Bradley Beal

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Couper Moorhead

1. With a real day off and a proper shootaround under his belt, Terry Rozier came out looking far more comfortable, scoring eight of the first 11 points including a four-point play out of the corner. Scorers like Rozier who rely on dribble creation will always run a little hot and cold, but the breakout was always going to come.

Miami as a whole, however, was still a little up and down coming into this one with a six-game losing streak. With neither team shooting particularly well, Phoenix held the early advantage in the paint thanks to backup center Drew Eubanks, finishing plays with Jusuf Nurkic in foul troube, pacing them to an eventual double-digit lead, and once they were up their scoring trio of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant all took turns holding Miami’s pushes – off Jimmy Butler (26 points on 12 shots) drives, a handful of threes and offensive boards – with off-the-bounce shotmaking. By halftime, Phoenix up 13, the Suns had nine makes in the restricted area to Miami’s six.

Another quick burst from Phoenix put them up 18 early in the third, Butler’s paint attacks and offensive rebounding along with Rozier’s shooting (21 points on 14 shots) again pulling Miami back within reason only for more mid-range making, this stretch coming from Booker, to push the lead back toward 20. The press-zone bought Miami a little bit of time but Phoenix adjusted well, limiting their turnovers and finding the open looks for their bevy of shooters. Suns by 26, a steady, gradual climb to that point, with the HEAT’s defense looking for traction.

A few Suns misses, Eric Gordon twice open in the corner with no reward, two threes from Josh Richardson and Tyler Herro and a pick-six steal from Richardson (just the fifth Suns turnovers of the night) gave Miami life, an 8-0 run to make the deficit 18. It was a comeback in earnest, a bit of a make-or-miss founded comeback with Phoenix attempting a string of corner threes as they worked the ball around the zone, and eventually Miami was within 13 with 4:41 to go against a Phoenix team that has had its share of fourth-quarter issues this season. They made it a game of it with a 31-18 final period but it wasn’t enough, Phoenix taking this one 108-105 as Miami dropped its seventh in a row.

2. While they wound up taking 40 threes due to all of Miami’s late-game zone – see below – the Suns are, even with all their deadly shooting, one of the highest volume mid-range teams in the league. All of Booker, Beal and Durant can get to their one or two dribble pull-ups with ease over the top of any coverage, and they often live and die on those shots.

Through the first three quarters, they did quite a bit of living. After the Eubanks-led paint points stacked up in the first period, the Suns’ lead guys started to get going, making 14-of-23 non-paint two pointers including 7-of-10 outside the paint. In the past – granted, before Beal and Durant – this was always an interesting matchup because the HEAT were primarily a switching team and switching had a way of disrupting all the pick-and-roll work Phoenix wanted to do. But with Miami playing primarily drop coverage this season, conceding a little space in the middle of the floor even as Bam Adebayo manages that space as well as anyone, Phoenix was able to get to what they do best against the HEAT’s base coverages, which may be why so much zone came into play later on. Booker, Beal and Durant combined for a modest 61 points on 59 shots as their percentages fell late, Miami otherwise doubling mismatches to keep any of them from finding a comfortable rhythm one-on-one, but they helped Phoenix build their lead in those middle periods.

3. This was one of the strangest fourth quarters of the season when it comes to the rhythm of the game. You had Miami in its press-zone for almost the entire period, a scheme designed to drain the shot clock of the other team and limit drives while they work the ball around the perimeter. Then you had Phoenix in its prevent offense, happy to beak the press and then slow things way down, not shooting until the final six seconds on the clock, working the ball around the arc until they inevitably found a corner three.

It was a gambit from Erik Spoelstra, playing the odds on outside jumpers, and it came relatively close to paying off. Phoenix shot 3-of-8 on corner threes – remember, they had Durant, Beal and Booker on the floor for most of this stretch – and 1-of-7 on above-the-break triples with just two attempts in the restricted area. It was a sink-or-swim shot profile, of course, if more of those shots fall the game is pretty much over but because threes are generally higher value but lower on the field-goal percentage scale, a cold stretch like this one allowed Miami to get back into the game on the strength of their own 5-of-8 shooting from three in the quarter. It was all a very stop-and-start affair, punctuated by Miami’s burst of shotmaking, and it panned out as far as the quarter went even if the deficit was too great at the start of it.

