Indiana Pacers

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Couper Moorhead

1. After making everything in their rematch against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, the Miami HEAT were again making everything.

Problem was, the Indiana Pacers were making more than that. Until they weren’t.

After Miami, without Andrew Wiggins for the night, dodged some early misses thanks to some offensive boards, the early story of this one was how fluid the offense looked on both sides. If you wanted to nitpick, the HEAT’s opportunities were a bit worse off than Indiana’s as the Pacers found clean looks nearly every time down. Even with the looks being as good as they were, there aren’t many teams that will make 75 percent of them.

And yet there was Indiana, 12-of-15 from deep midway through the second period as Miami went zone with their bench for the second straight game, both the open, catch-and-shoot looks falling as well as the tougher stepbacks taken by Tyrese Haliburton and Myles Turner. The HEAT stayed attached during that stretch thanks to their own threes, plus a couple timely threes created by their full-court and sideline pressure, but the lead stretched to as much as 12, on two separate occasions, until Miami closed the half on a 13-2 run, three straight triples of their own the spark that started the run.

Pacers up, 69-68 at the break, neither team showing much in the way of answers for the other, Tyler Herro with the toughest buckets of the night, leaning threes and high-arcing floaters, for 18 points on 15 shots. First side to cool off, loses.

Lineup change to start the third, Alec Burks out there instead of Kel’el Ware, Miami down nine after 80 seconds with Indiana on an 8-0 run, all two pointers. That lineup was short lived as Jaime Jaquez Jr. turned an ankle and had to be helped to the locker room, and two straight threes from Burks later Miami was only down three.

About a minute later, Herro controlling the game from the top, Miami was up two off a 12-1 run. Indiana took the lead back for a few possessions, and it was back-and-forth time after that. A quick burst from Haywood Highsmith, saving possessions on the glass again, put Miami up 97-92, an advantage gained with both Herro and Bam Adebayo resting.

Another Burks three put Miami up 10 early in the fourth, plenty of time bought for Herro and Adebayo as Indiana’s shooting had more than cooled off. The Pacers weren’t folding, however, tying things up a few minutes later, and it was time for a clutch game.

Back to the Adebayo-Ware lineup to close things out. Pascal Siakam kept having himself a career night with the jumper, and then some, the HEAT finding just enough, thanks to a couple more threes. Tie game with a minute to go and then the Pacers left Mitchell wide open, his three giving Miami the edge they needed to come out on top, &nbsp;

2. This was the sort of explosive offensive nights where had either team had even just an above-average shooting evening, they would have lost by double digits.

Indiana may have cooled off in the third, they still finished at 21-of-39 from deep, Siakam with a career-high eight threes on 11 attempts for 36 points. There wasn’t a spot on the floor where the Pacers weren’t efficient on any sort of volume. Some of that is just how they run their offense, bigs able to spot up and guards able to get downhill as Haliburton manages the show, but makes are makes and for a one-off sort of evening their shotmaking was plenty good enough to win.

Fortunately for Miami, their hot streak stretched to two games, consecutive nights above 50 percent from three even with Herro only at 3-of-10. Robinson (4-of-6 from the arc) and Burks (3-of-5) did much of that work off the bench, but it was Mitchell’s three with just under a minute to go that was the difference on a night that could have turned on any one shot. When Herro drew Haliburton on the switch the Pacers, either by sideline call or by instinct, opted not to trust him, sending a second player at Herro on the dribble which left Mitchell wide open on the left angle. Even as Mitchell went 5-of-5 from deep last game (2-of-2 tonight), the Pacers opted not to closeout on the pass and Mitchell drained it. One Adebayo steal later and the game was Miami’s.

As a side note to the HEAT’s 135.9 Offensive Rating, they were also incredibly efficient in the upper paint, 14-of-26 on those short jumpers and floaters over Indiana’s length. The threes are the story, particularly across this two-game stretch, but those intermediate range looks were the foundation that carried them along all evening.

