Dwyane Wade gave them the opportunity with his berserker barrage late in Game 6, but the Miami HEAT were going to need someone else to step up in order to finish off the Charlotte Hornets.
Turns out, the entire team was more than willing to answer the call as the HEAT turned in a dominating, blowout Game 7 performance to advance past the First Round. None were as important as Goran Dragic and Hassan Whiteside.
For most of this series the HEAT went as their jumpers went. With the Hornets going under pick-and-rolls and sending extra defenders into the paint, Steve Clifford had been daring Miami to beat them on the perimeter. For two games, that’s exactly what the HEAT did with an effective field-goal percentage of about 60 percent on shots outside of the paint in the first two wins.
But Clifford stuck to his process and doubled down on a rather extreme coverage. For his faith he was rewarded with a three-game stretch of Miami’s effective jumper percentage falling to 41 percent until Wade, of all players, broke through and took Game 6 with a couple of threes.
With three wins and three losses, did Clifford have cause to change things up headed into the deciding matchup? Not particularly, especially with Sunday’s 1 pm tipoff liable to mess with body chemistry and possible throw the outside shooting out of whack.
For Miami to advance, they were going to have to hit jumpers.
Unless.
Freeing up Dragic hasn’t always been the easiest thing for this team. Dragic thrives in the open court with as many shooters on the floor as possible and Miami has gone through, in a single season, various permutations that have led to a slower, half-court game, two-big lineups and off-and-on issues with shooting. It wasn’t until the second half of the season when Miami, in part by force of injury, really started playing closer to Dragic’s style by dedicating itself to an up-tempo, small-ball game.
Then the playoffs hit and suddenly there’s no room for him to operate again.
Foul trouble certainly didn’t help. While Dragic hit some huge shots in Game 2, he had 22 fouls in the first six games of the series.
“Sometimes you’re going to be in a tough situation, or in my situation you are going to get a couple quick fouls,” Dragic said. “I didn’t get a lot of rhythm in the first four games. You just need to stay positive and when that moment comes you need to be ready to help your team.”
The team has to be ready to help Dragic, too, and both parties obliged on Sunday. Dragic did his part by being aggressive from the get-go, attacking off the same pick-and-roll spacing that Miami had used to get so many of its best looks in the series.
“With Goran, we love when he is aggressive,” Wade said. “No one is harder on Goran than Goran. He wants to be so great all the time and I think he puts a lot of pressure on himself. A game like tonight, he just saw it and was in that mindset that he was just going to keep going and going.”
It also helped that Dragic was not just getting good screens from everyone involved, but everyone was involved in the screening process. By forcing different Charlotte defenders to contain the paint, one of the best attacking guards in the league was able to get into the teeth of the defense off screens from both Deng…
And Joe Johnson…
“We made a few adjustments as far as our pick-and-rolls,” Johnson said. “Different guys setting picks. I think it enabled him to get to the basket so he could make plays at the rim.
“I probably set more picks tonight than I’ve set all year.”
Adding some run-outs and transition opportunities on to that execution bore out a 25-point night for Dragic, but he was also plus-30 because of his contributions on the other end of the floor – where he in turn helped out one of his teammates.
Hassan Whiteside probably had the most difficult job of any player in this series. With Miami trying to limit Charlotte’s prolific three-point shooting by sticking with shooters on the perimeter – succeeding, at that – the responsibility fell largely on Whiteside (and the other centers) to corral Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lin and Nicolas Batum in pick-and-roll without giving up passes into the paint. Oh, and don’t let Al Jefferson get his in the post while he’s at it.
That’s a lot to ask of someone in his first playoff series. Whiteside didn’t win every battle, but in Game 7 he turned in his best defensive performance when the team needed it most. Charlotte scored a miniscule 67.5 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor.
“It was a big challenge for him and he got better as the series went on,” Spoelstra said. “I was proud of how he progressed.”
“I got a couple early blocks. I think that kind of set the tone -- Not today,” Whiteside said.
The dosvedanya’s are one thing but blocks, like steals, rarely tell the entire defensive story. There are dozens of little details the big man has to nail in pick-and-roll over the course of a game and in Game 7 Whiteside was passing every test. Having guards, like Dragic, fighting over screens and back to the ball always helps because it reduces the length of time that Whiteside has to contain the smaller, quicker player.
“They know I block a lot of shots,” Whiteside said. “All I need is for them to just think about me so the point guard can get back to them.”
As crucial as the guards are, Whiteside is still the anchor. And he was making Walker’s day a nightmare, getting low and staying in front of the ball while taking care of the little things – such as keeping his hand low and in the passing lane so Walker couldn’t toss a pocket-pass to the roll man.
Without Whiteside ever touching the ball he was ensuring that the pick-and-roll was either getting pulled back out and reset or a tough jumper was going up.
“He did a great job tonight taking the challenge,” Johnson said. “Just being right there, being in [Walker’s] face and getting a hand up late.”
And like Dragic topping off his half-court with work, including a rare dunk, in the open court Whiteside added to his pick-and-roll work straight-up defense in the post against Jefferson and verticality plays at the rim.
For each player it was the total package. Hence a 33-point victory in an elimination game.
The key moving forward will be getting the same type of performances – which each player can only help one another with. Whiteside can keep setting good screens at proper angles for Dragic and Dragic can keep fighting over picks and getting back to his man. Whiteside will need to continue the work in the details and Dragic will have to stay aggressive, but if they can do that then Miami should be competitive in every game they play moving forward regardless of opponent.