Couper Moorhead

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The Miami HEAT’s 2023-24 run is a complicated season to discuss. One with bright spots yet also one that fell short of previous and recent highs. One that neither stole away nor emboldened hope. One that proposed more questions than it could answer.

On one hand, so much can be explained by injuries and absences. Miami used a franchise-high 35 starting lineups. They didn’t have a single five-man group together for more than 200 minutes, with only two topping 100 after five hit that mark a season ago. Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro combined to play 102 of a possible 164 games. Kyle Lowry was traded for Terry Rozier and Rozier dealt with injuries, first his knee and then his neck. Butler was unavailable for the playoffs after suffering a knee injury in a Play-In game at Philadelphia. Teams don’t typically win much without their best players and their best lineups on the court.

On the other hand, we never really found out how good this team could be much less what their best lineups truly were. We could use the previous season’s incredible, somewhat miraculous run as a barometer, but that’s an apples-to-oranges scenario. Herro, Butler and Bam Adebayo played 499 total minutes with each other with a Net Rating of just +3.2, plus only 118 minutes with Rozier alongside that trio at a Net Rating of +1.0. Those minutes came irregularly, as soon as the team appeared to be fully healthy another injury would pop up, opportunities to develop rhythm and cohesion practically nonexistent. This group never got a real shot to prove how good they could be, but they also didn’t have the sort of dominant stretches – their six 20-point victories were the fewest among the 16 teams that made it to the postseason – which would garner contending-level confidence. That confidence existed because of what an iteration of this core had done before, but some relative struggles in fourth-quarter and late-game situations ,after a dominant showing in those minutes the season prior, allowed questions to seep into the even most stringent optimism.

In the end, the only thing that matters is the results. With 46 wins, Miami wound up in the No. 8 seed for the second year in a row after losing a Play-In game, the same path ahead of them as the year before, and now the season is over while eight other teams play out the second round. And yet, as ever, they were just three wins, a few possessions going differently, away from the No. 3 seed. Such is the NBA. Some years are more memorable than others, but each is an important piece of the larger tapestry. For every Finals run, there’s a 2020-21 season – the abbreviated season which ended in a sweep to Milwaukee – that informs what comes next.

If there’s anything specific that this group will hang its hat on, it’s the defense finishing No. 5 overall. Despite lacking a plethora of proven, veteran defenders on paper – Miami only had one player, Adebayo, above +1.0 in Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus, while the other four Top 5 teams averaged 4.5 – Adebayo and, with his ever-changing schemes, Erik Spoelstra pulled everything together after a somewhat rocky start for the fourth Top 5 and twelfth Top 10 defensive finish since Spoelstra became head coach in 2008.

“That was probably the most consistent thing,” Spoelstra said. “Where we weren’t necessarily able to find consistency with our three different offensive philosophies, we were able to find consistency more often than not on the defensive side of the floor. Even though we had a couple different ways of playing based on who was available.

“As long as you have a group that is committed to doing tough things. There’s no easy way about it. If you want to defend in this league you have to guard the ball, you have to take away easy baskets, you have to rebound, you have to do those kinds of things, and we had a group that took pride in that.”

Adebayo, a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year and captain for the first time following Udonis Haslem’s retirement, had maybe his most impressive season on that end in a career full of impressive seasons, embracing Spoelstra’s charge to forgo much of his own individual strengths – switching pick-and-rolls – for the betterment of the whole, toggling into more traditional drop coverages for most of the season while producing comparable numbers to the seven-footers who typically own that coverage. Spoelstra made timely use of his press-zone to flummox ill-equipped opponents, his gap-shrinking man-to-man schemes once again limiting opponents to one of the lowest rim-attempt frequencies in the league. Haywood Highsmith, when healthy, made his name known as a versatile wing defender while Caleb Martin, when healthy, was his usual destructive self chasing around guards. Everyone else filled in and did their jobs, even youngsters like Nikola Jovic finding his footing in the system. It wasn’t a dominant defense, the sort which overwhelmed opponents in a hailstorm of quick feet and long limbs, but it reliably gave them a chance to win every night.

The offense held things back, finishing No. 21 and in the bottom half of the league for the third time in five years despite above-average three-point shooting. Herro had a great start to the season, Butler remained key as a mismatch hunter, Duncan Robinson evolved with the dribble, Rozier offered real on-ball creation once he came aboard, Adebayo refined his approach in isolation and post play and Kevin Love’s five-out bench units were Miami’s most consistent source of punch. The pieces appeared to be in place, but the lack of continuity prevented it all coalescing into something that could produce 2024 levels of efficiency each night.

