There have been times in this bizarro series where it has looked like the Miami HEAT were playing against themselves. One dynamic, super-switchy team going toe-to-toe with another, each side employing similar tactics to tighten their grips on the paint. You won’t find any defense more like Miami than Boston.
“It’s like we’re looking in the mirror,” Bam Adebayo said.
“It’s like we’re literally looking at our twin,” Tyler Herro said.
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What makes each unit so good defensively is that they have the versatility, the intelligence and the quick-twitch precision to execute a variety of schemes. They don’t have to switch everything, nor do they defend each opponent the same way. It’s that variety that allows them to take away what you do best, to force Trae Young and James Harden to adopt a strict outside-looking-in diet, to deny Joel Embiid his comfort zones, to repeatedly knock Kevin Durant off his spots or to cut off all of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s air supply.
It’s because these defenses, so similar in their capacity for change, adapt so seamlessly that their opponents often perish in such an ugly fashion, forced to live their offensive lives on the edge. Forced to be something other than themselves.
It’s because these defenses are so similar, that neither Miami nor Boston looks much like themselves at all.
If they’re looking in the mirror, the image they see only resembles their own. It’s a version of themselves possessed by a Kandarian demon, and it’s reaching out to apply hands to neck. If they’re looking at their twin, it’s because they can’t see themselves. You think you’re looking at you because it looks like you, but you don’t look like you. You’ve exchanged faces with someone else. Now you look like Nic Cage. It’s like looking in the mirror, only not.
Miami’s offense was nearly unrecognizable in the early stages of Game 4. They were missing shots at a historic rate, but they weren’t missing their shots. They weren’t getting their shots. They shot 3-of-20 in the first quarter. None of them were corner threes – which Miami took the second most of during the regular season – and only one of them was at the rim. Everything was in-between, and the HEAT are not an in-between team.
“We just kind of settled in and just took the first available contested shot,” Erik Spoelstra said. “Against a great defense like they have, or conversely, against us, if you fall prey to that, you're going to feel like you're in quicksand.”
They might have played their own part in wandering into the sand, as Spoelstra also noted they weren’t exactly running their offense with “great intention.” But the sand has its say as well, and struggle as you might if you don’t find a way to pull yourself clean out, you’ll only sink deeper. Boston ensured Miami sunk, for a quarter at least, about as deep they as they could possibly go as their 11 points – following eight minutes without a field goal – was the lowest scoring opening period in franchise postseason history. Boston did it with some adjustments we’ve seen before from HEAT opponents, and from the HEAT themselves.
You can’t really put it any other way other than Robert Williams, in the limited time he’s been able to play with his knee injury, has posed a problem. Miami has already been at a Shot Quality disadvantage in this series, with their number – which represents the expected effective field-goal percentage on their shots – dropping from 51.6 (Rank 18) in the regular season to 50.1 (would Rank 30) in this series. Boston, meanwhile, has been right around their usual number regardless of who the HEAT have on the court.
With Williams playing, Miami’s Shot Quality drops even further down to 49.8 – each decimal tick is more meaningful here given the relatively thin range of values at play – and down to 48.7 with Horford on the court. When either one of those two are in the game, Boston has been around +23 points per 100 possessions.
Adebayo gave Horford the business in Game 3, there’s no doubt about that. He attacked early and often in transition, and the HEAT were able to give him plenty of space to attack in one-on-one situations. In Game 4, Horford pushed back, immediately pressuring Adebayo out to the three-point line – just as the HEAT did to Embiid – to stall out the offense. Horford was generally brilliant, holding Miami to a 62.5 Offensive Rating in his 33 minutes, but it was the combination of Horford on the ball and Williams off the ball that presented the most trouble.
Let’s take a look at one of Miami’s first pick-and-rolls in Game 4.