3. Some interesting rotation moves from Spoelstra tonight, the game-to-game cycle of change continuing. While Jaquez Jr. started as a fill-in for Wiggins, in the second half Spoelstra went with Burks over Ware, going away from the big-big lineup as a starting group for the first time since they started together in late January. The results at first weren’t ideal, Indiana going on that quick 8-0 run, but Miami stabilized after that, Burks’ offense exactly what it was supposed to be. One possible explanation for the change was that both Siakam and Turner were both shooting the ball so well, it behooved Miami to have more perimeter speed on the floor to shut down those threes, especially with Indiana managing the zone well enough.

Perhaps of greater interest, then, is that Spoelstra went back to Ware (eight points on three shots) and Adebayo (18 points on 14 shots) to close the game. Siakam did just hit open threes in bunches during that stretch, to be sure, almost enough to push the game in Indiana’s favor, but a burst from Robinson, including a smooth runner at an angle, and that Mitchell three was more than enough, Ware’s presence around the rim creating a couple misses that could have been the difference on their own.

With Jaquez Jr. leaving the game with an ankle injury, in addition to that status of Wiggins, we don’t know what the injury report will look like for next game. What we do know is that Spoelstra continued to search for the right combination in real time. In back-to-back games now, he’s found the ones that had the shooting in the biggest moments.

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Coup’s Takeaways: Hot Shooting, Again, Puts Miami Over The Top As Davion Mitchell’s Three, Again, Makes The Difference

1. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle sent a clear message, a couple of them really, Friday night when he pulled his entire starting lineup, twice, in the second half after what he was seeing of their defensive effort.

Miami finished with their highest Shot Quality – expected effective field-goal percentage based on the location of their attempts and the contests from the defense – of the season in that one. Tonight, Indiana came out with a much clearer sense of purpose on the defensive side, two early baseline cuts from Miami, plays where they were walking into scores on Friday, stymied in the early going.

Pacers took a quick 8-0 lead on a pair of Myles Turner threes, Miami responded with back-to-back Kevin Love threes and thus a pattern was established. Every time Indiana pushed their lead to eight or more, Miami would immediately punch back with a series of threes and offensive rebounds while Erik Spoelstra’s zone switch toggled on and off. Where they started Friday off cold from the outside, sustained by all those darts into the paint, tonight their shooting (three first-half tripled from Duncan Robinson helping Miami get to 40 percent) kept them attached, 52-49 at the break.

Indiana again pushed it to eight early in the third, Turner (34 points on 23 shots, 5-of-8 from three) again starting the half hot. This time the counter did not come immediately, the lead stretched out to 15. A four-point play from Tyler Herro helped matters but with everyone else missing some pretty decent looks the lead quickly went back to 16. Another hit back from Miami, the pattern staying true enough, three again keeping them alive this time Bam Adebayo closing it to 10 with a corner three. Jaime Jaquez Jr. rolled his ankle and had to leave for the locker room at that point, another Robinson three falling in the meantime as Miami hung around still down 10 going into the fourth despite their own 8-of-18 shooting at the rim.

Another set of back-to-back threes, this time from Herro, and it was down to eight even before Robinson got fouled taking a three. Herro again soon after, his third triple in the quarter to bring it all the way down to three. Indiana’s shot quality quickly fell off a cliff from there, Miami’s not mattering as Robinson hit a tough, contested triple to tie it up. Haliburton (16 points on 13 shots, 13 assists) followed up with consecutive threes of his own to give Indiana some breathing room again.

Right as Indiana went up eight with two to play, Herro again pulled up in transition for another triple followed by another, seriously, seconds later. Problem was, unlike Detroit last week, the Pacers matched Miami shot for shot, Turner hitting two late threes, including one with 50 seconds left, to keep the Pacers up seven. Siakam made a mistake after that, fouling himself out on the inbound to stop the clock and give Nikola Jovic a pair of free-throws, Miami’s full-court press forcing an Indiana timeout.