“We had basically three primary offensive philosophies this season, based on who was available,” Spoelstra said. “All things considered we were making strides in any one of those areas, but the consistency became a challenge to overcome.”

Two players who will most certainly remember this season as crucial steps in their just-beginning careers are Jovic and Jaime Jaquez Jr. A year ago, Jovic was injured, not playing and looking a little turned around when he did get minutes. This season started out much the same, at least as far as opportunity, but after a starting stint in late December he joined the starting group full time just before the All-Star break, shooting 39 percent from three the rest of the way with plus passing while holding his own on the defensive end. In just about three months a player full of potential became a core rotation piece.

“If you would’ve said [last year] that in the First Round series Niko would’ve been our starting power forward and doing the type of scheme things that he was doing defensively, and that we would have to rely on him in a certain way, you probably would’ve said no that’s no happening,” Spoelstra said.

Jaquez Jr. required no time to simmer, starting the third game of his career and scoring 20 in just his ninth appearance. All shoulders and elbows and forearms with soft after-contact touch, he immediately reminded of Butler, burrowing his way into the lane through bigger and smaller defenders alike, ever willing to get off the ball if the window wasn’t there. The culmination of his season happened in Christmas Day against Philadelphia, his 31-point, 10-rebound effort putting him in rare territory among rookies, then an injury kept him out of five games in mid-January. Teams started to adjust to his game a bit, the scouting report detailing his strengths and weaknesses as the final two months of his season proved uneven, 28 percent shooting from three limiting his overall impact.

“I would say sometimes they would try to send two, prepared for the trap especially down in the post is where I think the report was out on me,” Jaquez Jr. said.

Still, he appeared to regain traction in the final two games of the season, scoring 38 across two Toronto matchups at home, and with Miami in dire need of creation against Boston he delivered their most consistent downhill momentum until a hip injury in Game 4. He’s expected to finish First Team All-Rookie for good reason.

“Jaime exploded onto the scene, that was obvious for everyone to see,” Spoelstra said. “Then he got on to people’s scouting reports, it kind of changed for a little bit, he was injured, then when he came back I really felt he was a much better player. He was able to see things at a deeper level.”

Some will use this season as some sort of referendum on Herro after the Boston series, but though he was limited to just 42 games his numbers were right in line with each of his past two seasons. Yes, he shot 38 percent against the Celtics – including 24 points on 13 shots in a Game 2 victory – but like everyone else on the team in Butler and Rozier’s absences he was pushed into a different, outsized role against perhaps the best team in the league.

“The entire gameplan is to take him out. It wasn’t like it was rocket science,” Spoelstra said. “The gameplan for Boston was if you take him out that can take a significant part of their firepower out of their equation. And then to respond in a big way in a big way in Game 2 that really helped drive the win I think is really a massive positive.”

In some ways Herro’s season mirrored Miami’s. He wasn’t always available and there were struggles when rotation options asked a bit too much against certain opponents, but he was fundamentally the same player that he was before. Up and down the roster, just about everyone was who they were expected to be. After a slow ramp up due to a knee injury, Martin was Martin. Highsmith lived up to rotation expectations. Josh Richardson offered two-way value before a shoulder injury knocked him out for the year. Love was reliable as ever, Duncan an impact, on-the-the-move gravitational shooter, and give or take percentages swinging in one direction or another Butler – having the best three-point shooting season of his career – and Adebayo lived up to previously set standards for impact, huge on-off splits following Butler on offense and Adebayo on defense.

That may be the legacy of this season beyond the development of Jaquez Jr. and Jovic and Adebayo expanding his defensive repertoire. Nothing was particularly wrong with the players. They were who they were supposed to be. It just never came together, with Miami’s 22-20 record in clutch games, following an all-time clutch season at 32-22, the greatest difference between the two years. Had Miami been just as injured against Milwaukee last year and just as healthy against Boston this time around, things might look a bit different.

The same could be said for most franchises that maintain a certain level of success. Make the playoffs often enough, you’re going to have disappointments, seasons that leave you asking What If and What Could Have Been – 2016 comes to mind for Miami – just as teams which frequent the lottery will move down as often as they will move up the draft order. You take your good luck, which plays a part in historically great shooting performances during a Finals run, with the bad, which knocks out important players for the playoffs. It’s all in the game.