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Coup's Takeaways: HEAT Attempt Late Comeback But Suns Hold On After Building Big Lead

1. No amount of missing elite talent was stopping this game from an offensive explosion early on, but only one team was able to sustain.

Miami may not have had Jimmy Butler and Phoenix was down Kevin Durant but both sides came out firing, threes falling from all over. Kevin Love came out with 15 point in the first quarter, hitting a couple threes, scoring on a few high-low passes which appeared to be a point of emphasis for Miami given the regularity they were attempting those with, and banking in a face-up jumper. Then Bam Adebayo, after going scoreless and getting into foul trouble in his opening shift, burst out of the gates in the second quarter with 17 – the third highest scoring quarter of his career – hitting his usual jumpers as Phoenix centers backed off in the middle and working his way to the stripe.

Nobody did more damage, than Grayson Allen (31 points on 19 shots), though. That may be a surprising name to read, but Allen has somewhat quietly become one of the league’s better and most consistent shooters over the past couple years and when you’re at that level you’re liable to explode just as someone like Duncan Robinson can. Going into this game Allen’s career high was eight threes in a single game. He had seven midway through the second quarter, opening with a couple from the left corner before burying five more above the break as Miami went to heavy zone usage – eventually getting out of it given how well Phoenix was shooting – for the fourth consecutive game. Phoenix takes the first half, 62-55, with a late burst as both teams combined for 16 triples.

Devin Booker (20 points on 9-of-19 shooting) and Bradley Beal (25 points on 18 shots) opened the second half with zero intention to slow the Suns’ roll, and even as Miami canned a couple of threes Phoenix stretched their lead to 17, eight points coming from that pair along with two more assists. Miami was getting decent looks, granted more from the outside and in, but the makes just weren’t there at the end of a long road trip. The activity and intent were not lacking, only the sharpness of the blade being swung and thus, the results. Phoenix takes the quarter, 32-20, and a 19-point lead headed into the final stretch.

With Phoenix playing some prevent offense for most of the quarter, Miami found some success with late-clock doubles on Booker and Beal to force tough shots. Had a handful of swing plays gone differently, this may have become a game. But it’s tough to mount a fourth-quarter comeback when your threes aren’t falling. Erik Spoelstra pulled the starters with just under two to play, and Phoenix wins, 113-97, as Miami completes a 2-3 road swing.

2. When you’ve been watching the league for long enough you learn not to overreact to certain situations. Back-to-backs, for one. The end of long road trips, for another, especially those on the opposite coast. Not every night is going to be an ideal circumstance, and postseason games are never played in the same context.

So, it’s fair to take one look at Miami’s 10-of-37 from three, 27 percent, and toss it out the window. Sure, maybe there’s some regression coming after such a hot start to the season up and down the roster, and situations like this are part of why every teams cools off a bit over the course of 82 games, but when your legs aren’t there your legs aren’t there. It’s not as though the Suns were aces defending the line, though credit them with some good contests borne out of Miami’s general lack of paint pressure. Same goes for the defense, though unlike the shooting which has been so good for so long the defense has shown holes this season that have been noteworthy. Even though Phoenix didn’t have the same paint volume as other recent HEAT opponents – with two mid-range master and the threes, they didn’t need it – there were still straight-line and blow-by drives that have popped up a bit too often for comfort. This one won’t be worth particularly deep analysis, that’s just one trend to monitor.

3. Nobody is going to care about a pat on the back after this one, but both Love and Adebayo played more than well enough to win. Adebayo finished with 28 points on 19 shots after an 0-of-5 start, doing the sort of things – jumpers, drives, drawing fouls, bailing out stagnant offensive possessions – that have become an everyday quality for him. Love came out hot from the perimeter, setting up either his own post seals or identifying his teammates attempting to do the same, as his at-the-five backup lineups continue to juice the offense by sheer force of floor geography.

