Miami Heat Regular Season Thread 21-22 Vol. 3

[KingDavid]

Looking at the offense in the 4th vs Knicks when the starters were in Bam enters at 8 minutes, Butler 20 seconds later. I added the links for the plays. Cutting this post short, back-to-back plays Martin doesn't seem to understand when his man is guarding someone else maybe vacate that area and find a spot to get open or pull his man away. NOTICE TAJ GIBSON ABLE TO GUARD SOMEONE ELSE OTHER THEN HIS MAN(MARTIN) LATE IN THE CLOCK.

Lowry Turnover
I wonder if Martin was suppose to clear out instead of staying 8 feet away from Lowry letting Gibson take away Lowry's only real option to drive. Lowry screwed up by stopping his drive instead of continuing towards the lane(but not towards the basket) which would allowed him a possible pass to a catch and shoot situation(Strus or Butler) or a somewhat awkward jumper having to turn 90 degrees before shooting. I think Martin screwed that play up by not clearing out.


Looks like the next play it's a Martin issue again.
Bam missed jumper

Bam has the ball, Strus and Butler are in the corners for spacing, Martin decides to just hang out at the 3pt line while his man DOUBLES Bam, Lowry seeing this circles behind Martin because if Martin dives to the basket he either gets an an alley oop, Lowry's defender follows him and Lowry gets a wide open shot or Butler's man has to help and Butler is wide open, instead Martin stands there allowing NY to double team Bam. Holy )(#$) I'm leaving that image right here... WHY ISN'T MARTING TAKING ADVANTAGE HIS MAN DOUBLE TEAMING BAM?

Low IQ and awareness.

[AirP.]

Spoiler:

Looking at the offense in the 4th vs Knicks when the starters were in Bam enters at 8 minutes, Butler 20 seconds later. I added the links for the plays. Cutting this post short, back-to-back plays Martin doesn't seem to understand when his man is guarding someone else maybe vacate that area and find a spot to get open or pull his man away. NOTICE TAJ GIBSON ABLE TO GUARD SOMEONE ELSE OTHER THEN HIS MAN(MARTIN) LATE IN THE CLOCK.

Lowry Turnover
I wonder if Martin was suppose to clear out instead of staying 8 feet away from Lowry letting Gibson take away Lowry's only real option to drive. Lowry screwed up by stopping his drive instead of continuing towards the lane(but not towards the basket) which would allowed him a possible pass to a catch and shoot situation(Strus or Butler) or a somewhat awkward jumper having to turn 90 degrees before shooting. I think Martin screwed that play up by not clearing out.


Looks like the next play it's a Martin issue again.
Bam missed jumper

Bam has the ball, Strus and Butler are in the corners for spacing, Martin decides to just hang out at the 3pt line while his man DOUBLES Bam, Lowry seeing this circles behind Martin because if Martin dives to the basket he either gets an an alley oop, Lowry's defender follows him and Lowry gets a wide open shot or Butler's man has to help and Butler is wide open, instead Martin stands there allowing NY to double team Bam. Holy )(#$) I'm leaving that image right here... WHY ISN'T MARTING TAKING ADVANTAGE HIS MAN DOUBLE TEAMING BAM?

Low IQ and awareness.

Martin's been very good for Miami this year although I haven't went back to see if he's screwing up plays but just playing tough defense and giving a lot of effort but screwing up things like this shouldn't be a one game thing.

Spoelstra recognizes the multiple screw ups and with the next Miami possession calls a time out and subs Tucker in for Martin.

It's near the end of the season and it seems like some players have forgotten what to do. I'll have to look at what was happening before the Butler blow up soon.

[KingDavid]

Spoiler:

Looking at the offense in the 4th vs Knicks when the starters were in Bam enters at 8 minutes, Butler 20 seconds later. I added the links for the plays. Cutting this post short, back-to-back plays Martin doesn't seem to understand when his man is guarding someone else maybe vacate that area and find a spot to get open or pull his man away. NOTICE TAJ GIBSON ABLE TO GUARD SOMEONE ELSE OTHER THEN HIS MAN(MARTIN) LATE IN THE CLOCK.