Where this group goes from here is anyone’s guess, but up to a precious few to determine. Five years ago marked a beginning for the Adebayo-Butler-Herro core, that trio and Duncan Robinson the constants throughout the current build, and there’s been plenty of success – two Finals runs, three Eastern Conference Finals appearances – along the way. But a season full of unanswered and now unanswerable questions can’t help but leave questions for what’s to come.

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Same Path, Different Results: The 2024 HEAT Season Was Full Of Questions That Couldn't Be Answered

1. Everyone knew the Miami HEAT, already down Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier and now with Jaime Jaquez Jr. also injured, were in a tough spot headed to Boston down 3-1. The Celtics knew that, too, of course, and they clearly weren’t interested in messing around.

This wasn’t a game for adjustments, Miami’s main change being to play Bam Adebayo and Caleb Martin the full 24 in the first half. It was just about an undermanned team struggling to score while the Celtics chugged along at their best scoring rate of the series, hitting 10 of their first 17 threes and not slowing down from there beyond missing a handful of free throws. Derrick White continued his torrid pace from Game 4, 15 points on his ledger before nine minutes were up in the first period, as Boston hunted their mismatched and found their open shots after a long sequence of dribble drives to open the night. By halftime Boston was 9-of-9 at the rim in a series where they’ve averaged 12 makes a night in the restricted area, White had combined with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for 49 points on 30 shots and they were running a 142.6 Offensive Rating. Down 22 at the break after trailing by as much as 30, if Miami was going to recapture the magic they had in Game 2 they were still looking for it.

Boston back up 30 a few minutes into the third, an 8-0 capped as White hit his fourth three. Adebayo was doing what he could to keep the offense moving, as aggressive as Miami’s situation needed him to be, but there wasn’t nearly enough else as the HEAT couldn’t keep up, their three-point shooting down to 10.3 percent – worst mark of the past five years – in the fourth as Adebayo finally rested. Not much of a playoff feel to the rest of the game, the mountain too steep for the HEAT to climb, as both sides played out the clock, most rotation players pulled. Boston take the game, 118-84, and the series, 4-1, as they advance to play the winner of Cleveland-Orlando.

Some seasons end in the NBA Finals after an incredible run from the No. 8 seed, others end quietly in five First Round games. Maybe this group had more in them had everyone been healthy. Maybe there was magic left in that well. We’ll never know. For now, a long season is over as a long offseason – longer than this group has had in a few years – looms.

2. Nobody will be able to say that Adebayo didn’t leave everything on the floor in this series. Miami practically couldn’t take him off the floor through the first four games, such were his plus-minus numbers, so tonight they decided not to take him of the floor at all as he played all 36 of the first 36 minutes. Adebayo defended Tatum full time – starting possessions on him, at least, as Miami switched more often than they had all regular season – since Game 2, but the Celtics had too many mismatches to chase, while planting Adebayo’s assignments in the corner, for him to cover every inch of the pitch, so to speak. Boston will finish this series as efficient in half court as they were during the regular season largely on the strength of everything they ran away from Adebayo.

Adebayo went out shooting, too, taking a career postseason high 26 shots on his way to 23 points, but Boston never changed their coverage of him for one moment all series long, electing to defend him one-on-one and live with his shot creation. Even with Adebayo shooting well in the paint all series before tonight, Boston’s choices effectively made him a make-or-miss player, all playmaking avenues cut off for one of the best playmaking centers in the league. He’s come a long way in terms of developing his isolation and post play, and his work in that area held off Boston in Miami’s Game 2 win, but if there’s a next step for a player who has taken so many steps each offseason, it will be finding a way to force teams into doubling him. During the regular season that was happening often enough, a real trend down the stretch, but postseason schemes are a different animal. This won’t be a series with much worth remembering outside of one win with historic shooting, but the history books will remember Adebayo doing all he could.

3. It’s understandable if some aren’t receptive to the idea that there was real value in youngsters like Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez Jr. getting on-court experience against one of the best teams in the league, but it matters. It matters that they felt the postseason, felt how the game changes, how the pace and physicality and general rhythm of the game is unlike anything you see in the first 82. It matters that they were key parts of a road postseason win, that they could see what success on that stage looks like. It matters that they felt a postseason scout, how an opponent zeroes in on all your strengths and weaknesses, trying to take away the former while forcing you to the latter. It won’t seem like much now, but when the next season and the next series comes along, and there’s always a next season and next series, this will mean something for them. It’s one thing for everyone to tell you what the playoffs are like. There’s no substitute for first-hand experience.