Pretty much everyone else had a rough night, and there isn’t much more to say. The HEAT, about to get a pair of needed days off, probably aren’t going to spend too much time with this film. Nor should they. Not every big victory is worthy of celebration nor is every loss like this deserving of indictment. You pick up, get on the plane, and head home.

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Coup's Takeaways: Suns Open Hot And Stay Hot As HEAT End Five-Game Trip

The Miami HEAT are 9-11, No. 11 in the Eastern Conference with a Net Rating of -1.1, No. 21 in the NBA. They’re about to embark on another four-game road trip with two games against the Boston Celtics sandwiched in the middle. Here’s what we’ve been noting and noticing.

Have you ever noticed how Bam Adebayo rarely takes hook shots? He certainly can and has used them, but as a downhill, pick-and-roll player Adebayo has most often gravitated toward push shots and floaters to capitalize on momentum. Even when contact turns him away from the rim, or he initializes contact out of a post-up, he’s typically not going over one shoulder for a hook, preferring to keep two hands on the ball – which has the benefit of allowing him to pump fake and draw fouls – so he can get to a short jumper.

The fact that it’s a jumper he leans on at all is unusual. Most bigger players, non-Nikola Jokic division, don’t have the touch to shoot a regular jumper from such short range. Even Adebayo didn’t quite have that touch earlier in his career – he says playing HORSE and trying circus shots has helped him there – but now he’s reached the point where he can effectively pullup from anywhere in the paint with a normal follow through much in the same way Kevin Durant can.

For a player who sometimes struggles to score against elite length and rim protection, it’s a critical skill. Push shots and floaters are shots that you shoot going into a defender and going into size isn’t always a wise decision. With a jumper, Adebayo can both get elevation on the ball with two feet underneath him while also add some fade to get it over the top of someone like Kristaps Porzingis.

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Notebook 33: Bam Go-To Shot

“He’s developing that go-to shot where you just have this feeling now when he’s getting in the paint, at the circle, he’s going right or left against length, you feel like that shot is going in every single time,” Erik Spoelstra says. “It’s not every time, but you just get a sense where players get to that level like, ‘Oh, that’s going in.’ All the great players get to that point. And that’s a great look for him. It’s right in that in-between game, it’s not a 17-foot shot, its aggressive, assertive, [with] elevation, he can get it off against bigger guys.

“I think it’s just amazing when he does that, when he really elevates. When he gets off the floor and his release point is over seven feet, I think that’s the best version of that pullup.”

So far this season, no center has attempted more non-rim paint shots than Adebayo, as he leads both Giannis Antetokounmpo (105 attempts) and Jokic (104) with 121. If you narrow his attempts in that zone to just jumpers, only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (41) has taken more than Adebayo (33), with Durant coming in third. The next center on that list is Joel Embiid, with 17 attempts. In other words, Adebayo is displaying the touch to take short jumpers like a guard, or one of the best and most unique shooters of all time in Durant, despite being a 6-foot-9 center.

Efficiency still matters. League average on non-rim paint shots is about 45 percent. Adebayo is currently at 43. That should improve considering he finished at 49 percent in that region last season – Jokic, typically the best from that range, was over 60 percent – despite the thumb injury, as should his 39 percent on short-range jumpers after being closer to 44 a year ago. The Shot Quality data has remained right around the same level. Adebayo’s tough shots haven’t gotten tougher, he’s just taking a few more of them.

That’s probably the best part. The volume. Adebayo won’t reach Jokic levels on short shots just as most wings not named Durant or Kawhi Leonard don’t reach Michael Jordan’s efficiency from the mid-range. Having a shot you know you can get to comfortably in any situation, even against length, is hugely valuable in a playoff series. Miami still needs Adebayo to roll to the rim, and they still need Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Kyle Lowry to playmake, but part of becoming a go-to- scorer is having a go-to shot and Adebayo is been growing into his for years.

