Offensive System for the Heat

[CablexDeadpool]

Do you think after this season, there should be a dramatic overhaul of the offensive system the Heat have in place to solve the Heat Half Court Offense problems?


We see this constantly with the lack of offense after major defensive stops and transition buckets once the opposing team calms down and runs their offense, the Heat can't score a bucket to reply. And then the Heat end up on their heels and see their double digit lead get reduced to 4 and 5 points and the other team is back in the game.

The Heat has the best offensive talent in the league but a lack of half court offense often resorts to them playing Hero Ball and relying on transition offense.

What type of half court offensive system would like to see the Heat play?

Me personally, I think the Triangle would be great for the Heat. Lebron can play the point foward and be a post presence, Wade can be the main scorer, and Bosh can be the high post presence and just need a point guard that can shoot and dribble and run a pick and roll and play d.

[mopper8]

I actually like our half-court offense just fine, I think our problems come when we don't run it because guys break off into hero-ball instead of going through the triggers.

That doesn't mean we will score on every possession, nobody does, and that doesn't mean we won't have some lulls during games (everybody does), but the more committed we are to ball-movement and player movement the better, regardless of the base offense.

Also, I've never been a huge fan of the triangle personally. We used to run it a little when Shaq was here with good results but I don't like our personnel for it right now nearly as much. I think we do a pretty good job right now actually considering we don't have a lot of traditional floor spacers in our rotation.

[SweetTouch]

Heat have a top 5 offense

[WD]

I too would also like to see us run our existing offense without "breaking the play" off to see how it works - Just like the team bought into our defensive structure, maybe that's the next development.

[CablexDeadpool]

Heat have a top 5 offense

Cause Heat have top 5 players that are extremely efficient, plus Heat get out on the break for easy buckets cause Heat have a top 5 defense that is opportunistic.


For a comparison, the Heat are the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.

[mopper8]

Heat have a top 5 offense

Cause Heat have top 5 players that are extremely efficient, plus Heat get out on the break for easy buckets cause Heat have a top 5 defense that is opportunistic.


For a comparison, the Heat are the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.

I don't think you get what having a top-5 offense means.

Our offense was actually more highly-rated than our defense in the regular season.

[Heej]

I agree with Mopper on our offense. Our double high post series has been working well for us when we commit to cycling through every option. We can consistently get post-ups and clearouts for Lebron and Wade, or when we curl Wade off screens to the basket it's a high efficiency play, and CB iso'ing at the elbow or flaring out for jumpers in rhythm are all favorable outcomes for an offense.

We don't have the personnel for the triangle because generally you're gonna want a big man that can demand a double in the post, because a lot of their plays get run through the assumption that the post presence is going to draw a lot of attention. Lebron can actually be that for us because he consistently demands a double in the post.

[mopper8]

I agree with Mopper on our offense. Our double high post series has been working well for us when we commit to cycling through every option. We can consistently get post-ups and clearouts for Lebron and Wade, or when we curl Wade off screens to the basket it's a high efficiency play, and CB iso'ing at the elbow or flaring out for jumpers in rhythm are all favorable outcomes for an offense.

We don't have the personnel for the triangle because generally you're gonna want a big man that can demand a double in the post, because a lot of their plays get run through the assumption that the post presence is going to draw a lot of attention. Lebron can actually be that for us because he consistently demands a double in the post.

And I agree with everything in your second paragraph, I was going to add that to my first post but decided not to. As Wade and Lebron both improve in the post in the next couple years, I think the triangle could become more effective here. That doesn't mean I'd want to run it every time down the floor, but I actually wouldn't be surprised if we worked in some watered-down triangle sets for those guys on the block in the coming seasons.

[CablexDeadpool]

I agree with Mopper on our offense. Our double high post series has been working well for us when we commit to cycling through every option. We can consistently get post-ups and clearouts for Lebron and Wade, or when we curl Wade off screens to the basket it's a high efficiency play, and CB iso'ing at the elbow or flaring out for jumpers in rhythm are all favorable outcomes for an offense.

We don't have the personnel for the triangle because generally you're gonna want a big man that can demand a double in the post, because a lot of their plays get run through the assumption that the post presence is going to draw a lot of attention. Lebron can actually be that for us because he consistently demands a double in the post.

The Bulls didn't have a very good post player, but they had Jordan in the post, I think Lebron can be that for the Heat and Wade too. Put bosh near the High Post and have a shooting Pg at the corner then Lebron or Wade in the post would have an option. To go for the score or to pass to Bosh for a jumper or to pass for a 3 or swing the ball and reset.

I just want the see the Heat have something that doesn't always break into an Iso one on one situation, because I don't think it works well when the Heat need that bucket to keep the flow going cause defenses can always pack the paint and dare Lebron or Wade to shoot or block off penetration.

The Heat offense tend to get stuck during runs since the Heat uses defense for offense.

I'm not saying to go completely Triangle but having it in sets along with pick and roll play and off ball screens would be good way to mix it up.

We'll see.

[DWadeno3]

I agree with mopper about our offense being good enough as it is. Especially at home, we have that tendency of trying to hit homeruns to excite the crowd instead of constantly executing and using the entire shotclock. I thought part of the problem with our offense in the beginning was that some guys had also developed bad habits of trying to do too much themselves and hampering any ball or player movement. Throughout these playoffs, we've taken another step forward in trusting each other and the system and have shown that when we're focused and run our plays, we can practically score at will.

Something I'd like to see us adjust in this particular series is our defense though. Sometimes, our players have a tendency of hedging too far out on the pick and rolls which can cause our entire defense to collapse because the big guy can't recover quick enough to get back to his man, which forces a rotation and ultimately gives Dallas an open look. Sometimes, there simply isn't a need for the big to show this hard because the Mavs don't have a Rose type of player. They do, however, have a ton of shooters and move the ball extremely well, which is why I believe it'd be more efficient if we were to just show quickly to prevent an open shot.