Lowry Turnover
I wonder if Martin was suppose to clear out instead of staying 8 feet away from Lowry letting Gibson take away Lowry's only real option to drive. Lowry screwed up by stopping his drive instead of continuing towards the lane(but not towards the basket) which would allowed him a possible pass to a catch and shoot situation(Strus or Butler) or a somewhat awkward jumper having to turn 90 degrees before shooting. I think Martin screwed that play up by not clearing out.


Looks like the next play it's a Martin issue again.
Bam missed jumper

Bam has the ball, Strus and Butler are in the corners for spacing, Martin decides to just hang out at the 3pt line while his man DOUBLES Bam, Lowry seeing this circles behind Martin because if Martin dives to the basket he either gets an an alley oop, Lowry's defender follows him and Lowry gets a wide open shot or Butler's man has to help and Butler is wide open, instead Martin stands there allowing NY to double team Bam. Holy )(#$) I'm leaving that image right here... WHY ISN'T MARTING TAKING ADVANTAGE HIS MAN DOUBLE TEAMING BAM?

Low IQ and awareness.

Martin's been very good for Miami this year although I haven't went back to see if he's screwing up plays but just playing tough defense and giving a lot of effort but screwing up things like this shouldn't be a one game thing.

Spoelstra recognized it the next Miami possession calls a time out and subs Tucker in for Martin.

Yeah, he's been a great defender for us and provides a spark off the bench. I'm not saying he has the lowest IQ or awareness in the NBA or anything, but if he didn't make those kinds of mistakes and had a higher IQ and awareness consistently, he would not be a bench player at all.

It's why he struggles finishing on fast breaks sometimes if theres a defender in the vicinity or he goes for drives and makes a bad play, runs into a trap under the basket, or in one instance, gets hurt. But there's flashes that he can improve like that game he had before he got hurt. He has the capabilities but he's not there yet to provide it in a consistent manner.

[al bondiga]

In an earlier post I read JB is a superstar, he and Bam are stars, JB sometimes performs like a superstar, but I'm starting to wonder...

[AirP.]

Martin out, Tucker in.

Butler attacks the basket with every intention of passing out to the corner, he could have gone for a layup but took an extra step to take away his ability to get a shot up but it allowed him more of an angle to pass out to the corner to Tucker. Maybe a set play, maybe Butler just decided to do that. The spacers did their job but Taj Gibson reads the play perfectly and instead of contesting the drive Gibson starts to slide out to the 3pt line taking away the passing angle(KNOW YOUR OPPONENT), Butler has to throw a high pass, Tucker jumps for the pass and decides to try to skip pass it to Strus. I think Tucker thought he may land out of bounds.

Here's the video of that play.

Next Miami possession is the Lowry quick 3 air ball.

Next possession after the air ball 3 is a 2 man game and possibly great call by Spoelstra and Lowry looked like he didn't run the play. Spoelstra goes with a 2 man game of Butler and Lowry, overloads the weakside. Lowry sets a pick for Butler who then rolls to the FT line, Lowry DOESN'T roll for an easy pass and either a layup or a Tucker corner 3 because Bam is moving to shield Gibson from getting to Tucker. Butler stops at the FT line looks between the defenders to pass the ball, NO LOWRY, Butler then takes a jumper out of rhythm and misses. Great call by Spoelstra but it wasn't executed right... this time Lowry.

Here's Jimmy after driving to the FT line and then looking to pass to a should be cutting Lowry. Butler had the space to rise up and shoot but I believe the play called to get Lowry an easy bucket. There is no reason for Butler to stop and look unless the play was suppose to get Lowry a layup. Still, that should be an easy jumper for Butler.


Miami did get the offensive rebound and Strus tries to force the ball to Lowry which is stolen by Quickly.

Here's that play.

A couple plays later a Lowry/Bam pick and roll, Lowry is covered, Strus is moving to get an open 3, Lowry takes a tough step back 3 to his left and of course misses, just a bad decision down b 4 with 2:22 left and 11 seconds left on the shot clock.
The play.