That was that for the never-ending counters, nothing going for Miami in the closing moments after Herro’s barrage gave them a chance as Indiana took it, 119-110. The HEAT officially finish up their road trip 2-4 and get to finish it off with a back-to-back Monday night in Miami against Philadelphia.

2. Indiana, particularly their starters, deserves credit for the way they responded to a rough night on Friday, watching all that tape of Miami cutting their defense to shreds with open look after layup after open look. Just about everything comfortable dried up inside the arc for Miami, 8-of-19 at the rim, 6-of-18 in the upper paint and 3-of-9 in the mid-range, few of those easy misses. Indiana won points in the paint, 62-28.

Miami did close things off in the paint for a stretch in the fourth, Spoelstra’s shell scheme keeping the ball going around the horn and rarely downhill even as he ran offense-forward lineups. That was the only stretch, outside of some of that early zone, when Indiana’s offense (125.5 offensive rating) looked out of rhythm, Haliburton left trying to create on a short clock with defenders pinched in on his drives and his man pushed up on his jumper, but for as close as Miami got off the back of those stops in the middle of the fourth, Haliburton’s back-to-back threes – one in a scramble, one off the dribble – reopened the painted doors for Benedict Mathurin to get to the rim for a foul and for T.J. McConnell to attack Miami’s pressure for a dagger layup.

Friday night the Pacers hung around, until they didn’t, largely because they were hitting their threes. They hit 13-of-29 tonight, but you’ll live with that if the interior is closed off as Miami’s philosophy intends. Instead, the Pacers found success at all levels, the HEAT’s 10 turnovers keeping fast-break opportunities relatively low – Indiana still has 18 in transition, but on lower volume – while Indiana produced 111.4 points-per-100 in the halfcourt. It’s the end of a long trip, to be sure, with Jimmy Butler out and Jaquez Jr. injured, but allowing volume in the paint is anathema to the HEAT’s intention all the same.

3. On one hand, you don’t want to be in position to need to mount a comeback, Miami finding themselves trailing in second halves somewhat regularly in many of their early season games. Just as playing in clutch games means you’re living life on the edge, at risk of one or two bounces ruining your night, trailing late in the third or early in the fourth means the clock is ticking away the seconds before you essentially must be perfect to have a chance.

On the other hand, the HEAT have largely demonstrated an ability to comeback and give themselves a chance before perfection is required. Their home opener against Orlando went awry in the second half when their shooting went Antarctic, but outside of that one the three-ball has almost always been there, tonight the final tally landing at 19-of-44 for 43.2 percent. It’s a smart, mathematically sound approach, the upside of all those threes far outweighing the need for a more balanced shot profile. It also probably doesn’t work without the services of Herro and Robinson, the latter able to make from anywhere as he plays his handoff game with Adebayo, the former nearing absurdity with his fourth quarters as he finished with 28 points on 18 shots, 7-of-11 from three. It’s no mistake, then, that Spoelstra’s late-game offense tonight primarily involved those three players working in tandem, all that fluid gravity generating just enough space for a launch while Adebayo worked one-on-one when the Pacers stalled things out.

We know Robinson (20 points on 10 shots, 5-of-8 from three) can do this off the catch, but we’re still months away from knowing if what Herro is doing is even remotely sustainable as he followed up a cooler Friday with a scorching Sunday, hitting off the dribble within the confines of a phonebooth. This is a special, special run from him, and as much as Miami doesn’t always want to be in position to need such magic from Herro, it sure is nice to know it’s an option – especially with him hunting threes at such volume, forgoing the mid-range even when times are tough – all the same.

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Coup’s Takeaways: Indiana’s Defense Responds As They Split Two-Game Set Despite More Late-Game Herro Fireballs

1. There aren’t too many matchups of clashing styles in the NBA this year. The HEAT, a slower, opportunistic offense with a defense that wants to grind every ounce of will out of the other side. The Pacers, a turbo-charged offensive machine with a defense that leaks water even on a good night. Who gets to who?