It doesn’t hurt that both, with starters minutes, handled themselves well. Jaquez Jr. was leading the entire series in drives before his Game 4 injury, and Jovic was shooting the leather off the ball in key stretches while holding up on switches. Now we get to see what they do with this overload of information now readily available.

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Coup’s Takeaways: Boston Leads Wire To Wire As Miami’s Season Ends In First Round

1. Miami made their adjustments in Game 2. Boston countered in Game 3. The question coming into Game 4 was whether further adjustments were coming from either side, or if the best adjustment was going to have to be doing the things you’re already doing and doing them better.

It looked like the HEAT may have made one interesting tweak, opening in their zone coverage on the very first possession of the game, but it appeared to be more of a show than a tell as they returned to their man-to-man the possession after. Miami was also taking more threes through the first six minutes than they had in Game 3 when Boston made more of a concerted effort to pressure the ball and close out to shooters, but the shot profile became much more two-point dominant after that stretch. The good news was that Tyler Herro was managing Boston’s increased ball pressure in rhythm, setting himself up for three early scores on drives and another lob to Bam Adebayo. The bad news was that Derrick White was tossing fireballs around, hitting all variety of three pointers on his way to 22 first-half points on 6-of-9 from three.

After Boston scored 34 in the first quarter, again breaking Miami’s zone with threes, the HEAT settled things down in the second with their switching as Boston was unable to generate consistent makes no matter how many mismatches they hunted. Miami’s offense, however, struggled even more, 3-of-16 from three even including two early makes, their mid-range game coming up mostly empty. Only 19 in the quarter for the visitors, but only 12 for the HEAT, Boston leading by 17 at the break. Kristaps Porzingis leaving the game with a calf injury, doubtful to return, changed the look of the game, but Miami was already working uphill.

With Al Horford starting the second half, a quick 5-0 burst from Boston put the lead at 22. Miami was making them work for it, no doubt, as their switching held up, but consecutive White cuts down the middle for dunks as Jrue Holiday drew two in the post followed by a Jaylen Brown fast-break dunk eventually had it at 23. At 4-of-22 from three, Miami could neither find the makes nor the clean takes. Boston let Adebayo shoot one, though and a three from him and a burst from Patty Mills kept thing manageable at 22 before the end of the period, 81-59 headed into the fourth of a physical, grind-it-out night.

Some jumpers started to fall as the Celtics missed inside, the lead down to 15 with eight to play, but Boston immediately responded with a clean corner three from Holiday and a Tatum dunk down the middle. Back to 15 soon after, another couple jumpers falling, an Adebayo layup in transition forcing a Boston timeout with 5:21 to play, Miami within 13 – close enough to challenge Boston’s late-game offense. Right after that came a dead-ball flagrant foul on Adebayo against Tatum, a White floater after that pushing it back to 17 as time began running short. A few minutes of prevent offense later, Boston takes the game, 102-88, and the series lead to 3-1. Game 5 is Wednesday in Boston.

2. Much to the chagrin of everyone wearing white in the building, the story of the evening was Derrick White, his 38 points on 26 shots a clear standout on a night when just about nobody else had it going on either side – Tatum and Brown combining for only 37 points on 32 shots.

Some of it was spot-up threes, but so much of White’s night came on what would otherwise be All-Star level shots, drives and pull-up jumpers off the dribble including a heartbreaker in the first half, a hand in his face as the shot clock expired. As it has been for most of this series, Boston has had a clear plan and even clearer aggression whenever Miami toggled into zone, and tonight it was White taking an immediate, but not rushed, three as soon as he got a catch in the wing seam of the zone. With White also hounding ballhandlers on the other end, finishing with three blocks on top of it all, he’s the player of the night and then some. While Miami was missing crucial playmakers in Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier, as they have all series, it was Boston’s fourth-leading player in usage rate, at less than 20 percent during the season, who had the Celtics working with a double-digit lead for most of the evening.

3. If there’s any silver lining to a game like this, there’s some solace to take in the fact that Miami’s switching scheme, which they’ve been using ever since Spoelstra’s adjustment in Game 2, has held up relative to the explosive scoring potential Boston has showed all season long. This was a 93-possession game, neither team playing much in transition as has been the case all series, Miami creating the pace that fits their style and playing with ball-pressuring physicality to match what the Celtics have been bringing on the other end. Boston only finished with an Offensive Rating of 108.5, well below their season average, Miami pushing them into the upper paint for most of their off-the-bounce looks with plenty of possessions going up against the clock. Granted, the Celtics missed quite a good looks in the paint after driving mismatches of their choosing, but some credit for that is due Miami’s help defenders for waiting until the right moments to collapses without allowing obvious kickout passing lanes.