A few more plays Butler backs up RJ, takes a step back jumper and looks like he wasn't sure to go off glass or just shoot at the basket and hits in between, a bad shot although he goes to it a lot.
The play.

Next possession a simple catch and shoot by Strus that goes in.

Next possession Lowry goes by Quickly for a layup.

Then just desperation, Butler hits a 3, Lowry misses a 3, Robinson misses a 3.

The more I watch these plays, the more I think these can be fixed by having more practices with the rotation players getting the most amount of reps (which should happen with the playoffs).

[AirP.]

Looking at the 3rd quarter of the GS game before the blow up, I can see how Butler and Spoelstra were frustrated, still want to know what Butler said and how he phrased it.

1st possession, Lowry throws a weak pass to Butler that is knocked away, GS gets it, Tucker gets it back, Butler passes to Robinson who has a top 10 worst reverse layup attempt (but that's not his one skill). Not much offense was able to run in that situation.
The video.

2nd possession DHO to Robinson and he misses but was very close. Play ran fine.
The video.

3rd possession is a simple pass to Bam for a midrange jumper, it missess.
The video.

4th possession is Bam getting low post position, getting the entry pass from Lowry to him. Bam goes up from 3 feet away with Wiggins on him and decides to try to throw it to an open Butler and throws it out of bounds.
The video.

5th possession Lowry brings down the ball off a rebound and goes to his left and takes a 3 which rattles out but it too is close.
The video.

6th possession Butler gets a Tucker screen and has zero thoughts of passing the ball, does 2 pump fakes with Kuminga on him and then forces a shot and misses it.
The video.

Then comes the Poole 1 footed bank 3, Spoelstra time out, and then the shouting match. So in the first 3:20 of the 3rd quarter Miami had scored 0, barely missed 2 3s while GS had Wiggins hit 2 3s while covered and 2 30+ foot pull up 3s with the 2nd banking in. Frustrations were probably extremely high by Butler and Spoelstra so I wonder what was said by Butler to get Spoelstra to say I'm not going to fight you.

[somerandomdude]

@AirP

Liking these breakdowns, keep it up! (hopefully you won't have to if the Heat start winning again )

If I may offer a suggestion, download the videos, upload them to Streamable, and post the Streamable link so we can watch them without having to switch back and forth between your post and the video. I left instructions on how to do it below.

Spoiler:

1. Create a Streamable account (if privacy is a concern, create a GMail account just to sign up with Streamable)
2. When you find the video that you want on the NBA.com site, hold shift and right click the video then click Save Video As (that's the Firefox way to do it)
3. Then, just open up Streamable.com, go to the folder with the video, and drag it to Streamable.

If you ever wanna do more advance stuff like freeze frame/highlight players/etc, consider downloading a free video editor like Shotcut (or if you can get your hands on a paid video editor, even better).

[somerandomdude]

6th possession Butler gets a Tucker screen and has zero thoughts of passing the ball, does 2 pump fakes with Kuminga on him and then forces a shot and misses it.
The video.

Damn our off-ball movement in that play is demoralizing. Best thing I could come up with is PJ popping out to the 3PT line at the top of the key, but that's been a low % spot for him all season long.

Jimmy had no intentions of passing, but I don't blame him when everyone's just standing around for the most part.

[AirP.]

@AirP

Liking these breakdowns, keep it up! (hopefully you won't have to if the Heat start winning again )

If I may offer a suggestion, download the videos, upload them to Streamable, and post the Streamable link so we can watch them without having to switch back and forth between your post and the video. I left instructions on how to do it below.

Spoiler:

1. Create a Streamable account (if privacy is a concern, create a GMail account just to sign up with Streamable)
2. When you find the video that you want on the NBA.com site, hold shift and right click the video then click Save Video As (that's the Firefox way to do it)
3. Then, just open up Streamable.com, go to the folder with the video, and drag it to Streamable.

If you ever wanna do more advance stuff like freeze frame/highlight players/etc, consider downloading a free video editor like Shotcut (or if you can get your hands on a paid video editor, even better).