Right from the start, the answer was Miami. First, Haywood Highsmith snuck behind Indiana’s starters for an easy two off the cut. Then, he simply sprints out in transition for a hit ahead dunk. Timeout Pacers.

Indiana is still Indiana, hanging around as the three ball outpaced Miami’s shooting, attached at worst and taking a small lead at best. But even while their threes fell Miami kept finding good look after good look, Highsmith and Nikola Jovic – wearing a black mask after injuring his nose the other night in Detroit – most often the beneficiaries with 22 on 11 shots in the first half. You credit the HEAT for their process, in place through years and years of emphasis from Erik Spoelstra, but you also see the lack of third or even second efforts from Indiana, such were the never-ending open lanes – with or without the ball – in the first half. Miami by eight for most of the second period, their threes coming to life a bit after a frigid start, Indiana closing to six at the break with 9-of-20 shooting from deep and a last-second layup from Tyrese Haliburton (16 on 12 shots at halftime).

Naturally Miami then opened the third quarter with an uncontested layup for Kevin Love on another short, simple cut, not the best sign for Indiana’s defense finding its footing. Love then followed that up with a wide open three and a pick-six backcourt turnover, Miami going up 11. Another pair of open threes after that, Love channeling all that Shot Quality into point after point (13 at that point, to be exact) as Miami went up 13. Just like that, Miami was having a great shooting night.

It was certainly a choice for Indiana to come out of that timeout, down 13, and immediately go with a Pascal Siakam post-up against Bam Adebayo but it didn’t much matter as their defense continued its porous ways, another easy Love layup leading to another timeout, HEAT up 17. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle took out his entire starting lineup at that point. It didn’t get any better, HEAT up 20.

Much more energy for the Pacers after that, Indiana’s bench hitting back with 12 straight to bring the deficit all the way down to 10, Obi Topping heavily involved in all of it, all in the span of about two minutes. Miami would regroup behind Adebayo earning trips to the line, still up 13 at the end of the period, the question at that point whether Carlisle would return to his starters in the fourth, particularly with point differential tiebreakers a factor.

Those starters did, in fact, return for the start of the fourth as Miami went back up 16 anyways on a tough Duncan Robinson three as the offense continued to flow through Adebayo. Soon after that another test-the-wind three for Josh Richardson, Indiana’s starters still struggling with multiple efforts.

All that work done by Indiana’s bench was soon wiped out in full by their own starters, Adebayo hitting back-to-back wide-open threes as the lead spiked all the way back up to 21. Another full line shift from Carlisle. There would be no further threat, but the Pacers bench did well enough to eat into the lead enough for it to matter for point differential purposes, Miami winning 124-110 to get to 1-1 in NBA Cup play.

2. In some ways this night felt a bit more about Indiana than about Miami, the HEAT running their stuff full steam ahead while the Pacers dealt with whatever they were dealing with after Rick Carlisle twice benched the starters for their poor defense. Miami probably won’t see many worse defensive efforts this year, especially from a team with postseason aspirations.

Still, while Miami had plenty of runway to get to the rim tonight – they finished 18-of-24 there – while the game was competitive, Adebayo (team-high +22) was in control of the game in a way that extended beyond mere make or miss. It was Adebayo running point for much of the night, both literally as he brought the ball up the court and setup the offense – sometimes even after a timeout, thus a deliberate decision from Spoelstra – and figuratively as he ran the actions which burned Indiana’s first efforts on a night where there were few seconds.

It's been a slower start offensively to the season for Adebayo mostly as he’s struggled finishing in his comfort zones but tonight he was anything but uncomfortable, finishing his usual array of floaters and push shots and jumpers in the paint, making all three of his mid-range attempts and even hitting those back-to-back threes. As the game settled down and Indiana’s bench tried to eat into the lead down the stretch, it was Adebayo finishing possessions to maintain the double-digit advantage as he finished with 30 points on 10-of-17 shooting to go with 11 rebounds and seven assists on top of five steals. There was never much worry about Adebayo’s offense with his longstanding consistency year-to-year, but there’s nothing wrong with a good get right game while your defense sustains positive minute-to-minute impact while percentages fluctuate.

