IceColdCubano wrote:2. Teams are already game planning for Hero. I love to hear all the post game talks from the other coaches as they have a lot of good tid bits in there. I have heard multiple times, "we knew Hero was going to come in a make and be a difference maker", "we made some adjustments before the game and some at half time that we thought could slow him down", "we will keep tinkering with our bench and we staggered some starters to slow him down". those are some, most recently Doc Rivers said "we threw the zone at Miami, its on us that Jimmy was able to do some of those things as he is not a zone buster, but we knew Hero was that guy who would be able to break it".
Not really, generally sure but not specific to Herro. For instance, not many are getting up on him pressuring him where his poor dribbling skills are a problem where he'll lose the ball or make a mistake passing, when I see a defender playing off Herro I expect to see a solid shot coming from Herro, either just shoot over him or just probing with a dribble and utilizing their momentum against them, Herro feasts off not only bad defenders but defenders who just don't know to get up on him, basically low effort defensive defenders.
On zones, you bust them with passing and manipulating the zone for easy scores or good shooting when open or a quick move to use a defender's momentum against them when they're recovering and Herro happens to be able to exploit both of those with his offense and that's not going to change so a zone will have to change to better handle a player like Herro like possibly a box and one with someone cheating towards Herro and that's where everyone's favorite word gravity may come into play allowing his teammates to have more space and with that, possibly his overall ORTG going up.
3. Hero's increase in efficiency on offense is a two part change that occurred after the all star break.
- The team has been involving him in sets, via pick and roll, hand offs, cutting back doors during his staggered minutes with the starters. Hero was usually just standing around the three point line, and watching and waiting for a kick out. So the coaching staff has made some really good modifications on that end. Its making him harder to guard.
- Hero himself has also changed his game plan, he is taking less and by less I mean almost 1/8 of the shots he took before from midrange. He is focusing on driving to the basket more, which shows form his increase in free throws. This has given him far greater open 3pts because the defender is now stepping back and playing for the drive when he starts his dribble. He is also taking more 3pts from the top of the key, which is his most efficient spot for him, and less from the angles which were his worst. He is involving the big man in half of the plays, either to pass on the roll for easy dunk/layup or for him to score on the other end. He is making smarter decisions. He is using the floater a lot more on his drives, which means less chance of being blocked, I mean I see them at least 2-3 per game now, this a guards bread and butter on a dribble drive. I think the time off during the all star break was very important they were able to get together and watch film, review and find some adjustments to the team as a whole, but my guess is the biggest ones that affected the team were to Hero's overall game.
Yes, Herro is taking the better shots, 3s and drives and leaving midranges alone and it's really helping out his ORTG which means he's helping out the team more.
Spoelstra has been stressing the shot selection with Herro for a while, the announcers were openly talking about it during the game at Portland and somewhat recently Spoelstra mentioned it to the press, it would be nice if his shot selection will stay this good or is this just something he's doing currently. Just a guess, Spoelstra may know Herro has a itchy trigger finger so to satisfy that itch Spoelstra is calling more plays for Herro vs letting Herro just "create" and also put up some bad shots.
The one think I've noticed just watching the games seems to be like you said... more pick and rolls, more 3s and less midrange shots.
ORTG by month for Herro this year (average is 111 this year)
Oct 111 6 games
Nov 104 12 games
Dec 100 12 games
Jan 100 12 games
Feb 115 7 games <- 63% TS% which is very good/great for a high volume scorer.
Mar 123 4 games <- nearly 67% TS% those 6 games which is insane.
His TS% has went up the last 2 months, Feb his TS% in 7 games was .630 and March so far in 4 games is a crazy .676 which if you look around in the NBA, only high FG% bigs are doing that type of efficiency so to me that's an outlier hot streak.
So is this just a hot streak which he's had before or a new normal? Looking at last year it was somewhat the same thing except worse, instead of 100 ORTG months he had 97s.
Last year
Dec 105 4 games
Jan 97 8 games
Feb 102 7 games
Mar 97 4 games
Apr 110 11 games
May 122 6 games
Herro's shot selection lately like you said has been very encouraging and it's showing up in his stats and is really helping the Heat out.
