LakersLegacy wrote:Rapaz wrote:HEAT Basketball
Absolutely beautiful
A couple of the major themes that explain this 2017 heat team are displayed in those two gifs. to sum up the season tho
1. Culture - IT MATTERS: the expectations from the front office are met in terms of behavior and effort level, guys are willing to work to achieve the fitness level theyre expected to be at, there is prestige and intelligence overseeing every move, og's like juwan, chris quinn, zo, battier, ud are there to remind everyone whats up, same coaching staff - who has the full support of the front office, and effective communication on all levels.
2. SPO IS A HELL OF A COACH/THESE GUYS PLAY HARD AS HELL : Well, i thought this shouldve been obvious, but yeah man people are starting to figure out how awesome this guy is at his job. these guys have bought into what the coaching staff is selling. hyper focused, aggressive and fundamentally sound defense - EVEN WHITESIDE is staying home and boxing out for boards rather than chasing blocks. These guys run through, over and around every screen with recklass abandon. 50/50 balls are more like 75/25 cause jj, tj, jrich, mcgruder, etc dont give an eff and will risk it all to win the glueguy battles. Offensive scheme of constant slash and kick with movement every night, fits our primary ball handlers perfectly, which opens up things for the shooters who started hitting those shots during this run. NOBODY GIVES UP. Spo has these guys ready to die on the court
3. trust: the front office trusted spo and the players enough not to nuke this roster. they trusted spo enough to extend him in the face of a rebuild. spo trusts every member of this team enough to come through when their time comes. he'll run 4 plays in a row for a hot ellington, he'll let hassan post up every few minutes when he feels he has good position, HE LETS DION WAITERS PLAY HERO BALL, he trusts the work these guys put in and theyre responding. These guys feel respected and theyre responding with career years.
4. Conditioning: this team seems too have more energy than others. its evident in 4th quarters. Aside from hassan, no one ever looks tired or a step slow. during the regular season, its a good way to beat visiting teams at home.
our home record over this two month span or so has been nuts.
overall, guys are stepping up to fill roles, the defense is awesome, good shots are being manufactured out of the guards penetration and the shooters are hot, ball movement is emphasized and embraced, the iso scoring/ shot creation burden that was a huge concern coming in has been answered as a collective between james johnson, tj, dragic, and dion and were getting just enough of it to keep up with the opposing team. Just everything kinda coming together and players excelling in roles and bringing it every night to reach a higher level as a collective.