3. The moment will be lost to time a bit due to the strange nature of Indiana’s second half but if anyone truly broke this one wide open it was Kevin Love early in the third quarter, his barrage of threes forcing Carlisle to burn timeout after timeout.

Spoelstra has managed Love’s minutes carefully over the past two seasons and that seems very likely to continue, Love poised to be one of the better per-minute contributors in the league this season with nights like tonight, 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting (plus four steals) in just 12 minutes. Love is who he is and is at the point in his career where not much is going to change in his game but no change should be necessary as his shooting has always been a cheat code – with Love starting right now that doesn’t leave many minutes for Spoelstra to use him as a backup center in those five-out lineups, but with Jimmy Butler injured there isn’t as much of a reason to get to those groups – his defensive rebounds a major compliment to Adebayo’s minutes and his long outlets, with a couple touchdowns tonight, one of Miami’s most consistent transition generators outside of forcing turnovers.

Love is most definitely a luxury. Miami is lucky to have him for however long they do.

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Coup's Takeaways: HEAT Earn First NBA Cup Win Behind Bam Adebayo’s Lead At Indiana

1. Relative to the sheer breadth of his responsibilities on both ends of the floor, Bam Adebayo is functionally Miami’s most important player. Relative to the gargantuan offensive burden Tyrese Haliburton carries, you can say the same about him for Indiana.

And so with both players out, Saturday night was a story of how teams adapt without the players who give them their beat-by-beat identity.

In the first half the Pacers, who opened the game 1-of-10 from the field, were the ones finding a way to play true to who they are and want to be. Miami had little trouble scoring – the Pacers aren’t great defensively with or without Haliburton – as they lived in the paint, shot 8-of-16 from three and got to just any pet action, be it back-screen lobs for Jimmy Butler or downhill handoffs for Duncan Robinson, they desired. But without Adebayo the paint was open. Even as the Pacers, outside of Aaron Nesmith (3-of-4 from three in the first half), struggled from deep, they kept reversing the ball until they found a half-step advantage and full-stepped their way into drive after drive, finishing 21-of-29 in the paint. It wasn’t quite the beautiful game they play with Haliburton, but it was with the same efficiency (127.5 Offensive Rating) that they kept the game tied, 65-65, despite Miami playing mostly with the lead.

For the first five minutes of the third, Indiana played the best individual defense they had played in this two-game series – every paint attempt was contested, every switch was clean, every action had a defender attached to the ball – and with their shooting coming around, the result was a 15-2 run and a 10-point lead. Back to both teams trading baskets after that, only this time with Miami playing from behind much as they did for the first three quarters of Thursday’s game. Pacers by eight going into the fourth, with the question lingering as to how they would close without their closer.

Miami went back to Jaime Jaquez Jr. in the post to open the fourth as they have so often done of late, particularly without Tyler Herro available, but Butler would return early at the nine-minute mark right as Indiana stretched the lead to 12 on a corner three from Bruce Brown. Butler had little trouble scoring, it was just a matter of getting the stops. After closing to six, Miami was again down 11 after just two possessions without a score. Not enough stops in the end, Indiana winning 144-129, a game that was much closer than that until the final five minutes.

2. The Pacers made the threes they didn’t make on Thursday, hitting 16-of-32 – Miami was almost as good from deep, 12-of-25, albeit on lower volume – and that was a major reason for them putting things out of reach before the final buzzer, but the story of the past two games, especially in the minutes Adebayo did not play, was that Indiana could not be stopped from getting into the paint.

It didn’t matter much who it was, whether Nesmith (20 points) and Bennedict Mathurin (16 points on 10 shots) early on or Bruce Brown (7-of-9 in the paint, 30 points on 16 shots) and T.J. McConnell (8-of-9 on upper paint jumpers, 2-of-2 in the mid-range for 20 points) throughout, the Pacers just kept getting into the paint, running action after action until daylight presented itself and bursting through those windows no matter how many HEAT players had their arms in the way. After scoring 74 in the paint on Thursday with Haliburton running the show, Indiana followed that up with 76 tonight without their engine.