That's way too much work. What I did was also too much work but I was wanting to watch the plays without the emotions of the moment clouding my thinking.

On the going back and forth, you know you can just open the link up in a new tab, I just hit my mouse button to do that. It's what I do going through the Play by Play boxscore on NBA.com.

[AirP.]

6th possession Butler gets a Tucker screen and has zero thoughts of passing the ball, does 2 pump fakes with Kuminga on him and then forces a shot and misses it.
The video.

Damn our off-ball movement in that play is demoralizing. Best thing I could come up with is PJ popping out to the 3PT line at the top of the key, but that's been a low % spot for him all season long.

Jimmy had no intentions of passing, but I don't blame him when everyone's just standing around for the most part.

There was no ball movement because it was just about Butler on that play and let everyone rest. I'd expect either Butler or Spoelstra called for that play... spread out the defense and let Butler go one one, the issue was that Kuminga is not only a better athlete then Butler but that he's bigger too. Still, Butler got a clean shot off and needs to make those types of shots.

[AirP.]

For everyone who wants to blow it up and build around Bam and Herro... where are you going to get that playoff superstar to carry your team? If you're saying Bam or Herro I'd say 1. You're wrong and 2. You already have them. Bam is in season 5 and his offensive game hasn't moved much other then being more consistent from the midrange which comes though normal practice of shooting and just wait to see how effective Herro is when he's the guy other teams are trying to shut down.

To get the superstar you need to help carry you to a finals you need to either get a top pick in the draft or get very lucky in the draft with a midrange 1st round pick, get a superstar to sign or force their way to Miami or.... TRADE FOR HIM. What do you trade... well if the formula for a title is 2-3 superstars then everything should be on the table. Remember when CP3 was available, should have traded for him, when Harden was available, EVERYTHING should have been available, need picks to trade, BROOKLYN TRADED J.ALLEN FOR A LATE 1ST ROUND PICK TO MAKE IT HAPPEN when they had nobody to replace him.

If Miami gets bounced without quality play EVERYTHING HAS TO BE ON THE TABLE to get a superstar. The FO has to have a list of players to throw everything at who they feel are superstars that can carry a team in the playoffs and do whatever it takes to get them. Butler is not a #1 that can carry a team to a title, he's probably an acceptable #2 if you have a scoring star as your #1 but his @$$ should be moved in a package to get a superstar(and I only came to this board because of Butler, nice board overall though).

So is it build a team or acquire stars and put role-players around them. Miami is pretty good about finding role-players.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Nice that we were able to fumble the 1st seed now that it’s looking like the Nets will get 7th

[BenoUdrihFTL]

Only big names I can think of that would be available this offseason are Lillard and perhaps AD and I'm not sure either of them are superstars going forward. Beal is meh and would be a lateral move unless we could get him for like Duncan and picks

[somerandomdude]

On the going back and forth, you know you can just open the link up in a new tab, I just hit my mouse button to do that. It's what I do going through the Play by Play boxscore on NBA.com.

Yeah, that's what I did.

It's not bad when the point you're making is one or two simple lines, but the ones where you go into lengthy detail were tough.

Oh well, I appreciate em, anyway.

[harlem_ball]

On the going back and forth, you know you can just open the link up in a new tab, I just hit my mouse button to do that. It's what I do going through the Play by Play boxscore on NBA.com.

Yeah, that's what I did.

It's not bad when the point your making is one or two simple lines, but the ones where you go into lengthy detail were tough.

Oh well, I appreciate em, anyway.

If with 5 games left the players are still clueless and the lineups have no consistency, there's no way the players are going to have time to gel for the playoffs.

Fire Spo.

[AirP.]

On the going back and forth, you know you can just open the link up in a new tab, I just hit my mouse button to do that. It's what I do going through the Play by Play boxscore on NBA.com.

Yeah, that's what I did.

It's not bad when the point your making is one or two simple lines, but the ones where you go into lengthy detail were tough.

Oh well, I appreciate em, anyway.