The first thing you’ll notice is that Horford is in drop coverage. Boston may switch more than any team in the league, but they aren’t a one-trick pony. Like Miami with Adebayo, they’ll toggle between multiple coverages to keep you off balance, and they’ve been fairly assertive with when to be conservative. Namely, if Butler is handling the ball they’ll either go under the screen entirely or play a traditional drop to mitigate the damage Adebayo can do, and has done, slipping the screen mid-switch. The HEAT have handled that coverage pretty well – though having a healthy Tyler Herro and/or Kyle Lowry helps quite a bit there – scoring an exquisite 1.22 points-per-screen against drop in this series, that number drops all the way down to 0.97 with Horford on the court.
Also in that above image you’ll notice how Williams is cheating off of P.J. Tucker to seal off the rim. Williams is there so early, in fact, that Horford doesn’t even have to align himself square with Butler’s potential drive, he can simply play the space in between and take away the lob threat to Adebayo – a threat that worked wonders in Game 3, with Williams unavailable – knowing that he’s not alone.
How Williams was playing that pick-and-roll wasn’t a one-off. It's what he was doing all throughout the second half of the season as Boston's defense gained steam.
Where Philadelphia opted to defend most of these Butler-Adebayo actions two-on-two while cutting off access to the HEAT’s shooters, a strategy which both worked and didn’t work, Boston isn’t allowing nearly as much space. A pick-and-roll becomes a two-on-three proposition, with Ime Udoka trusting one of his capable wing defenders to manage the space between two possible HEAT shooters away from the ball, always favoring the more deadly of the two (often Max Strus).
With Boston also taking a page out of Milwaukee’s book and experimenting with having Williams be Butler’s primary defender on a handful of possessions, creating a facsimile of what last year’s Bucks’ series looked like at times with Antetokounmpo taking on that assignment, it’s a well-worn strategy for keeping Butler and his teammates away from the rim. Butler was 1-of-7 on non-rim two-pointers in the first half. The HEAT were 4-of-24 as a team.
“We settled for too many mid-range jump shots, myself included,” Butler said.
The 31 non-rim paint attempts Miami took was the second-highest total of the season, and the highest with the regulars available. Their three attempts at the rim in the first half were the second fewest of the season.
Typically, a HEAT game against Milwaukee features a decent number of those mid-range looks by design. When the HEAT hit enough of those shots, or drain threes at high-volume – something they do against the Bucks at a fairly outlandish rate – they’ll beat that defense. But what Boston managed to pull off in Game 4, with their ability and willingness to switch off-ball actions while playing somewhat conservatively in the middle of the floor, is that none of the great three-point looks that are typically available against Milwaukee were there. Their two corner-three attempts in the first half tied a season low.
Requisite passing angles are there. If Tucker is in the corner, that’s traditionally a great look. Enough of those can turn a game. Miami just couldn’t ever really get him the ball. Midway through the second quarter Butler ran another pick-and-roll with similar spacing, Horford cheating off of Tucker, and he tried to deliver the ball to Tucker. Except the pass was low and away, and by the time Tucker was able to mechanically recover and threaten to launch, the closeout was already right on top of him. At other teams, HEAT players were simply too close, or even right on top of, each other, making it far too easy for the Celtics to split the difference between two shooters with one defender.
Boston’s defense was a razor blade. Miami’s offense was operating with all the edge of melting butter.
“We need to move the ball around, get it to the open guy and let that guy make the play and live with what we get out of it,” Butler said.
Of course, the HEAT are trying to do much of the same on the other end. They don’t have the size and length of Boston, but the philosophy is the same and Boston’s drives are down, as are their paint touches. Much of what we’ve spent all year talking about the Miami’s defense is working as intended. The Celtics are only scoring 108.6 points per 100, down from 113 in the regular season.
“They have the same tendencies [as us],” Adebayo said. “They get in the gaps.”
When Miami tried to get in the gaps in Game 4, the extra efforts they need to fill in behind weren’t quite there. Here Tucker pulls all the way off Grant Williams to crowd the paint, and Tatum makes the quick read for a cross-court pass.
