adebayo has increased his free-throw rate from last season to 6.2 attempts per game, good for No. 21 in the league, but that’s actually below his free-throw rate per 100 possessions from two seasons ago. Last season was just a slight dip after an adjustment period to Adebayo’s offensive profile expanding, and now he’s right back to where he was before, pump-faking one defender after another into free-throws.
There’s a second layer to Adebayo’s foul game, though. Butler is No. 5 in the league according to Second Spectrum on drawing 2.7 shooting fouls per 100 possessions, with Adebayo close behind at No. 12 with 2.1 per 100. But what about non-shooting fouls, those fouls that add up to putting a team into the bonus early which allows for even more easy points?
If you take out all shooting fouls, Adebayo is still No. 16 in the league at 1.8 drawn per 100 possessions (Trae Young leads all players at 2.5), and Butler is further down the leaderboard at No. 43 with 1.35 per 100. That’s not to say Adebayo is a better or more important foul drawer than Butler since nothing trumps getting to the line with elite consistency, only that Adebayo is equally as prolific drawing fouls with the ball as he is without it. Again, all the little things that add up to points for a team that needs points every which way it can find them against elite defenses (Miami is scoring 111.2 points per 100 in 17 games against teams with a Top 10 Defensive Rating, with the nine teams below them all outside the Top 10 in their respective conferences).
Overall, the HEAT have a Defensive Rating of 101.6 in fourth quarters since January 31, the best mark in the league, while their fourth-quarter offense has sat at No. 23 during the same stretch.
-Adebayo currently sits at +2.3 in Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus according to dunksandthrees.com. The currents favorite according to the odds, Rudy Gobert, sits at +2.2.
greg4012 wrote:SerialChiller wrote:marson wrote:Bam have played the most minutes for our team, while Herro and Jimmy didn't even rank in the top 40 for minutes per game.
Meanwhile, Randle and Brunson are in the top 16 for minutes played. I'm glad Jimmy isn't being overworked in the Thibs system anymore.
Credit to Spo for prioritizing long-term goals over regular season losses.
If things go well, we might see Jimmy leading us in the playoffs again soon.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_per_game.html
Spo's small ball takes alot out of the players and leads to more possible injuries imo...
More than what?
More than Thibs all-out regular season blitz?
ZoStrong wrote:I get it. If you lose, there's always excuses. But the fact is Jimmy never had the playoff success that he's had here in Miami. So it's silly to speculate how he'd do with no Embii or no Bam, just a decent center. This also really underappreciates how much Bam does for our defense. And Bam's only getting better offensively
Bmaster wrote:RexBoyWonder wrote:Knicks and Sixers keep winning games they have no business winning. Thank the useless Mavs and Cavs.
It is what it is, we have to stay focused and not drop winnable games.
Anywhere from 4th seed to 8th is very possible.
To be fair to cavs the donovan Mitchell has been hurt
3ammy3uck3ts wrote: