Meet the NBA's best halfcourt team

[CrossOver]

For all those questioning Miami's ability in the half court set.

The Heat's offense is really good.

This is no secret if you've been paying attention to the NBA's goings-on this season. If you take a look at the list of most potent offenses in the league, the Heat stand head-and-shoulders above the competition; the Heat are currently scoring 108.1 points every 100 trips down the floor, which places them first in the offensive efficiency rankings.

More instructive, though, is the cushion that separates them from the rest of the league. The Oklahoma City, for example, rank second in offensive efficiency at 106.1, a 2-point difference which is roughly the same distance between the 10th-ranked 76ers offense and the 17th-ranked Nets offense. Two points, on the aggregate, is no small thing.

The Heat's offense is really good, that much we know. But where they're really good might surprise you. The overriding narrative -- which holds plenty of merit --is that the Heat's new up-tempo playing style has driven their rise. And this is true, the Heat are playing much faster than they did last season. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have stepped on the gas and the Heat have, at times, blown past their opponents in the open court.

But that's not the whole story. While it's true that the Heat have catapulted through the ranks thanks in part to their dominant transition assault, there's more to this team than highlight reels and fastbreak dunks. In fact, four out of every five Heat plays on offense don't occur in transition, according to Synergy video tracking. (Synergy tracks every possession in the NBA and places each offensive play into two groups: transition and halfcourt.) The Heat, like all teams, only spend a handful of plays in transition per game and mostly engage in halfcourt warfare.

So what happens in the halfcourt?

More dominance.

Read more: http://proxy.espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/ ... court-team

http://proxy.espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/miamiheat/post/_/id/12816/meet-the-nbas-best-halfcourt-team

Link includes a nice chart specifying where each team performs in the half court set.

[This IsMy House]

Crazy how much this half court offense has improved from last year. I love it.

[Tien]

The 3 point shooting, plus post play from LeBron / Wade has a lot to do with this.

We have all the pieces. Can't wait for June.

[DefenseWins]

Again, yesterday against the Nets, the Heat didn't score a single fast break point til the 4th, where the game was over already.

Meaning, the half court offense was doing all the work, mostly.

The 3's and post play do contribute to that. Battier, Miller, Chalmers, a little Cole.

lol even Pittman got in on the action yesterday.

Hm, the Thunder are about 2nd or 3rd.... my goodness this team when it comes to stats is like a mirror image of us. If we were to meet them in the Finals, it might have to come down to the little things... we'll see this month when we face them I guess.

They chuck up more 3's than us, I know.

[Heat3]

Just wait until the playoffs when the game slows down and they have to play in the half court.....oh uh...nevermind

[This IsMy House]

I hope LeBron and Wade just keeps staying in the post, they're killing teams down there. With them there, and a nice kick out to Bosh for that jumper, or Miller, Battier, Chalmers, Cole for 3 were damn good.

[GetMoney]

surprised ESPN let this information see the light of day
doesnt fit the narrative

[JustAwesome]

Not entirely surprised by this. Miami has three of the best isolation players on the same team. They've been doing this for years now. That's a lot of weapons for a defense to stop, especially now that they're growing comfortable with one another.

[Chosen01]

It isn't Isolation, did you forget how terrible they were last year when it was basically Le-Iso and D-Iso? It's more about crisp ball movement/cuts and Le-Wade more in the post abusing opposing wings and getting open looks to Bosh and 3pt snipers.

[DefenseWins]

Not entirely surprised by this. Miami has three of the best isolation players on the same team. They've been doing this for years now. That's a lot of weapons for a defense to stop, especially now that they're growing comfortable with one another.

erm... do you watch Heat games? lol. Got nothing to do with iso's for now. They actually have ball movement nowadays, better 3 point shooters out there, LBJ/WAde in the post and to kick out, cuts, screens... it's different from last year...

[GreenHat]

We've always had a good offense even in the halfcourt. I mean we have Lebron/Wade/Bosh and a bunch of shooters.

The problem is consistency. We can go cold for stretches that seem longer than any of the other elite offenses in history did.

It isn't Isolation, did you forget how terrible they were last year when it was basically Le-Iso and D-Iso? It's more about crisp ball movement/cuts and Le-Wade more in the post abusing opposing wings and getting open looks to Bosh and 3pt snipers.

I hate posts that have a clear agenda and are narrative driven.

And it seems its you who forgots how "terrible" our offense was last year with all of the Iso.

We had an overall Ortg of 111.7 which is the opposite of terrible and higher than it is now.

Sure offense is down this year but we also didn't have our shooters hitting three-point shots at an insane pace and less fast breaks.

Not to mention I know you couldn't possibly notice league wide offensive decline just by your eyes.

If your eyes have been telling you that our offense is so much better than our "terrible" iso offense from last year than either your eyes, your memory or your analysis is lying to you.

[mopper8]

The problem is consistency. We can go cold for stretches that seem longer than any of the other elite offenses in history did.

Last year I would've agreed with you, but this year I don't, though admittedly I've only been able to watch ~1/2 our games. Still, offense seems much more consistent to me this year.

Plus that's hyperbole

[Chosen01]

We've always had a good offense even in the halfcourt. I mean we have Lebron/Wade/Bosh and a bunch of shooters.

The problem is consistency. We can go cold for stretches that seem longer than any of the other elite offenses in history did.

It isn't Isolation, did you forget how terrible they were last year when it was basically Le-Iso and D-Iso? It's more about crisp ball movement/cuts and Le-Wade more in the post abusing opposing wings and getting open looks to Bosh and 3pt snipers.

I hate posts that have a clear agenda and are narrative driven.

And it seems its you who forgots how "terrible" our offense was last year with all of the Iso.

We had an overall Ortg of 111.7 which is the opposite of terrible and higher than it is now.

Sure offense is down this year but we also didn't have our shooters hitting three-point shots at an insane pace and less fast breaks.

Not to mention I know you couldn't possibly notice league wide offensive decline just by your eyes.

If your eyes have been telling you that our offense is so much better than our "terrible" iso offense from last year than either your eyes, your memory or your analysis is lying to you.

Wow calm down, "terrible" was a hyperbole. Anyone reading wouldn't find it hard to realize I was exaggerating, I'm well aware that the Heat were number 2 in offense last year.However, last year's offense especially in the first half of the season was cringe-worthy and hard to watch at times. You had LeBron,Wade, Bosh taking turns on offense and guys standing on one corner watching the other.No cuts, no thing.Last year there was so many times you'd see the Heat go through stretches without scoring, that's pretty bad with a team that consists of Wade,LeBron and Bosh.The offense was not terrible compared to the rest of the league obviously but still miles away from the potential that the Heat envisioned and that was the whole point.

This year the offense a lot better imo, more ball movement,crisp cuts,utilizing LeBron and Wade in the post more.However there is still times when it seems like they have a hard time scoring,not nearly as much as last year but still more than it should.

[GreenHat]

The problem is consistency. We can go cold for stretches that seem longer than any of the other elite offenses in history did.

Last year I would've agreed with you, but this year I don't, though admittedly I've only been able to watch ~1/2 our games. Still, offense seems much more consistent to me this year.

Plus that's hyperbole

Well I said "that seem" so I don't see how that could be hyperbolic.

It again "seems" like we have stretches where we just crush it but then have stretches where our scoring goes down a lot.

We average over 100 points a game but think about how many quarters we score under a 90/game pace? A quick glance back in the last 20 quarters (I went to the start of the month, Blazers game hurts my argument) we've had 9 quarters where we were at 22 points or less. We make up for it with other big quarters but that goes to our consistency which is what I am talking about.

And I'm not even talking about it on a quarter by quarter basis really but I'm too lazy to break it down by 6 min increments which I believe would illustrate the problem more.

I have not looked at other teams and this is anecdotal (so I could be completely wrong, which I would freely admit) but again it seems like we go through longer stretches of low scoring than other teams who score at our pace.

I think its because we rely too much on jumpshots in the halfcourt. When those shots are falling for us no one can stop us but when they aren't they just aren't.

For example last year down the stretch against the Bulls we were hitting pretty much every jumpshot at the end of games so the series ended so lopsidedly.

I believe you also would agree we take too many long two point shots which I think contributes a great deal to our volatility.

I hope I have explained my position more thoroughly this time.

If you pulled 50 girls in a year I'd tip my cap to you. But if you pulled 25 in the first month and 25 in the last month that would be a long 10 months in the middle.

