Spo is a Genius

[HeatGuyInChicago]

I hear what every one says, but is it possible that a we are giving up a higher percentage due to the compressed schedule? Maybe the legs are not there on the third and fourth rotation. Mixing in a little zone will solve that. Recalling some of the past few games, I believe Spo does have an occasional zone mixed in during the games.

[GreenHat]

And so I'm guessing your list goes Spo then Doug Collins? What makes Collins the second best in your opinion?

Your second point ignores what I have been saying. Philly is an athletic team but so are we. There defense is significantly better than ours (we have the way better offense). So why is their defense better than ours if we play similar styles? I attribute it to Collins outcoaching Spo defensively.

I prefer when you get roasted by Mopper but just so you don't lose every argument I'll waste a few minutes of my life replying.

You shouldn't guess, my real list starts with Pops but he obviously has a large head start over Spo and that doesn't stop Spo being a genius.

With the second point you seem to misunderstand that Basketball isn't a game separated into defense and offense as cleanly as you and statisticians would like. Not having the best defensive rating (however you want to designate that) doesn't mean you don't have the best defense. Miami's defense has been created to lead to fast offense, the stats that you quote don't take that into account, our defense is directly responsible for the fact that our offense is "statistically the best". if we played defense more conservatively we could easily have the best "statistical" defense but then we'd lose a lot of the great Offense. This is precisely why I'm calling spo a genius. He has evaluated our strengths and weaknesses, he has designed a plan to maximise them and then he has convinced the players and got them playing the system he has designed. as a coach myself, I think that's genius.

He has even got some people calling Joel and Mario Elite !!!!

Move over Dwight, joel is going to be DPOY - yeah right!

I don't see how I'm getting "roasted" by Mopper when our opinions seem to line up pretty closely with few variations in our last few posts. It seems he ranks Spo a little higher than I do and I have higher expectations of the team.

We're just arguing against oppositely extreme lunatic fringes in you and whoever he is arguing with.

Thanks for not letting me "lose every argument" though. You're right you do always offer up an easy victory.

So Pop is the best, Doug Collins is the second best... where does Spo come in on your list? A couple more names and you'll have him about where I have him. We must have a lot of geniuses in coaching, at least in your eyes.

Maybe "genius" means something different in French?

Our defense isn't "directly" responsible to us having the most efficient offense. Having Lebron/Wade/Bosh/Chalmers is what is directly responsible to us having the most efficient offense. I love how you ignore the players and give all the credit to some coaching decision. We have the most offensive talent in the league. We should have the best offense in the league.

Not to mention according to a source that Mopper (whose opinion you seem to highly value) quoted we have the best half-court offense anyway.

We would lose some offense but not a lot. And there is still no evidence that we would be as good as Chicago or Philly. Creating turnovers actually does get factored into Drtg because it stops a team from scoring on a possession.

Forgetting that, even if you were 100% right does it really take a "genius" to figure out a team with Lebron/Wade/Bosh/Chalmers/Anthony/Haslem/Miller/Cole should push the pace?

That seems like basic coaching strategy. Also what does it say that the "genuis" didn't figure this out all of last season?

I guess I'm a super-genius because I thought we should have done this last year.

And yes Joel is an elite defensive player. That doesn't mean he is better than Dwight despite how many strawmen arguments you create to the contrary.

It would be like me saying "HIF thinks Spo is a genius, move over Phil Jackon Spo is going to win more rings - yeah right"

Do you see how stupid your style of argument is when it is flipped back towards you?

[HeatGuyInChicago]

Philly tries to stop layups first. ALL great team defenses start by denying the lane. I don't get why posters on this board don't understand that. The Heat are hardly unique in wanting to deny the lane, that makes them precisely like every other team in the league.

The secondary goal is to run teams off the 3-point line, and that's a goal of this team, just like every other team. Here's Haslem:

"With the way they shoot the ball, we can't give them 3s and give them paint points," Haslem said of the Knicks. "So we've got to try to take care of the paint first. No easy baskets, then close out on the 3s. Our defensive principles don't change. Protect the paint. Make them spray the ball. It's not an easy style to play defensively, but it's been working for us. We understand our recipe for success."

The Heat have had no trouble with this system defending from deep in the past. Whether you want to admit it or not, Miami was statistically top-10 in the league defending the 3 last season, and that was with much slower personnel in the rotation (Bibby, Arroyo, Z, Damp, etc).

But I digress. Spo does deserve praise. Miami currently has an SRS over 8. Only 20 teams in NBA history have posted an SRS over 8, and 14 of them went on to win titles (and 2 of the 6 that didn't win titles lost to another +8 SRS team, with a better SRS than them). That's pretty impressive. Miami is crushing people at an incredibly high level right now, better than e.g. 08 Celtics since Wade came back.

It is still flawed.

Because the Miami Heat don't play defense one on one, they like to hedge and trap and then they like to run back to their man and them off the 3 point line.

So yeah, it works, unless the opposing team isn't completely stupid and realize that defense is playing 5 on 4 and that there is someone open.

And as the person who is running back to his man, you just swing the ball, then a lot of times you will have the Heat packing the paint or they are again, over rotating...

You get the picture, it is an easy defense to beat in a 7 game series if you have 3 point shooters. Dallas proved that.

Philly is different, they play straight up not give up the 3 and want you to shoot midrange jumpers. The Heat want you to miss 3s so they can run on the break. Philly wants the team to miss the midrange shot to run on the break.

It's a totally different gambling style of defense because if the Heat opposing team doesn't miss their 3s then it's gonna be a long long long night.

Dallas hit a majority of their 3 pointers in transition when we turned over the ball or took horrible offensive shots playing hero ball leading to fast breaks.

[This IsMy House]

Some of these posts are a short novel.

[mopper8]

GreenHat - I'm curious as to what you would define as "great" coaching performance.

Something to consider: Wade was healthy for the first two games of the season, then injured his foot during the first half of the Charlotte game, and wasn't fully healthy again until the Knicks game at the end of Jan. That gives the Heat 18 games so far this season with a healthy big 3. Now, granted, injuries are part of basketball, and how a coach handles injuries is part of how you judge him, etc etc. That being said, Miami is 16-2 in those 18 games with an average MOV of 11.2 points.

I mean, even with uber high expectations, you can't really ask for anything more than that or expect that someone else is going to do more ethan that. Again, that's a small sample size that could just be weighted heavily be a recent hot streak, but basically, when Wade has been healthy, the Heat have been crushing the league, in all-time-great fashion. When he's not healthy, they look more like a run of the mill contender, which is a weird turn of phrase but accurate. Again, I think March will be pretty telling. Look at the schedule, how do you think we ought to finish? I think if we go 12-4 that'd be truly fantastic, if we do better that'd be incredible. 11-5 would be satisfactory but a little bit of a let down, 10-6 would be disappointing. What do you think?

edit: also I agree that we actually probably agree on far more than we disagree on, and I recognize it too. I enjoy our discussions, and don't consider them confrontational at all. Just so we are on the same page there.

[mopper8]

As for the Mavs, we basically held their 3-point shooting in check through 4 games, and then they just went bananas in games 5 and 6. They were shooting 34% from 3 through the 1st 4, and really we should have won all 4 IMO. I think when losses are that close, every mistake can be considered the pivotal mistake, and therefore you could argue Spo was the difference-maker with some of his decision-making. But you could lay the blame elsewhere too. There were some pretty bad decisions from the players as I recall as well.

Then they went crazy in games 5 and 6 and, especially the 13-19 nightmare in game 5. But its not like that was some unique event - they shot 46% for the series against LA. Which was the #6 defense, coached by arguably the best coach of all-time, two-time defending champ, SRS over 6. And the Mavs hung a 20-32 shooting game on them.

Dallas shot almost identically overall against Portland as they did against us. 46-121 vs 51-124. They actually didn't shoot great against OKC.

[DWadeno3]

GreenHat - I'm curious as to what you would define as "great" coaching performance.

Something to consider: Wade was healthy for the first two games of the season, then injured his foot during the first half of the Charlotte game, and wasn't fully healthy again until the Knicks game at the end of Jan. That gives the Heat 18 games so far this season with a healthy big 3. Now, granted, injuries are part of basketball, and how a coach handles injuries is part of how you judge him, etc etc. That being said, Miami is 16-2 in those 18 games with an average MOV of 11.2 points.

I mean, even with uber high expectations, you can't really ask for anything more than that or expect that someone else is going to do more ethan that. Again, that's a small sample size that could just be weighted heavily be a recent hot streak, but basically, when Wade has been healthy, the Heat have been crushing the league, in all-time-great fashion. When he's not healthy, they look more like a run of the mill contender, which is a weird turn of phrase but accurate. Again, I think March will be pretty telling. Look at the schedule, how do you think we ought to finish? I think if we go 12-4 that'd be truly fantastic, if we do better that'd be incredible. 11-5 would be satisfactory but a little bit of a let down, 10-6 would be disappointing. What do you think?

edit: also I agree that we actually probably agree on far more than we disagree on, and I recognize it too. I enjoy our discussions, and don't consider them confrontational at all. Just so we are on the same page there.

All your points are pretty much correct and I basically agree with them, but coaching is more than just great numbers during the regular season. When it comes to Spo, I've always been sort of neutral. I'm willing to acknowledge his positives as much as his negatives. He's proven to be an extremely hard-working and smart coach who's excellent at preparing a team and finding the right systems for such a team. While it required a little more time than some might be willing to give him, you have to acknowledge that he ultimately created a structure, both offensively and defensively, that fits the strengths of this team perfectly. You have to, however, question how much of the credit he deserves because our superstars' willingness to adapt their play and accept different roles has been just as essential to our success as Spoelstra's contributions. Without their efforts, a change in our offensive wouldn't have even been possible.

Additionally, I'm still questioning Spoelstra's ability to actually react to situations within games and thus his overall feel for a game. As I stated before, he's been great at preparing this team for any challenge. But there have been several occasions where another coach presented him with a situation he could not accurately respond to, such as Rick Carlisle's different offensive sets in the Finals for example. In order to be considered a really good coach in my book, this is the area I'm looking for him to improve in.

Since he's a very young and, in relation to most coaches in the league, fairly inexperienced head coach, I'm willing to give him the time, as he's shown the aforementioned work ethic and intelligence to master this meaningful part of coaching as well. But we've seen teams change their gameplans within a game and Spoelstra sticking to his despite the other team getting the upper hand on us. We've also seen him sit players with a hot hand down simply because his substitution patterns would require him to do so. This is a part that can barely be measured in numbers but can be so essential to a game, especially in a best-of-seven-series.

[mopper8]

Other random thoughts: Philly is 5-8 over their last 13 and their Drtg is up to 97 from where it was before, which was ridiculous, like 94.7 or something like that.

One of the reasons why their Drtg is so low is because they've had a very soft schedule in terms of offensive teams they've face...the average Ortg of their opponents is 102.6, below the league average of 103.2. Basically like playing the #18 offense in the league (Suns) every game. The two worst offenses in the league, and its not even close, are the Bobcats and the Wizards. Sixers have played those teams 5 times already.

Haven't done Miami's as a comparison yet. edit: ours is worse lol, 102.2

Not a lot of great offenses out there once you exclude our own

[Mars]

Spo's got an edge to him this season and I'm digging it...

ByTimReynolds
Erik Spoelstra on the ASG fallout re: Dwyane and LeBron: "There's nothing we can do about it. At the end of the season, hopefully it ends the right way, and that'll ultimately be the only way we can shut people up."

[This IsMy House]

Spo's got an edge to him this season and I'm digging it...

ByTimReynolds
Erik Spoelstra on the ASG fallout re: Dwyane and LeBron: "There's nothing we can do about it. At the end of the season, hopefully it ends the right way, and that'll ultimately be the only way we can shut people up."

One of my proudest moments this season was when Spo got ejected. Loved it. Never thought he got fried up enough, but he seems to be sick of all the crap.

[GreenHat]

GreenHat - I'm curious as to what you would define as "great" coaching performance.

Something to consider: Wade was healthy for the first two games of the season, then injured his foot during the first half of the Charlotte game, and wasn't fully healthy again until the Knicks game at the end of Jan. That gives the Heat 18 games so far this season with a healthy big 3. Now, granted, injuries are part of basketball, and how a coach handles injuries is part of how you judge him, etc etc. That being said, Miami is 16-2 in those 18 games with an average MOV of 11.2 points.

I mean, even with uber high expectations, you can't really ask for anything more than that or expect that someone else is going to do more ethan that. Again, that's a small sample size that could just be weighted heavily be a recent hot streak, but basically, when Wade has been healthy, the Heat have been crushing the league, in all-time-great fashion. When he's not healthy, they look more like a run of the mill contender, which is a weird turn of phrase but accurate. Again, I think March will be pretty telling. Look at the schedule, how do you think we ought to finish? I think if we go 12-4 that'd be truly fantastic, if we do better that'd be incredible. 11-5 would be satisfactory but a little bit of a let down, 10-6 would be disappointing. What do you think?

edit: also I agree that we actually probably agree on far more than we disagree on, and I recognize it too. I enjoy our discussions, and don't consider them confrontational at all. Just so we are on the same page there.

For me a "great" coaching experience would have to be where a team greatly outperforms their talent/expectations and good portion of that over-achievement can be attributed to the coach.

Because of our immense natural talent advantage it would take a historically great season and a title for us to outperform our talent/expectations. If you take coaching out of it we are still the overwhelming favorite (maybe even more so).