If nothing else, Miami’s available players, beyond those like Adebayo (25 points on 22 shots) who have proven their defensive bonafides beyond a shadow of a doubt, have shown themselves capable of the physical style of defense required in postseason play. It doesn’t change the results, and Miami has a most difficult task ahead of them, but that’s not nothing given what they’re missing on offense. This group must be great defensively to give themselves a chance, and for the most part they have been.

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Coup’s Takeaways: HEAT Make Late Push But Derrick White Pushes Boston Into 3-1 Series Lead

1. After all that historic shooting in Game 2, Miami hitting a franchise postseason record 23 triples en route to that double-digit victory, the question on the minds of many was how much of that performance was sustainable.

Boston, it turns out, wasn’t interested in finding out. After leaving most anyone not named Tyler Herro or Duncan Robinson enough airspace to get shots off in the previous contest, helping well off to jam up pick-and-rolls, the Celtics came out with a different gameplan. No more helping one pass away, particularly out of the corners, and the ball pressure was dialed way up. The HEAT started off cold offensively, 1-of-10 from the floor and 0-of-4 from three, but they weren’t comparable shots to those they had made so many of before. Contested was the word of the day.

Fortunately for Miami, Boston wasn’t getting much better through most of the first quarter, only scoring 21 points themselves, the HEAT’s defense holding strong while the offense produced just 12. Yet as soon as the second quarter began, the lead began to stretch, Boston opening the period with back-to-back threes against the zone from Jayson Tatum and Sam Hauser, and with Payton Pritchard pressuring ballhandlers into a couple messy turnovers, Boston held strong up 16-18 points until another late run pushed the lead into the 20’s. A 24-point game at the break after a 42-point quarter for the Celtics, Miami scoring just 39 points overall with an Offensive Rating of 84.8 while Boston was 8-of-21 from three with four players in double figures.

Better offense to open the third helped cut into the lead a little bit, Jaime Jaquez Jr. getting downhill and Herro canning a three, but a handful of easy Boston scores kept it from being much of a run. Miami turned up their own ball pressure, the Celtics mostly handling it well as the lead hung around 20, and for as much as the HEAT were scoring reasonably well they were still being pushed into the mid-range as they were in Game 1, the length of Porzingis a hinderance at the rim. Boston by 26 after three, another pair of deep shots coming against the zone when Adebayo (20 points on 18 shots) got his rest.

Not much to say about the fourth quarter, Boston holding strong as they took a 2-1 series lead with a 104-84 victory.

2. Comparing Miami’s offense from Game 2 to Game 3 is somewhere on the apples-to-oranges spectrum, the shot profile from their previous victory entirely unlike the shots the HEAT were getting tonight. Many came into this game wondering if Boston would adjust, much less how, and the answer was clearly less.

Miami’s shooters didn’t have the same space and Herro didn’t have remotely the same reads, no shooters open on the wings as he came off screens and handoffs. Instead, it was all ball pressure all the time from Boston’s side and while there remained some help on Herro’s actions it was softer, less deliberate and certainly not pre-loaded as it had been before. The difference in Miami’s process was that their three-point shot volume was nearly cut in half, what had previously been a catch-and-shoot three became upper paint attempts off the dribble. Herro, for example, only took two two-pointers in Game 2, but in Game 3 he had taken seven through three quarters of play. The HEAT can certainly shoot better than 12-of-31 in the upper paint, but their rim rate remained low with just eight attempts. Credit Boston for being willing to alter their gameplan just as the HEAT did before Game 2. Now we see how Miami adjusts.

3. The HEAT’s big defensive adjustment going into Game 2 was to put Adebayo on Tatum and switch everything, which led to Boston’s halfcourt offense slowing down as they settled for chasing one-on-one matchups. Still, their halfcourt offensive rating in that game was a flat 100, still above average.

