featured-image

An Explosive, High-Usage Game 1 From Jimmy Butler And Bam Adebayo Shows Us Where The Offense Goes Without Tyler Herro

In a roundabout way, Game 1 went almost exactly as expected on Miami’s side.

Caveats galore, sure. Nobody thought Tyler Herro would break his hand or that Giannis Antetokounmpo would have to leave the game with a back injury. Nobody thought the HEAT would become the eighth team – all winners – to shoot 60 percent from three on at least 25 attempts in a playoff game. Heck, there aren’t many people who thought the HEAT would outright win. But it was the look and feel of the game that felt like rewatching a movie you’ve seen dozens of times.

What do the Bucks do? They limit shots at the rim. Miami took 15 in the half-court, about their average, but at nearly the double the rate when Brook Lopez was on the bench. They limit threes on volume. Miami took 25, about eight fewer per 100 possessions than their average. Milwaukee’s entire defense is predicated on forcing team to shoot in the in-between zones, where inefficient two’s sow creeping disruption to your offense. Miami took 41 in that area, almost ten more than they usually take but exactly what they usually take against the Bucks.

Milwaukee does all this well, but the reason so many games against them look the same goes beyond mere skill and ability. Their defensive shot profile is a direct result of how Mike Budenholzer chooses to move, or not move, his pieces around the board. They rarely deviate. Their process is consistent.

The results against that process went in Miami’s favor on Sunday. Dramatically so, in some cases. The question now is how can they attempt to replicate those results without the services of not only their best shooter, but the third head of their 20-point averaging King Ghidorah? Herro’s off the dribble, pull-up game is one of the best weapons in the league against drop coverage. Now it’s gone – 20.1 points, a 25 percent usage rate, 16.6 attempts, 33 pick-and-rolls and 10 handoffs a night wiped off the board.

“You can’t fully make up what Tyler has been for our team all year long,” Jimmy Butler said.

Some elements of the win just aren’t going to happen again. The HEAT shot an effective field-goal percentage of 102.4 – not a typo – on their 21 catch and shoot jumpers, the third-best game any team had this season on those shots. Their previous high was 85.2, and their average was 51.8. However which way you want to splice it, the chances of two games like that happening in a single series, for any team, is miniscule. It certainly won’t happen at the same time as Milwaukee making just a quarter of their own 45 three-point attempts, that’s for sure. The Bucks probably aren’t going to allow eight hit-ahead passes in transition again – one off Miami’s season high – and the HEAT aren’t going to shoot the third-best field-goal percentage (59.5) in franchise postseason history again, because that’s why it’s among the franchise bests. Nor, for that matter, is Milwaukee going to have the best shotmaking playoff game of the past 10 years, on two-pointers only, as far as actual shooting over expected percentages according to tracking data. But other elements are going to have to repeat if Miami is going to win this series, regardless of Antetokounmpo’s availability – there is reported optimism about him playing in Game 2 – going forward.

Namely, the other two heads of this particular kaiju are going to have to keep it rolling, with purpose, in all that upper paint space that Lopez wants to concede – where Bam Adebayo and Butler shot a combined 14-of-24, nearly a combined season high in both makes and attempts and cleanly a season high for combined paint makes overall. Their 45 total attempts, producing 58 points without even factoring in Butler’s 11 assists, were the most they’ve taken in the same game with the HEAT.

“If they’re going to keep playing that coverage and let us get to our sweet spots, I feel like we’ll live with those results,” Adebayo said.

We spent quite a few words on how Adebayo will need to approach Lopez’ drop coverage before the series because of the long developmental history, not all of it linear or particularly pretty, he has against that style of center. We’ll get to that in a moment. That matchup doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and if Lopez is dropping back off Adebayo he’s also dropping back off anyone Adebayo is setting a screen for. Without the possibility of spamming Herro-Adebayo pick-and-rolls like it’s an animation the video game developers are about to nerf, it’s the Butler-Adebayo connection – used 11 times in Game 1, more than the HEAT typically use it and the only combination with more than six possessions – that could become the centerpiece of this series.

Bucks Game 1: Jimmy-Bam PnR

They can get that whenever they want, and there are going to be high-leverage situations in this series where it’s going to be what they need. There were other ways Butler got downhill into Lopez’ territory, like this second quarter play where Butler shot out of a cannon on the weakside catch, with the defense temporarily bend the other direction, in the same way Donovan Mitchell did when he punched through the HEAT’s zone earlier this year.

Bucks Game 1: Jimmy Cannon

We should note that Milwaukee’s defense wasn’t particularly good on an individual level on Sunday. Butler got a number of straight-line drives that will likely be reduced moving forward after the Bucks enact the Just Be Better adjustment. We know he can burrow his way into the paint all the same, or turn those drives into free-throw attempts when tighter defense comes.

Moving on. When the HEAT went five-out with Kevin Love – another sung hero from this game, with his four threes – the Bucks went to zone after using it for fewer than 30 possessions all year. The logic plays. If you don’t want Lopez to have to pull out of the paint against a shooter who has already hit a couple of shots, playing zone keeps him near the paint while offering a sturdier shell along the perimeter. Erik Spoelstra’s response? Put Butler in the middle of the zone and let him do his thing.

Bucks Game 1: Jimmy vs. Zone

Otherwise, if Milwaukee was in man, Lopez stretching out to Love at the arc leaves defenders in positions where they aren’t used to being primary rim help.

Bucks Game 1: Love Stretch 5

“That’s just the luxury of having a big that can shoot it,” Love said, adding, “I haven’t been known for my defense, but just having to guard guys who can shoot the ball as a 4 or a 5, it’s really hard to guard. It just takes a rebounder, or like Brook a shotblocker, away from the basket.”

Adebayo didn’t start the game like Butler, who hit the highest first-half shot total (17) of his HEAT career, but that’s how he finished, holding off Milwaukee’s final run with all the same shots in this fourth quarter that he made against Lopez in January. Break it all down however you like, the results are all the same. Pocket passes. Isolations. Post ups. It all comes down to Adebayo shooting over the top of Lopez.

Bucks Game 1: Bam Over Brook

Those shots, admittedly made a little easier without the threat of Antetkounmpo’s help on the floor, are always going to be there. Miami’s offensive ceiling might be lower without Herro’s sudden kamehamehas. The floor, the foundation, remains.

Take away the crazy three-point shooting, the easy scores in transition and the straight-line drives, as either the Bucks or The Basketball Gods likely will soon enough. Adebayo and Butler just have to take and make those shots however they come.

“It may look different in different points of the game,” Spoelstra said. “Jimmy was able to be assertive throughout the course of the game, and then when we really needed some relief buckets, Bam was able to knock down some big ones down the stretch that kept that separation.”

The HEAT don’t have another Tyler Herro. They have players who can approximate his numbers in the way Max Strus – dropping off clean pocket passes to Adebayo in the latter stages of Game 1 – did against Chicago last week or Kevin Love did Sunday. Gabe Vincent scoring 15 points on six shots is one heck of a way to mitigate the damage of losing one of your primary playmakers, too. Ultimately, you replace players like Herro in the aggregate – albeit an unbalanced aggregate. A little bit more from everyone, a lot of bit more from two players.

Butler and Adebayo were more than game for the get-to-know-you-again stage of this series. Antetokounmpo’s status is the most important story of the next week, but as far as what Miami can control, this series might ultimately be decided by whether or not their two drink-stirring All-Stars, together, can keep punishing the Bucks for their own conscious and very purposeful strategies. Not either. Not or. Both.