Then for me there would be the fact whether that is attributable to Spo.

To me we haven't even achieved the former so the question of the later doesn't even come into play.

Maybe we have different levels of "great"? What do you consider a "great" coaching performance? To me having the best SRS in the league with by far the most talent is more pedestrian than great.

I think when you get to the point of counting games when Wade is determined to be healthy it gets to the point of arbitrary end points to go along with a small sample size.

Again using the whole season (taking into account Wade's injury) I think a good amount of coaches could replicate an 8 SRS with this roster. If you add in last year too I really think other coaches could replicate the performance or do better.

Also even without Wade, shouldn't we still be a run of the mill contender?

I don't really look at the schedule too far ahead with this team, because we are pretty much going to be favorites against everyone so I don't care as much. So I'm taking just a cursory glance. It looks like a lot of road games but I'm probably a little more optimistic than you. Assuming no big injuries I wouldn't be satisfied with 11-5, I'd be disappointed and I think less than that would mean something is wrong. As for fantastic it would probably have to be 13-3 or maybe even 14-2 for me. 12-4 for me would be satisfactory so I guess I'm about one win off from you.

Speaking of the whole season if we keep an 8 SRS but then lose in the playoffs to the Bulls/Thunder/Mavs how would you classify the season?

To me its championship or bust. Even if we went like 29-3 blowing everyone out but then lose in the playoffs its still an underachievement to me.

[GreenHat]

As for the Mavs, we basically held their 3-point shooting in check through 4 games, and then they just went bananas in games 5 and 6. They were shooting 34% from 3 through the 1st 4, and really we should have won all 4 IMO. I think when losses are that close, every mistake can be considered the pivotal mistake, and therefore you could argue Spo was the difference-maker with some of his decision-making. But you could lay the blame elsewhere too. There were some pretty bad decisions from the players as I recall as well.

Then they went crazy in games 5 and 6 and, especially the 13-19 nightmare in game 5. But its not like that was some unique event - they shot 46% for the series against LA. Which was the #6 defense, coached by arguably the best coach of all-time, two-time defending champ, SRS over 6. And the Mavs hung a 20-32 shooting game on them.

Dallas shot almost identically overall against Portland as they did against us. 46-121 vs 51-124. They actually didn't shoot great against OKC.

I don't place the blame for losing solely on Spo.

But I will say we had more player talent and ended up losing. Its going to be hard for a coach not to be at least partially responsible when a team loses to a less talented team.

Either way he didn't outcoach Carlisle. Speaking of which can you elaborate on why you think Spo outcoached Thibs last season? You briefly mentioned it in a previous post.

[GreenHat]

Spo's got an edge to him this season and I'm digging it...

ByTimReynolds
Erik Spoelstra on the ASG fallout re: Dwyane and LeBron: "There's nothing we can do about it. At the end of the season, hopefully it ends the right way, and that'll ultimately be the only way we can shut people up."

One of my proudest moments this season was when Spo got ejected. Loved it. Never thought he got fried up enough, but he seems to be sick of all the crap.

Eh I'd rather him come up with some brilliant strategy (going for more fast breaks with this roster isn't anything brilliant) and be completely stoic all game.

Why would having an "edge" or getting upset be positive things?

[This IsMy House]

Eh I'd rather him come up with some brilliant strategy (going for more fast breaks with this roster isn't anything brilliant) and be completely stoic all game.

Why would having an "edge" or getting upset be positive things?

Fires up the team? Shows is as determined as they are? Shows he's willing to step up to the media and say enough is enough and go to bat for his players. I think its great and he should do it more often. Instead of saying "people were crying in the locker room" and adding fuel to the fire, I like him being testy and talking about shutting the doubters up.

[GreenHat]

Players at the NBA level don't just play better because their coach is animated. You think Lebron and Wade go oh **** Spo is fired up, better play better now?

I agree that saying people were crying was a mistake on Spo's part but I just don't think how a coach behaves has much of an impact on NBA players.

Not to mention maybe players play worse when they are "fired up". Emotions can make you play worse too

[This IsMy House]

Players at the NBA level don't just play better because their coach is animated. You think Lebron and Wade go oh **** Spo is fired up, better play better now?

I agree that saying people were crying was a mistake on Spo's part but I just don't think how a coach behaves has much of an impact on NBA players.