Before he missed the last two games with a shoulder injury, something interesting was happening with Max Strus. Yes, his three-point percentage had dropped to 35.3 after topping out at 41 percent last season, but it’s still early enough and Strus was closer to 38 percent before the most recent road trip where so many players missed games and Strus had to take even tougher shots than usual.

Forget about the percentages for a moment. What’s interesting about Strus is that, per 100 possessions, his three-point frequency had dropped a little (12.3 per 100 down from 13.9) while his two-point rate was skyrocketing, up to 6.3 per 100 from 3.8. Last season 78 percent of Strus’ shots came from beyond the arc. This season that number has fallen to 65.9.

Some of this is purposeful. Strus hasn’t been shy in talking about how he’s more than just a shooter – Spoelstra echoes the same sentiment – and previously spoke about how he’s worked in the offseason to expand his off-the-bounce game. And yet some of that intention comes from how he’s being defended. If you know teams are going to start chasing you off the line, it’s only natural to work on the skills you’ll need to counter that coverage.

Against Cleveland earlier this week, Strus only took five threes. Spoelstra noted afterwards that it mostly had to do with the Cavaliers defensive focus.

“They were playing on the top side of all of our shooters,” Spoelstra said. “It requires extra efforts, extra focus to get to the second layer of your offense. I thought at times we did, but for the most part they took us out of our actions with the physicality and keeping our shooters from getting to the three-point line.”

What does that top-siding look like? It’s essentially Strus’ defender fighting over the top of screens to get a rear-view contest should Strus attempt to capitalize on the brief window of opportunity.

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Notebook 33: Strus Top Siding

Nothing too complicated, but what Cleveland also did is something Utah popularized against Duncan Robinson a few years back, which was bringing a third defender over from further along the arc to add another layer of constriction to the shooter’s space.

And then, of course, there are possessions where Strus is simply being face-guarded or pressured.

Miami has seen all of this before. Strus has been in some ways at a disadvantage because, in coming into the rotation after Robinson – whose two-point rate has also doubled this season – he was facing defenses that already had a couple of seasons worth of experience against Robinson. Strus has always been facing coverages designed for someone else. The benefit, of course, is that he’s been able to adjust. He’s shooting 57 percent from two and has shown some nice touch on floaters. Strus and Robinson shooting more twos because they’re being pressured at the arc is not inherently an issue if the efficiency is still there – both will likely see their percentages rise over time – but it does change the geography of the floor somewhat if the ball is staying in their hands rather than their gravity creating attack space for Miami’s lead playmakers.

The HEAT have scored reasonably well over the past two games without Strus, but it took the best first half of Kyle Lowry’s career and one of the best offensive games Adebayo has ever had in order to get there. The offense (No. 24 at 109.6 points per 100) will need Strus to get back closer to league average or better, the requirements of that need might just be a little different than they’ve ever been before.

Miami currently leads the league in clutch games, meaning contests that are within five points in the final five minutes, with 15. If they continue at this pace, with 75 percent of their games tightly contested down the stretch, they have a chance to be the first team to finish over the 60-game mark in the past decade.

Is that a good thing? It’s a little bit of yes, a little bit of no. Being in a ton of close games means you always have a chance to win. The glass half empty viewpoint is you also tend to have a chance to lose. There’s only so much control teams have over the outcomes of games that come down to a few possessions going one way or another, and no matter how exciting the finishes are it’s always better to take chance out of the equation by earning a bigger lead before those final five.

Predictably, the results for teams leading the league in clutch games are a mixed bag. Of the past 10 teams who have led in that category, four of them have missed the playoffs outright. Another four lost in the first round – including the 2017-18 HEAT – and the remaining two, the 2016-17 Wizards and 2019-20 Nuggets, lost in seven games in the second round. Go back even further and you’ll see more of the same, teams that are well outside the postseason picture and teams that had chance at taking a first-round series.

The one exception? The 1999 Pacers team that made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals before falling to the Knicks. That was a 50-game lockout season, so it’s an exception in more ways than one.

