Miami HEAT at Detroit Pistons Game Preview

The Miami HEAT face the Detroit Pistons Monday night at Little Caesars Arena. Tip-off is set for 7:00 PM, and television coverage is on FOX Sports Sun. You can also listen to the action live on 790 The Ticket.

1: What was your main takeaway from Miami’s loss in Atlanta?

Couper Moorhead: It was somewhat startling to allow an offensive rating of 120.6 to the Atlanta Hawks after having had two days at home to work on their defense, but such is life in today’s NBA. The Hawks aren’t a particularly efficient offensive team, but they play extremely fast and get up a ton of threes. As such, they’re well-suited to take advantage of any small mistakes you make in the open floor, and the volume with which they take threes gives them an extremely high night-to-night variance. No, Alex Len, Omari Spellman and Dewayne Dedmon aren’t going to combine for four made threes every night, but if you catch them on the night that they do, the Hawks are probably going to be in that game. The HEAT will surely be focused on how open those shooters were left, but the reality is that when teams like the Hawks don’t run out a single player who isn’t capable of hitting from deep, it’s going to be incredibly tough to limit attempts.

The good news is that after allowing 74 points in the first half, the HEAT limited the Hawks to just 49 in the second behind aggressive defensive play from smaller lineups. They weren’t able to summon enough offense down the stretch to complete the comeback – missing Goran Dragić with a foot injury didn’t help there – but the defense certainly didn’t fail them in the end – the first half was just too deep a hole to climb out of.

Joe Beguiristain: While the HEAT struggled on the defensive end through three quarters, they got back to their principles in the final period and nearly escaped with the win. In fact, Miami held Atlanta to just 21 points on 7-of-20 shooting in the fourth (35 percent) after giving up 102 points on 57.4 percent shooting up until that point. That’s a huge difference.

Leading the charge in the HEAT’s comeback bid was none other than Justise Winslow. Not only did Winslow keep the pressure on the Hawks’ defense with 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting in the fourth, including 2-of-3 from downtown, but he also put the clamps on Trae Young down the stretch. When Winslow was matched up against Young on Saturday night, the 22-year-old held the rook to just 2-of-7 shooting and forced him to commit three turnovers.

That wasn’t all though, as the former Duke Blue Devil made his impact felt in the hustle stats too with 10 contested shots, a team-high four loose balls recovered and two deflections on the evening.

As Erik Spoelstra said after the game, Winslow emptied the tank.

Couper: The biggest change with Detroit happened on the sidelines where Dwane Casey replaced Stan Van Gundy as head coach. Casey has the team playing slightly above-average defense, but otherwise this is the roster you remember from last season after the trade for Blake Griffin. Reggie Jackson being healthy again helps a team that was in need of perimeter creation last year and Casey has not shied away from starting Jackson at shooting guard with Ish Smith at point. The team has struggled to score so far, but 30.5 percent shooting from three – even Andre Drummond is shooting threes now, albeit at a 1-of-9 clip – at solid volume would lead you to believe that there is some positive regression coming for the team eventually. That regression, however, would be helped by Reggie Bullock playing (day-to-day) and Luke Kennard eventually returning from a shoulder injury.

Joe: As Coup mentioned above, not much has changed for the Pistons since last season’s trade deadline outside of Dwane Casey becoming their head coach. As such, Detroit is still led by its formidable frontcourt duo in Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond and is ranked in the top five with 15.6 post-ups per game thanks to having those two skilled bigs.

While Griffin posts-up more often and is far more efficient than Drummond, Miami still has to watch out for both guys and make sure they don’t get deep position for easy buckets. That said, Griffin has also improved his outside shooting, as the 29-year-old is connecting on 45.7 percent of his 5.8 three-point attempts per game. Both of those numbers are career-highs.

3: Where will Miami need to focus on in order to get their defense back on track?

Couper: Detroit might not be a prolific offensive team, but you can’t allow the numbers on paper to do your work for you. Keeping Jackson and particularly lightning-fast Smith out of the paint is a priority, but at the end of the day its Griffin and his 30.9 usage rate who is the offensive hub for this group. Griffin has molded his game to be more and more dynamic as the years went on and now he’s just as capable of pulling up from three as he is attacking the rim and making a play. James Johnson has historically been a solid answer to Griffin due to being able to match size and athleticism, but Justise Winslow will likely receive a bulk of the responsibility and he’s more than capable. Plus, as we saw for stretches last year, Bam Adebayo has both the foot speed to keep up with Griffin on the perimeter and the strength to contain him in the post. Drummond’s slow start to the season makes him a bit of a wild card regarding what lineups the HEAT end up using, but this might be a night when Adebayo gets plenty of minutes against Detroit’s focal point.

Joe: Since Coup already talked about Griffin and I touched on both the former Clipper and Drummond in my second answer, I’ll get into the Pistons’ guards.

Once again, Reggie Jackson and Ish Smith are getting the bulk of the minutes at the two guard spots, but things have been up and down for the duo thus far. After shooting quite well during Detroit’s 4-0 start, things have cooled off in a big way ever since. That said, both Jackson and Smith are dangerous off the dribble and can still score in bunches. As a result, guys like Rodney McGruder, Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson will need to make sure they keep those speedsters in front of them.

And since the Pistons are ranked in the top third of the league with 157 isos, the HEAT’s perimeter defenders better be ready. 

INJURY UPDATE: Goran Dragic (right foot injury) went through Monday morning's shootaround and is expected to play. Hassan Whiteside (right knee injury) is out and will be re-evaluated when the team returns to Miami.

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