[mopper8]

The Bulls didn't have a very good post player, but they had Jordan in the post, .

[CablexDeadpool]

The Bulls didn't have a very good post player, but they had Jordan in the post, .

I meant a post big...like a Shaq.

[Heej]

I agree with Mopper on our offense. Our double high post series has been working well for us when we commit to cycling through every option. We can consistently get post-ups and clearouts for Lebron and Wade, or when we curl Wade off screens to the basket it's a high efficiency play, and CB iso'ing at the elbow or flaring out for jumpers in rhythm are all favorable outcomes for an offense.

We don't have the personnel for the triangle because generally you're gonna want a big man that can demand a double in the post, because a lot of their plays get run through the assumption that the post presence is going to draw a lot of attention. Lebron can actually be that for us because he consistently demands a double in the post.

And I agree with everything in your second paragraph, I was going to add that to my first post but decided not to. As Wade and Lebron both improve in the post in the next couple years, I think the triangle could become more effective here. That doesn't mean I'd want to run it every time down the floor, but I actually wouldn't be surprised if we worked in some watered-down triangle sets for those guys on the block in the coming seasons.

I agree. Hell, we've seen that often early in the season and sparingly every now and again in recent months. Whenever we'd see Mario dump it off to Bosh at the pinch post and cut to the corner to let Lebron or Wade come up to the 3 point line that was a freeze-dried triangle set. But what killed those sets for us is that either Lebron or Wade who was in the opposite corner would just stand there so defenses could load up on the strongside with no repercussions.

In a couple years down the line I see our best version of the triangle being Lebron at the pinch-post or on the left block where he does the most damage with Wade moving off-ball from the opposite corner. I like our double high post sets, and Spo's gotten really comfortable with it despite our guys consistently breaking off plays whenever they please, but it'll be fun to see if we can see some watered-down triangle sets like you said.

I like when we run that cross-screen and clearout set for Lebron or Wade in the post like Portland always does every game with Aldridge. We haven't seen much of that since the Chicago series, especially with Dallas committing to double on the post player, but we'll see a lot more of that in years to come.

It's fun having players with such versatile skillsets. Even Bosh who is only an above average passer at best at the 4 is still good enough to be the primary big in those derivations of Adelman's corner sets that we run from time to time. How weird is it that this might just be the worst incarnation of this Heat team that we'll see for a while.

[DefenseWins]

Yeah, I'm tired of the hero ball at times.

It's great when they score, but so horrible if they don't.

They need some triangle offense atleast. What happened to Wade curling and all? They did so much of that in the Boston series. I think it was the double high post.

That play that had Bosh open, there was nothing called for him. I heard LeBron just saw him open and Bosh told Haslem to screen. They did that on the spot LOL. Such a high risk.

[Alex Trevelyan]

The offense is already among the best in the league statistically, but a lot of that is just us out-talenting the opposition. We don't necessarily need a new system as much as we need our players to actually contain themselves within the system we already have. These guys have been winging it by themselves for so long their default setting is often hero-ball mode, but it's a progression. It was probably unrealistic to expect them to assimilate everything in a season and cut out all their bad habits that have developed over their entire basketball lives.

We need to improve our half-court sets, no doubt about that. If LeBron can develop a post-up game it would make our half-court offense considerably more lethal in and of itself. Assuming we win the title I doubt a week goes by before the staff and the players are mapping out areas that need to be improved, and since the defense and transition offenses are already about as good as they can be, I'd expect the focus to be on improving the half-court offense and ball movement. With the offensive talent we have, the Heat should be capable of averaging nearly a 100 ppg.

[GreenHat]

Heat have a top 5 offense

Yeah but we have top 1 offensive talent.

I don't like the triangle for this team. The triangle gets overrated because it was being run by MJ/Pippen/Shaq/Kobe, when it was run by the Twolves it wasn't the same.

I disagree that the whole hero ball thing is all on the players and not on the offense. A lot of the plays someone is trying to play hero ball its because the shot clock is ticking down. Just look at last game how many shot clock violations and near shot clock violations (even on made shots) we had down the stretch. A lot of our sets take so long to set up. That play (which I've been harping on) where Joel catches above the elbow and holds it for a while and then passes it in to initiate that set, never gets started until about 10 seconds left on the clock and usually results in a long contested jumper (that sometimes goes in anyway).

Our offense can definitely improve and I'd like to see us driving more (like we were in the 1st quarter) even if its from isolation. With the offensive talent that we have we should be taking easier shots. All of our guys take too many jumpers (other than the guys specifically tasked with sitting there and taking jumpers) and thats something that should have been corrected by now. You can't blame that on the players because that means either the coaches aren't getting on them for it, or it means they are getting on them for it and they aren't getting through to the players 100 games in. Either way thats bad.

Not to say our coaching is bad, just that they have more room for improvement that the players do in my opinion.

I'm no Xs and Os genius so I don't know what specifically we can do, but there has to be something out there that gets us better shots against good defenses. I think just having something that initiates quicker will make a world of difference for us.

[truthiness]

I'd still like Adelman as coach with Spoelstra maybe as defensive coordinator.
If the Heat wins, I know there's no way Spoelstra goes, but I wish the Heat could be the 1st team in the league to go for a defensive coach + offensive coach approach and they managed to get Adelman to coach the offense.

If Lebron and Wade put their egos aside maybe a couple of coaches could do the same in order not just to win, but build the best team in history. Because I am sure that with the current D and Adelman's offense, if the Heat stay healthy for 1 season, they could beat the 72 W record and they might even be able to go through the playoffs undefeated. That's what is in play here. This is how good these 3 guys are.