Does any of this matter right now, while the HEAT are dealing with so many injuries? Not really. You take wins however you can get them. But as they get closer to whole they’ll probably want to finish off some of these games before getting into the clutch. As fun as close games are, point differentials and Net Rating have generally been better indicators of long-term prospects.

We don’t need to belabor the point about the HEAT’s zone usage. With this recent run of shorthanded games where they’ve leaned on the coverage even more they’re not only blowing previous zone records out of the water, they’re redefining how zone can be employed in an NBA game. There are likely to be diminishing returns over time – over the past five seasons Miami’s zone has allowed 0.97 ppp before New Year’s Eve and 1.11 ppp after, an effect which is consistent each year – as teams prep for it, but for now it’s a fixture in the team’s night-to-night oeuvre.

Washington never really figured out the zone in these three recent games. They knew where to put players and where to probe, but their approach was never as consistent as Cleveland’s, for example, early last week where the Cavaliers were screening the zone for Donovan Mitchell or Darius Garland on one side and then flipping it to the other ballhandler as he dashed through the weak-side gap at full speed. That said, the Wizards did have an interesting wrinkle that is worth paying attention to.

Most teams will flash their big men to the heart of the zone. They’re big targets and they can keep the ball high when the flanks of the zone collapse to the ball. The teams with highly skills bigs who can operate in traffic at the free-throw line can be an absolute nightmare for the coverage. Kristaps Porzingis made some shots in that area for the Wizards, but he was a far cry from being a true zone buster. So, in certain spots, Wes Unseld Jr. went to a different look.

Notice who is flashing to the middle on these possessions?

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Notebook 33: Beal Middle Zone

Part of what makes the zone so effective is that it removes some agency from the oppositions high-level scorers. With their usual attack zones stripped way, it’s common to see high-usage players suddenly stuck just swinging the ball around the perimeter. Bradley Beal is far and away Washington’s most talented offensive playmaker, so they just stuck him right in the middle of the action.

There aren’t a ton of Beal analogues around the league so this may be a moot point, but we could start seeing more of this, more of guards and wings working in the middle of the zone, as teams come to expect the coverage from the HEAT.

-At just over 33 percent, Miami clearly isn’t shooting as well from three as last year when they led the league. That much is clear. But their offense has also dipped because their two-point shooting, No. 24 at 52.3 percent, has slipped about a percentage point. We’ll see where that ends up once the team gets healthier, but it’s notable given that there’s been an increase in unassisted shots being taken.

-Miami is currently sitting No. 14 in Defensive Rebounding Percentage, but here’s something a little deeper. On opponent shots taken at the rim – where you might think size plays a larger role – the HEAT are No. 11 in defensive rebounding. But on corner threes, shots with a wider range of outcomes as far as where the ball will land, they are No. 25. They’re also allowing the second-most corner threes in the league after allowing the sixth-most last season.

-Always a pretty slow team, Miami’s defensive pace – the average length of their defensive possessions – has slipped about half a second from last season when they had the “slowest” defense in the league at around 15 seconds. Not a huge shift, but a small way of showing how teams are getting more early offense against the HEAT’s defense, which is slowly climbing up the leaderboard now sitting at No. 12 (albeit with splits that still dramatically favor their zone coverage).

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Coup’s Notebook Vol. 33: Bam’s Go-To Move, Top Siding Strus, A Whole Lotta Clutch and Bradley Beal’s Interesting Zone Wrinkle

The NBA knows him as Gabe Vincent, an undrafted former G-Leaguer who has played fewer than one thousand total minutes over the past two seasons with the Miami HEAT.

On Saturday night in Las Vegas, as Team Nigeria upset the USA Men’s Basketball Team, some of the league’s best players were introduced to Nnamdi. It’s the name Vincent didn’t think to use until he visited Nigeria and was asked, pointedly and repeatedly, what is your name.

“That’s very much part of my culture. When I put on that jersey, that’s the name I put on my back because that’s how people recognize me,” Vincent said.