[GreenHat]

We've always had a good offense even in the halfcourt. I mean we have Lebron/Wade/Bosh and a bunch of shooters.

The problem is consistency. We can go cold for stretches that seem longer than any of the other elite offenses in history did.

It isn't Isolation, did you forget how terrible they were last year when it was basically Le-Iso and D-Iso? It's more about crisp ball movement/cuts and Le-Wade more in the post abusing opposing wings and getting open looks to Bosh and 3pt snipers.

I hate posts that have a clear agenda and are narrative driven.

And it seems its you who forgots how "terrible" our offense was last year with all of the Iso.

We had an overall Ortg of 111.7 which is the opposite of terrible and higher than it is now.

Sure offense is down this year but we also didn't have our shooters hitting three-point shots at an insane pace and less fast breaks.

Not to mention I know you couldn't possibly notice league wide offensive decline just by your eyes.

If your eyes have been telling you that our offense is so much better than our "terrible" iso offense from last year than either your eyes, your memory or your analysis is lying to you.

Wow calm down, "terrible" was a hyperbole. Anyone reading wouldn't find it hard to realize I was exaggerating, I'm well aware that the Heat were number 2 in offense last year.However, last year's offense especially in the first half of the season was cringe-worthy and hard to watch at times. You had LeBron,Wade, Bosh taking turns on offense and guys standing on one corner watching the other.No cuts, no thing.Last year there was so many times you'd see the Heat go through stretches without scoring, that's pretty bad with a team that consists of Wade,LeBron and Bosh.The offense was not terrible compared to the rest of the league obviously but still miles away from the potential that the Heat envisioned and that was the whole point.

This year the offense a lot better imo, more ball movement,crisp cuts,utilizing LeBron and Wade in the post more.However there is still times when it seems like they have a hard time scoring,not nearly as much as last year but still more than it should.

Sorry but when you say last year's offense was terrible and this year it is so much better, I take it that you mean last year's offense was terrible and this year its so much better.

Since you now still say that the offense is so much better than last year because of "more ball movement,crisp cuts,utilizing LeBron and Wade in the post more" I would still contend that you are wrong.

Our offense is up a tick but I think a bigger reason for that is improved jumpshooting particularly from the 3 point line. Guys are hitting wide open shots at a higher rate than they were last year on similarly wide open shots. When Chalmers or Miller throw up a wide open three I expect it to go in this year. Last year on similarly wide open shots I didn't.

[Chosen01]

Yes Chalmers,Cole(addition) and Miller's increase in production has definitely helped the offense, statistically there may not be much difference in overall offense but I feel that the increased pace has helped Heat maximize the Heat's talents.It seems that this year the players are getting more "easy" points whereas s early last year everything was a struggle and games being won solely by talent.This year there's undoubtedly much better ball movement and cuts involved where even the worst heat hating analysts have mentioned.

LeBron and Wade getting in the post has really helped as it seems the 3pt shooters are even more wide open (and admittedly they're making them at a higher clip).To be honest this how I thought the 3pt shooters would be last year but they were only like 8th in the league while this year they are shooting virtually 40% and first in the league.

[GreenHat]

Yes Chalmers,Cole(addition) and Miller's increase in production has definitely helped the offense, statistically there may not be much difference in overall offense but I feel that the increased pace has helped Heat maximize the Heat's talents.It seems that this year the players are getting more "easy" points whereas s early last year everything was a struggle and games being won solely by talent.This year there's undoubtedly much better ball movement and cuts involved where even the worst heat hating analysts have mentioned.

LeBron and Wade getting in the post has really helped as it seems the 3pt shooters are even more wide open (and admittedly they're making them at a higher clip).To be honest this how I thought the 3pt shooters would be last year but they were only like 8th in the league while this year they are shooting virtually 40% and first in the league.

Yeah that's 40% even including Wade/Cole/Bosh dragging that down and Battier's cold start. Our actual shooters have been ridiculously good as a whole.

I'm not sure I buy the "even more wide open" aspect though. We could have just as easily had this shooting last year and last year's shooting this year.

The thing is are they really maximizing talent when even you say that the better ball movement and cuts may have had "not much of a difference" ?

And again I think our offense is good enough I just wish we could be more consistent (even without any overall improvement)