Tonight, that number was 113 before starters were pulled with a few minutes to go. It wasn’t because Boston caught fire from three, shooting just 29.7 percent on 37 shots – though their makes against the zone were particularly harmful, as they came in bunches and led to short runs both times Adebayo sat – but until the late game when Tatum and Jaylen Brown (44 combined points on 36 shots) started draining the clock a little, there was more verve to the way Boston was moving in the halfcourt, a calm but intentional approach as they committed just five turnovers. No one player dominated the ball, White and Porzingis getting early touches as their efficiency (34 points on 23 shots) proved the difference after Boston’s role players came up mostly empty in Game 2. Boston ended the night with a 122.6 Offensive Rating despite fairly average shooting across the board. With their switching approach the HEAT will likely live with, unless they adjust, some one-on-one scores, but there are some possessions – transition scores, backdoor cuts in the halfcourt, White putting back a missed free-throw – that will surely be a point of emphasis in the coming days.

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Coup’s Takeaways: Celtics Adjust Their Defense, Take 2-1 Series Lead

The Miami HEAT tied their First Round series with Boston, 1-1, Wednesday night, holding Boston to 40 points in the second half as they shot a franchise playoff best 23-of-43 from behind the arc. Here are the main reasons for how they did it.

First, the shooting. Before we get to the adjustments Miami made we have to talk about the ones Boston didn’t. Nothing about this is normal, folks. Miami has as many playoff games (5) with 50 percent shooting from three in the past two seasons as two franchises, Houston and Utah, have in both regular seasons combined. The HEAT have four playoff games where they’ve made at least half their threes against Boston alone the past two seasons, and no other team has done it more than once against anyone in that stretch. Miami just became the fifth team, ever, to make 23 threes in a postseason game. This is wild, mythmaking, stranger-than-fiction on-court material

But as with anything there is a reason it happens, and there’s a reason it happens to Boston. You can dissect and analyze individual closeouts all you want, the Celtics are giving Miami’s role players those shots.

Last year, after having success with it in the previous Conference Finals, the Celtics went back to their strategic well and opted to sag off Caleb Martin to allow Robert Williams III roaming freedom on the backline of the defense. In the same spot a year later, Martin knew what scheme was coming his way.

“I just knew from the jump, I automatically triggered my brain to last year and the playoffs and knew exactly how they were going to guard me,” Martin said last May. “So I've been preparing myself the minute we beat the Knicks and we were preparing for Boston. I just automatically started trying to re-circuit my brain to the looks I would get and how guys are going to help off of me and preparing to be ready and confident and assertive.”

Martin proceeded to torch the coverage, shooting 49 percent from three across seven games, including 6-of-14 as Miami took the opening two matchups in Boston.

“One thing Caleb told me was, ‘This is not last year,’” Bam Adebayo said after Game 2 that year. “That really resonated with me because they did the same thing to him last year. I feel like he felt like it was disrespectful.”

As Boston cycled out personnel, bringing in Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, it was worth wondering whether they would adjust their treatment of Martin. During the regular season, nothing much changed. Boston had Porzingis and Horford roaming off Martin. Coming into this series, you could see the same thing coming once again. Miami couldn’t make the Celtics pay in Game 1, shooting 32 percent from three, but the looks were there – Boston was clearly willing to live with giving up some catches in space in order to bring in a third defender on Tyler Herro’s pick-and-rolls, as we discussed after Game 1.

“We’re all smart basketball players,” Martin said after Game 2. “We’re going to take the ones that are there. That’s part of their gameplan, too, they’re going to leave certain guys open. You play into the gameplan if you hesitate to shoot.”

It wasn’t just Martin, either. Boston was treating just about everyone who wasn’t Herro or Duncan Robinson the same. With the paint largely inaccessible, the perimeter looks were going to be there. Herro just had to see them, and guys had to make shots. Instead, they rode historic on that fury road.

“We knew a couple of us were going to get some open shots,” Haywood Highsmith said. “They was leaving us open and stuff, so we just let it fly.”

Just as in Game 1, the help came early on Herro as he cleared Adebayo’s handoffs and screens, Jaylen Brown even helping off the strong side corner to jam Herro up.

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Celtics Game 2: Helping To Herro

“Just starting off, the guys that we wanted to shoot,” Jrue Holiday said. “Not that we let them, but it wasn’t like a get out to them and make them put it on the ground, it was kind of like protect the basket and get a good closeouts. They started knocking them in.”

The effect became even more pronounced as the night wore on. Watch the extreme degree to which Holiday, Porzingis and Derrick White help off Martin, Haywood Highsmith and Delon Wright in the fourth quarter.

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Celtics Game 2: Shooters Left Open

“That’s how they’re scheming us so far,” Spoelstra said. “Packing the paint and putting an extra defender in front of Tyler or Jaime or whoever was attacking the paint. Those are the available shots you have to trust whether it’s a make or a miss.”