It’s the name Vincent wore as he scored 21 points against the likes of Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal. It’s the name he wore as he clinched the win with a pair of free throws in the final seconds of what is likely – we won’t claim expertise here but it certainly seems to be the case – one of the greatest sporting victories in the history of not only Nigeria, but the African continent.

“It’s almost like an alter ego of sorts. I almost become a different person.”

The results were different, which we’ll get to in a moment, but the player was the same one HEAT fans will recognize. You don’t carve a spot for yourself in the league the way Vincent has, earning a two-way contract with the Miami HEAT two years after he went undrafted out of UC Santa Barbara, without being a grinder. Even when his shot wasn’t falling, Vincent often made his way onto Erik Spoelstra’s court through sheer force of will on the defensive end and his steady composure on the other. He wasn’t even a shoo in to make the Nigerian team when he joined them in 2019. He had to earn his way to that roster spot, too.

That the shots didn’t fall during the regular season was strange enough. Vincent’s mechanics are steady, compact and consistent, so it was always a bit of a head scratcher that he shot just 31 percent from deep across 50 appearances. In no way did he look like a 31 percent shooter, nor did any of his past history imply that that’s what he was.

When Vincent hit six of his eight threes against Team USA, nothing looked different. The ball just went it, maybe more like it should have all along.

“I can’t say we came into this game expecting to shoot extremely well from three . . . but we did,” Vincent said.

In classic slash modern upset fashion, the entire Nigerian team shot 20-of-42 from deep – holding off run after run with shot after shot – as Team USA only attempted 24 threes of their own. To put that number in perspective, before the 2010 season an NBA team had only hit 20 threes in a playoff game once. One time. Uno.

The great equalizer did plenty of equalizing.

“The three-point game was the difference tonight,” USA coach Gregg Popovich said.

It wasn’t the whole story, though, which Popovich agreed with, saying it would be a mistake to ‘let [Team USA] off the hook’ by writing the evenings events off as just a hot shooting night. The rest of the world has been catching up on the talent front for decades. Nigeria, with a roster full of past, present and future NBA players, is only the latest team to do so.

“Every year teams are better and better,” Popovich said. “Every year one two or three more NBA players are on their teams.”

Joining Vincent in the Nigerian starting five were HEAT teammates KZ Okpala and Precious Achiuwa. Okpala went scoreless on just four shots but just a day after Nigeria head coach Mike Brown said he thought Okpala had future Defensive Player of the Year potential, Brown backed his own words up asking Okpala to pick up Lillard full court.

And later on it was Okpala marking Kevin Durant with Team USA down three in the closing moments.

Also on the Durant front, Achiuwa had the highlight of the night doing this to the former MVP at the rim.

Achiuwa attempted two threes, something he rarely did in his first season in Miami, and made one, while pulling down a clutch rebound in the final minute.

We’ll track the progress of all three HEAT players as the summer continues, as well as the performance of Bam Adebayo, who started at center for Team USA. Those are all stories for another day. For now, for today, this is about history, and the role that the name Nnamdi played in it. It may have just been an exhibition game on paper. The ultimate goal, as Vincent noted postgame, may be to medal. But you try telling anyone that this game didn’t matter.

“I don’t think any African team has been able to beat USA Basketball in an exhibition game or a real game,” Brown said. “To try to get a little bit of momentum, not just for our group, but for Nigeria, for the continent of Africa because we feel like we represent more than just Nigeria, and really for black people all around the world.

“To get that win and show that we can, was a big moment for us.”

Team USA will likely be fine. They’ve got the talent, and they’ll get better as they play together. But there’s something special happening with Nigeria Basketball, the D’Tigers as they’re known, both for the name on the front of the jersey, and the names on the back.

Bradley Beal

Coup's Takeaways: HEAT Attempt Late Comeback But Suns Hold On After Building Big Lead

Coup's Takeaways: Suns Open Hot And Stay Hot As HEAT End Five-Game Trip

Coup’s Notebook Vol. 33: Bam’s Go-To Move, Top Siding Strus, A Whole Lotta Clutch and Bradley Beal’s Interesting Zone Wrinkle

Gabe Vincent Leads Nigeria Past Team USA