If with 5 games left the players are still clueless and the lineups have no consistency, there's no way the players are going to have time to gel for the playoffs.

Fire Spo.

With as many injuries as this team had, to be near 50 wins is really good. Bam was out 1 1/2 months, Butler's had nagging injuries he's kept reaggravating and missing games, Lowry's is dealing with personal issues which may be affecting his game.

The issue it seems for most is the small ball mentality. This FO could have added a PF at the deadline in Rui or PJ Washington to help that position out but held onto its assets to probably make a move this summer. I expect something big this summer that a lot of people will take issues with because I think it'll be a short term move.

[somerandomdude]

If with 5 games left the players are still clueless and the lineups have no consistency, there's no way the players are going to have time to gel for the playoffs.

Fire Spo.

The biggest thing I see is that our smaller guys are sick and tired of having to do the dirty work of boxing out and fighting for rebounds.

These are jobs for bigs and it can get frustrating when you're told that you need to play better and harder when in reality you know that the game would be easier if we just matched up properly.

I imagine this is why our star players have blown up on Spo throughout his tenure; they're tired of hearing about playing harder and with more effort when his whole scheme is tiresome and involves playing bigger than what they are.

With that said, the Nets game was mostly about turnovers and Herro (5) was the biggest culprit. EDIT: Dipo (5), Lowry (4), and Bam (4) were also culprits. It's not all on Herro, but he's gotta be better than that.

The Nets scored 40pts in the 2nd quarter and it was largely fueled by turnovers. I posted yesterday that the Nets had 18pts off of turnovers at the half and they finished with 40pts overall for the game.

The Nets were doing a lot of handchecking and stripping and those can easily go against them, but Herro has to be better at taking care of the ball and he actually made huge improvements on it throughout the season, so it was sad to see him regress last night.

[BenoUdrihFTL]

Still pretty triggered that the Clips managed to snake both RoCo AND Norm Powell for pennies on the dollar from Portland. Both those guys could've been huge 3/D pieces for us. Norm could've pushed Duncan to a seat next to UD (or even better, Duncan would've been used to match salaries) and RoCo is like the prototype modern PF who hits 3s and even provides great secondary rim protection, hell he even played C for the microball Rockets in the bubble

[harlem_ball]

Yeah, that's what I did.

It's not bad when the point your making is one or two simple lines, but the ones where you go into lengthy detail were tough.

Oh well, I appreciate em, anyway.

If with 5 games left the players are still clueless and the lineups have no consistency, there's no way the players are going to have time to gel for the playoffs.

Fire Spo.

With as many injuries as this team had, to be near 50 wins is really good. Bam was out 1 1/2 months, Butler's had nagging injuries he's kept reaggravating and missing games, Lowry's is dealing with personal issues which may be affecting his game.

The issue it seems for most is the small ball mentality. This FO could have added a PF at the deadline in Rui or PJ Washington to help that position out but held onto its assets to probably make a move this summer. I expect something big this summer that a lot of people will take issues with because I think it'll be a short term move.

That's a waste of a year of aging Butler, Lowry and PJ Tucker. PJ Washington is 6'8. Still small ball. The coach has the pieces. He's failed. He had a good thing going and pedantically killed his team.

At least fire the assistants. Fire Haslem. Wake Spo up.

[oreon]

Only big names I can think of that would be available this offseason are Lillard and perhaps AD and I'm not sure either of them are superstars going forward. Beal is meh and would be a lateral move unless we could get him for like Duncan and picks

I'd risk it with AD but not Lillard. Beal is no for me too. If there are no moves it might be best to take a step back for a season. Depending on how Butler does in the playoffs, I'd look to his dump his contract. As he ages his contract will be an albatross. This offseason might be the best time to trade him. Now I hope he balls in the playoffs to prove me wrong.
Then you can start Herro, and give him, Bam and Yurt bigger roles while you wait for your next move.
I know its not Riley MO to take a step back but it would be better than trading for a guy like Beal, maxing him and he gets worse with age. Then you are stuck with 2 declining stars on max money.