Of Herro’s career-high 14 assists, around nine of them, depending on your definition, were of this variety, making the help reads –third defenders coming his way, often one pass away – and finding his shooters.

Miami’s Shot Quality from three in Game 2 was an expected effective field-goal percentage of 53.4, which would have been Top 5 among all teams in the regular season. But if you take Robinson and Herro out of the equation, the two shooters who consistently saw attention at the arc, then everyone else had a Shot Quality of 55.7. Overall, Miami shot 61.5 percent on 26 three-point attempts Second Spectrum logged as uncontested or lightly contested. In Game 1 that number was 37.5 percent on 24 attempts. Both attempt totals are in the Top 6 for Miami this season, and the HEAT shot 40.6 percent on those shots, lightly contested or uncontested threes, all year, No. 4 in the league.

“Guys that we want shooting the ball was hitting them, we seemingly couldn’t get them to miss,” Jaylen Brown said.

There’s the math aspect to this, of course. Erik Spoelstra noted between games that they needed to be more competitive in that area. Allowing an offense like Boston’s to take so many more threes than you is a tough hill to sled. But, again, these are also the shots being presented. Miami’s shooters were more willing to shoot, but they were also shots they were being given.

“I just did not want to get annihilated in that department the way we did before,” Spoelstra said of the three-point disparity from Game 1.

Whether Boston adjusts remains to be seen given that they’ve applied a similar philosophy across multiple years against Miami. Counting on average-ish shooters to miss some shots isn’t bad science, so to speak, but science doesn’t always account for the magic that can happen in individual games. At some point the things that could theoretically happen are actually happening. And yet Boston also won three straight games after they went down 3-0 last year, with minimal adjustments. If changes are made, less help coming Herro’s way could open up the paint, and with just five makes in the restricted area in Game 2 Miami could probably use a little bit in the paint. Even without many paint points, however, Miami scored 112.8 points per 100 plays in the halfcourt, their fifth highest mark of the season.

On a related note, for years Boston has been the one team that appeared to have a bit more sway than others over opponent three-point percentages, consistently ranking Top 10 in an area that has in many ways been governed, to a degree, by luck and variance. Much of that was due to these same ideas, a willingness to leave certain shooters over others, but a team’s control over that could also be drawn into question. Still, whatever was real or myth, there’s a certain irony in the team that had found answers for one of the more unsolvable aspects of the game being on the wrong side of those same percentages in the games that matter most.

“There are certain guys on the floor that you would rather shoot than others, that’s any NBA game you play,” Tatum said. “But guys are in the NBA for a reason. Everybody is capable.”

Maybe the answer to all of this is Miami’s shooters get more comfortable when they know what shots are coming their way. Maybe this will never happen again. We can’t hand wave this type of performance anymore, though. Magic or not, it’s happening for very practical reasons and the HEAT have spent two years now doing everything possible to take advantage. It might be rare, special, incredibly unique, memorable and even funny, but it’s not a miracle if you’re the one that can make it happen.

The story of Miami’s defense this season, especially as it relates to Adebayo, is that as their personnel has changed Erik Spoelstra went away from his switch-heavy scheme and dedicated his team to drop coverage as their base pick-and-roll look. You can read about that story here, so we won’t dwell on it too much. One thing was worth remembering about those changes, though. For as much as Miami was diversifying their portfolio to better survive – they turned in yet another Top 5 defense despite 35 different starting lineups, largely due to Adebayo’s multi-coverage capabilities – they never buried their ol’ reliable.

“That’s probably our most comfortable scheme, but we always got that,” Martin said about switching pick-and-rolls earlier this year.

“For us, we think switching is normal,” Adebayo said.

After cycling through just about every coverage in their arsenal in Game 1, giving up 1.27 points per possession across 54 screens while their zone was lightly toasted by three point shooting, Spoelstra returned to the coverage his group once used more than any other team.

In Game 2 Miami switched 41 pick-and-rolls, allowing 0.72 points per possession. The occasion marked the most switches Miami had made in any game all season.

There was a clever wrinkle to the scheme. Rather than putting Adebayo on Porzingis as was the matchup for most of Game 1, Spoelstra went to the same well he did in Miami’s second Play-In Game against Chicago, asking Adebayo to go from defending DeMar DeRozan at tipoff one week to Jayson Tatum the next. Rather than aiming to switch Adebayo on to Tatum, Adebayo started possessions in position to switch off him - Adebayo wasn't logged as the closest defender on any of Tatum's 20 attempts - Nikola Jovic assigned to Porzingis ready to switch should Boston want to run one of their more common actions.

