Breaking down Heat's D (also, Arroyo is horrible)

[Salty]

OMG TRUST THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!
Nicely done, I've thought about doing something like this (not to the extent that you did) but every time I started doing it I became filled with rage and started break dancing.

[Lord Hades]

Great breakdown and analysis.

The excessive swarming has struck me odd for the last two seasons, especially on nights that it leads to open 3 after 3. I think it's a fine strategy for a change of pace or as a response, but for it to be the norm seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

Unnecessarily involved on defense and entirely unimaginative on offense. Yeesh.

[fishfuego.]

Hats off to the OP.

And defense is supposed to be this coach's bread and butter... OVERRATED AND OVERDONE!

Now add the offensive skim into this equation, and GOD HELP THE HEAT!

[truthiness]

Three things:

ONE:

In the Pacers game, I, too, had the initial impression that maybe Wade threw the game. I watched it again though and the players seemed to be into it. They doubled and tripled hard (which is I guess the last thing you'd do if you wanted to throw a game away) and they did give effort. I think that towards the end they let their frustrations show and kinda gave up a little, and that's what made most of us feel maybe they threw the game. But over the first 3 quarters they did play hard.


TWO:

I wondered if the triple and quadruple teaming might be because of lack of communication or bad communication, but that would have meant sometimes nobody would double, which was not the case. This makes me think the hard double and triple teaming are part of the system, and them executing these things doesn't look like "Wade and Lebron ignoring the system" as some reports claimed.

If I was to take a guess I'd say Spoelstra figured hard trapping the ball handler might lead to some forced turnovers and very easy offense on the fast break, which would suit very well the athletic big 3. But this won't work against teams with good ball handling (those that beat Miami so far) and good floor spacing. So Spoelstra figured how to murder some crappy and average teams, but this won't work with teams that can execute.


THREE

In fact Tony Fiorentino and Eric Reid were gushing over Indiana's execution, crisp passing, ball movement and player movement. They must have been salivating abundantly at the thought of the Heat executing the offense with similar accuracy. They stopped short of criticizing Spoelstra directly, but it was clear that they saw the glaring difference between the 2 teams in terms of systems and execution. That's one of the things I love about them: they call it as it is. I despise commentators that are homers.

[truthiness]

OMG TRUST THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!
Nicely done, I've thought about doing something like this (not to the extent that you did) but every time I started doing it I became filled with rage and started break dancing.

You must be an awesome breakdancer by now

[fishfuego.]

Great breakdown and analysis.

The excessive swarming has struck me odd for the last two seasons, especially on nights that it leads to open 3 after 3. I think it's a fine strategy for a change of pace or as a response, but for it to be the norm seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

Unnecessarily involved on defense and entirely unimaginative on offense. Yeesh.

And this^ exactly has been the nightly cry around Heat nation, the CLUELESS coach who can't make in-games adjustments and seems to have found/learned a system and that's all he knows. Like an action producer that specializes in blowing things but never adds substance to the film nor can produce a drama film to save the Universe... That's our own Spo.

[GameTime_3]

Great post Truthiness. How did you get all the photos? I would love for you to do one with the offense. Show 5 straight Sets were we run ISO's.

[Three O Five]

Wow truthiness that is an excellent break down of some of the problems the Heat have been experiencing throughout the season. You need to find a way to find a position within the Heat organization.

Maybe we can help get him a job as a video coordinator... I heard you can move up the ranks that way.

[Wade2k6]

Great post Truthiness. How did you get all the photos? I would love for you to do one with the offense. Show 5 straight Sets were we run ISO's.

That wouldn't be too hard to find, you could find 5 isolations within 5-6 minutes of the first Q.

[Heat3]

this is what we've been doing the last few years. we always leave a 3pt shooter open with one of our guys having to run towards him at the last minute. yet we were still pretty good defensively last year

[garbagnani]

look at bosh in exhibit #6. omg

[BronBron06]

Great post Truthiness. How did you get all the photos? I would love for you to do one with the offense. Show 5 straight Sets were we run ISO's.

That wouldn't be too hard to find, you could find 5 isolations within 5-6 minutes of the first Q.

Was that LeBron then Wade casually walking around at the middle area of 3 point line

[MiamiNative0722]

I think with dampier we need to play a 2-3 zone,

We are a jump shot team so if we can hold off penetration with the 2-3 we basically make it a 'who's a better jump shot team' game, which I'll put my money on us lol

[SweetTouch]

playing zone defense = turn in your man card

[Salty]

OMG TRUST THE SYSTEM!!!!!!!
Nicely done, I've thought about doing something like this (not to the extent that you did) but every time I started doing it I became filled with rage and started break dancing.

You must be an awesome breakdancer by now

NO BECAUSE ITS FILLED WITH RAGE AND HATRED, HIS DEFENSIVE SCHEME IS MORE SUITED FOR 10 YEAR OLDS AT THE Y.

[TheAnkh]

Wonderful breakdown. I have always wondered why on earth we send so many players to help on every penetration. Its why our defense has been getting destroyed by any team that has an offense that is predicated on ball movement, which is pretty much every decent to great team in the league (except ours of course).

But honestly, I still feel like our offense is our biggest problem. The defense we run requires an incredible amount of player movement, which is ironically something we don't have on offense, but players always get a lot more lazy and a lot less committed on defense when they are struggling on offense. So basically our crappy offense exposes our defensive philosophy even more because guys aren't moving and rotating the way they should because they just went through yet another tough offensive set and are frustrated.

[BronBron06]

NO BECAUSE ITS FILLED WITH RAGE AND HATRED, HIS DEFENSIVE SCHEME IS MORE SUITED FOR 10 YEAR OLDS AT THE Y.

Probably why the "FRENCH COACH of young boys" likes him so much

[dookieguy]

Can't agree more about the defense. geezus

[AllBall]

Yet another issue is the play of Miami's PG. Especially Arroyo. Both him and House suck on defense, but at least House can hit the open 3 and help spread the floor. Arroyo on the other hand passes open 3s over and over again and, to make matters worse, is a ball stopper on offense.

In defense of Arroyo on passing up shots, the reason he passes up on those shots is because Spo discourages him from taking them. He is actually following Spo's rigid system. I believe Spo discourages him from taking those shots because it is not within his comfortable range, but lately he has improved. He can make them but he needs to be in rhythm.

He wants to take those shots, I can see it in his body language and reaction when he gets it but he goes for the extra pass because he is discouraged from being an outside shooter.

Arroyo has actually been behaving himself and has been the least of my worries on the court lately. He is actually trying really hard and does what Spo tells him, so the mistakes that come from him are really the fault out of Spo's systems. Somethings are still his mistakes (the unnecessary pump faking) but those are things that can be conditioned.

[jmbflame21]

If I was to take a guess I'd say Spoelstra figured hard trapping the ball handler might lead to some forced turnovers and very easy offense on the fast break, which would suit very well the athletic big 3. But this won't work against teams with good ball handling (those that beat Miami so far) and good floor spacing. So Spoelstra figured how to murder some crappy and average teams, but this won't work with teams that can execute.

BINGO!