Not to mention maybe players play worse when they are "fired up". Emotions can make you play worse too

Emotions can have a negative impact but when the refs are making bad calls, its nice to see the coach go to bat for the player and yell at the ref, maybe pick up a tech. Show the team he's as into as they are, but he can't show it as much as they can since he can't be on the court playing. I think he does have an impact on how they play in certain situations. Feeling like its you against the world, but knowing your coach has your back is a good thing to have. Saying they were crying in the locker room? Not so much.

But at the same time yes it can have a negative impact, but seeming him fired up and getting involved instead of sitting on the bench with that Spo look, is a nice change.

[GreenHat]

Lol I can agree the deer in the headlights look annoyed me.

I just don't think coaching behavior has much impact and its more narrative driven.

For example if a team wins a championship with a fiery coach it'll be "His passion got us fired up, that's why we won!"

But if they win with a stoic coach it'll be "His calmness was able to calm us all down, that's why we won!"

I feel the same way about strict vs. players coach or coach who yells a lot vs coach who doesn't

[This IsMy House]

Lol I can agree the deer in the headlights look annoyed me.

I just don't think coaching behavior has much impact and its more narrative driven.

For example if a team wins a championship with a fiery coach it'll be "His passion got us fired up, that's why we won!"

But if they win with a stoic coach it'll be "His calmness was able to calm us all down, that's why we won!"

I feel the same way about strict vs. players coach or coach who yells a lot vs coach who doesn't

But its good to have a coach who can do both, and it seemed like Spo was too calm and never really felt the urgency ya know? This year he seems to feel that sense and get fired up.

[Mars]

Probably not genius level just yet, but definitely Eastern Conf. Coach of the Month...

The Miami Heat's Erik Spoelstra and the San Antonio Spurs' Gregg Popovich today were named the NBA Eastern and Western Conference Coaches of the Month, respectively for games played in February.

Spoelstra guided the Heat to a league-best 11-2 (.846) record and finished the month on an eight-game winning streak, with all eight wins coming by double figures. The 11 wins and .846 winning percentage each rank second all-time for the Heat in the month of February. With three consecutive victories from Feb. 12-14 at Atlanta, Milwaukee and Indiana, the Heat became the first team to win road games on three straight nights since the Phoenix Suns in 1979.

Link

[mopper8]

As for the Mavs, we basically held their 3-point shooting in check through 4 games, and then they just went bananas in games 5 and 6. They were shooting 34% from 3 through the 1st 4, and really we should have won all 4 IMO. I think when losses are that close, every mistake can be considered the pivotal mistake, and therefore you could argue Spo was the difference-maker with some of his decision-making. But you could lay the blame elsewhere too. There were some pretty bad decisions from the players as I recall as well.

Then they went crazy in games 5 and 6 and, especially the 13-19 nightmare in game 5. But its not like that was some unique event - they shot 46% for the series against LA. Which was the #6 defense, coached by arguably the best coach of all-time, two-time defending champ, SRS over 6. And the Mavs hung a 20-32 shooting game on them.

Dallas shot almost identically overall against Portland as they did against us. 46-121 vs 51-124. They actually didn't shoot great against OKC.

I don't place the blame for losing solely on Spo.

But I will say we had more player talent and ended up losing. Its going to be hard for a coach not to be at least partially responsible when a team loses to a less talented team.

Either way he didn't outcoach Carlisle. Speaking of which can you elaborate on why you think Spo outcoached Thibs last season? You briefly mentioned it in a previous post.

Hey sorry I haven't responded to this, haven't had a lot of time the past few days. Main broad point was not that Spo was some incredible genius in the Bulls series, but that our team was better prepared for what they were running on both sides of the ball than they were for us, and we were quicker to adjust. After getting pounded on the boards, sub JJ with Miller, rebounding gets better (though not amazing mind you, but still, improved).

LBJ/Wade PnR had been working well in previous rounds, but against Chicago, couldn't really run Lebron at the 4, and it didn't really work as when they were at the 2/3 because Chicago would just switch it. So instead the Heat put Wade and LBJ on opposite sides of the floor, waited till Chicago overloaded the strongside, and then used quick ball-reversals and fast-hitting PnRs to exploit the undermanned weakside. It wasn't until game 4 where the Bulls started scaling back the D to protect their weakside.

Now, would that work if we had Michael Beasley instead of Lebron? No, though you could've run those sets for a JJ 3-pointer in theory. Still, though, the point isn't that Spo was super innovative, it was that Spo correctly utilized our offensive talent to beat "break" their defense, or at least to exploit its weakness, and Thibs was very slow to react to it.

There's more to it than that, if that seems thin, but it'd honestly take me a few hours to go dig through old posts to find links to the blog posts breaking down plays and schemes and such to really get into it.