The good news is that the Celtics didn’t have some extraordinary offensive game. They won because of their early defense and the fact that they were able to consistently get to the free-throw line – save your complaints on that one, the HEAT are being plenty physical and the Celtics played into the contact rather than on their heels in this one. Unlike some other teams, the Celtics are involving Adebayo in as few screens as possible, choosing to seek matchups small-for-small and avoid the Adebayo switch. All that twisting and turning in the halfcourt has led to some flat offense. The bad news is that Boston only shot 8-of-34 from three. Some of their misses were just misses.
More critically, Boston’s offense wasn’t helping the HEAT at all. If there are any numbers you remember from this piece, remember this: Miami is scoring 1.09 points per possession through four games. When they are able to play off a defensive rebound or a steal, they are scoring a rather absurd 1.36 points per possession. When they are playing off a Boston make, either a field-goal or a free-throw, their offensive efficiency drops down 0.97.
Those same splits are present for Boston, as they are for pretty much any team, but they aren’t nearly as dramatic. Miami’s best offense, by miles and miles and miles, has come off defensive stops. The Celtics may have been missing some shots in Game 4, but they only turned the ball over three times. In maintaining their composure and not feeding the mistakes into Miami’s transition – stops beget scores beget stops all over again, just like the last 10 minutes of MEN – while succumbing to Miami’s never-ending pressure, the Celtics were upping their chances on both ends of the court.
The reality here is that despite four fairly lopsided games – though we can’t act like Miami almost losing their big lead in Game 3 was a non-issue given how they played with advantages at times this season – Boston likely has the greater margin for error at this point. Regardless of who has more healthy bodies, the HEAT have been outscored by 28, and Boston holds a significant scoring edge in the final two-thirds of the shot clock, 1.17 points-per-possessions to Miami’s 1.06 (0.99 in the final eight seconds, while Boston’s number remains the same). The Celtics have been less reliant on the defense-to-offense-to-defense feedback loop.
“Even if it was early in the clock or halfway through the clock, we just didn't really execute with purpose and we paid the price for that,” Spoelstra said.
And yet the series is 2-2, and the HEAT have both avenues to improve and homecourt. Shooting 27.4 percent on pullup jumpers, well below their averages, is something they can reverse in a hurry. Those are shots they hit against Milwaukee in the past and against Philadelphia in the second round, and they are shots they can hit again, with Victor Oladipo adding a nice boost in that department in Game 4. With better spacing, Butler and Adebayo can find better angles to attack. If Boston is going to cheat off of good shooters, those good shooters are going to have opportunities. Boston did a nice job switching smaller guards away from danger off the ball in Game 4. If Miami plays with a little more pace in the halfcourt, they'll find those matchups again. None of what the Celtics are doing is new, and vice versa. We’re quickly reaching the point of the series where the answers lie in doing what you do, knowing what’s coming from the film, and doing it better.
The adjustments were plenty doable when the Philadelphia series was tied, 2-2, and they’re plenty doable now. Boston is better than that team, but they haven’t proven themselves infallible. Miami might need their pressure to pay off more like it in did in the first quarter of Game 3 (5 steals) and the third quarter of Game 1 (10 steals), but they’re here because they’re one of the best teams in the league at applying aggressive, physical and (more often than not) disciplined pressure. Turnovers, especially steals, might be a bit more of a high-variance play than we typically discuss them as – similar to three-point shooting – yet that doesn’t mean you sit back and let them happen. You go out and take them.
“The turnovers in the playoffs don’t feel the same as the turnovers in the regular season,” Caleb Martin said. “If you turn the ball over, it feels like it’s three turnovers just because possessions are cut short and every possession has so much importance in the playoffs.
“It’s kind of a dagger to your team whenever you turn the ball over that much.”
If turnovers are the dagger, the HEAT and Celtics must feel at times like they’re trying to stab themselves in the back. You won’t find two defenses more similar than these, yet it’s those similarities that are making these teams look, at times, very much unlike themselves.
This series may feel like looking in the mirror, only the image in the reflection may not always look like what you expect.