Why is that a good thing? Wouldn’t you want Adebayo on Tatum? Part of what made Boston’s Game 1 offense so dangerous is that Tatum did much of his work early, finding cross matches in transition or running to specific corners against the zone to post up a desirable matchup. That wasn’t going to happen with Adebayo on Tatum, who now had to come get the ball and spend time running a pick-and-roll to find a matchup, time that he couldn’t then use to get off the ball and go get position at the elbow or on the block. Miami would switch a different matchup onto Tatum, sure, but Tatum would then be left attacking from the top of the arc or the wings, much more manageable for a gap-shrinking HEAT scheme that prefers you playing breakthrough-and-conquer with multiple sets of eyes, arms and feet pre-loaded in your path.

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Celtics Game 2: Bam On Tatum Switch

Of course the weakness of the switching scheme, and part of why Miami went away from it in the first place over the past year, is that Adebayo can’t literally be everywhere no matter how brilliant his defense is. Boston has plenty of ballhandlers, plenty of pick-and-roll combinations with which to find matchups they want. They found those matchups just fine, they just couldn’t capitalize on them, 32 Celtics isolations – four off their season high – producing just 0.83 points per, 11 Boston post-ups producing 0.80 points per as Herro held up while Porzingis missed shots over the top.

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Celtics Game 2: Herro On Porzingis

The other tweak was that Miami brought less deliberate help in general. They still played the gaps as they should, but there were no early doubles coming as they did in Game 1, the defense bending but not tilting, rotating but not in rotation. That’s how you hold the Celtics, perhaps the most prolific shooting team of all time, to just 32 attempts from deep, just their fifth game all season with fewer than 33 tries.

“They switched and they didn’t double as much,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.

You can’t switch without having some faith in your defenders. In Game 2, Miami went back to their old ways, in a good way, Adebayo was his dynamic self, and Spoelstra trusted everyone else to guard their yard as Boston’s offense stagnated. It worked, and now we see how Boston reacts.

After Game 1 it was clear that Boston had every intention not to bring help on Bam Adebayo’s isolations and post-ups, and we noted that while it can be a bit of a trap to take all that single coverage and make it too much of your overall offense – something you could argue is exactly what happened to the Celtics tonight – there is a benefit to knowing Adebayo will have self-creation opportunities whenever you need them.

And you never need them more than in the fourth quarter, when the game is slow and percentages matter more than 48-minute efficiency.

Sure enough, in Game 2, Adebayo was more of a screener than a scorer – his 36 screens tied for sixth-most this season – sprinkling in post-ups but only using one isolation in the first quarter. But in the fourth, there was that option, Adebayo attacking Al Horford with no help coming as Boston attempted to stage a comeback.

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Celtics Game 2: Bam 4th Q Island

“He was great when we needed to get it settled and went right to his spots and was able to get some relief points for us,” Spoelstra said.

And rather than going back to that same look over and over, Miami got out of it just as quickly, the damage done as Adebayo went back to screening for Herro and doing his damage on the pocket pass. Adebayo finished only 2-of-2 at the rim, one of those a lob from Herro, but 7-of-10 in the upper paint and mid-range combined. Through two games, Adebayo has produced 1.42 points-per across 12 post-ups.

“Any time the game gets crazy and they go on a run, we find the ball in Bam’s hands,” Herro said. “He’s just our settle guy. We know he’s going to make the right play or find a hole in the defense to find a shot for himself.”

Any time the game gets crazy and they go on a run, we find the ball in Bam’s hands. He’s just our settle guy. We know he’s going to make the right play or find a hole in the defense to find a shot for himself.

Adebayo (probably) won’t keep shooting this well on tough turnarounds and fadeaways, but the value is in knowing that until Boston adjusts their coverage those shots are always there when Miami needs them most.

-The HEAT only played three possessions of zone, with Love playing just six total minutes as Jovic played the backup five in the second half.

-Boston wound up scoring 100 points per 100 halfcourt plays, per cleaningtheglass.com, a good number for most teams but well below their own rate of 106.5 during the regular season.

-Bringing it back to math again, Miami and Boston each made 37 field goals, with Boston attempting five more. But the HEAT made 11 more threes, 11 extra points over the two pointers the Celtics made, and won by 10.

-Through two games now, Miami has produced 1.21 points per pick-and-roll and 1.19 points per handoff. Both numbers would have led the league by a significant margin.