The Pacers then, played to their identity on both ends without their star, posting an Offensive Rating of 148.5 and giving up 133 per 100 on the other end. And the HEAT, without Adebayo, did not, allowing paint score after paint score – along with 20 in transition – when the central tenet of Spoelstra’s defense is limiting just those opportunities. There’s a reason Adebayo is so heralded for his defense – his abilities extend far beyond his perimeter switching, as he is just as responsible for keeping the ball out of the paint as any other elite center in the league.

3. One of the more interesting wrinkles from this two-game series was Rick Carlisle’s decision to have Obi Toppin (22 points on eight shots), Indiana’s ostensible starting power forward, defend Butler whenever the two were in the game. Now, Miami is generally positionless outside of their starting centers so teams that start two bigger players have to put the second one somewhere, but Carlisle could have easily had Toppin on Haywood Highsmith – who left the game early with back spasms and did not return – or Caleb Martin. Instead, he chose to follow in the wake of what others have done before by sticking his most mobile length on Butler and forcing him to find a way over or under. Toppin is no Anthony Davis or Giannis Antetokounmpo, but he does have long arms and was generally Indiana’s most disciplined defender on Butler.

It was interesting, then, that Butler (33 points on 23 shots) never tried to beat Topping from the outside-in. As Jaquez Jr. said after Thursday’s game, the gameplan was to beat Indiana inside and Butler took that to heart, wedging his shoulders into Topping to sneak around and touch the restricted area. Credit Toppin in this ongoing battle for not fouling and relying on his length to challenge, often getting Butler hung up without a dribble, but credit Butler, too, for his creativity, always happy to wait out the patience of the defender until he can find a window for a tough finish. This won’t be the last time a coach puts length on Butler, and at least in this case Butler showed, running Toppin off multiple screens down the stretch to get a step if not a switch with nobody else able to avoid fouling him, that there are ways to beat those assignments with the right angles.

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Coup's Takeaways: Butler Scores At Will, But Trading Baskets Not Enough As Pacers Run Away In Final Minutes With Both Teams Missing Stars

1. You knew the Pacers – to this point posting one of the best Offensive Ratings of all time – were going to come to Miami ready to run. With Tyrese Haliburton leading the way, and then some, speed and efficiency is Indiana’s entire identity, even if it costs them a bit on the defensive end.

Even knowing what was coming, though, sometimes you need to see it, to feel it, to believe it. What the Pacers were doing in the first half, jumping ahead 15-4 early and holding a lead around 10 through two quarter while they sometimes scored in seven seconds or less, was unlike anything the HEAT have seen before this season. Whether there was an adjustment period or not – it would be understandable if there was, but only the team will be able to speak to that postgame – the quickness with which Haliburton (28 points in the first half on 14 shots) had Indiana moving, both in the open floor and in the half-court, was getting the Pacers into the heart of the paint with regularity. By the break it was 73-64, with the Pacers’ Offensive Rating of 146, with 8-of-8 shooting at the rim, topping an excellent-on-any-other-night 128 from the HEAT. Miami also lost Bam Adebayo for the game to a hip injury in the second quarter, with Thomas Bryant replacing him in the starting lineup in the third.

Eight straight from Kyle Lowry to open the half helped matters to get within two as Jimmy Butler went into takeover mode, parading himself to the foul line through contact, but the Pacers could not be slowed unless they were missing from three. The lead stayed at 10. At one point midway through the third, Haliburton had been playing so well that Duncan Robinson was essentially playing full ball denial on Indiana’s point guard even as Haliburton stood within a few feet of the half-court line. A regular supply of free-throws, with Indiana missing a handful of their own, kept things well within a possession or two – one headed into the fourth – as Butler put up 16 points in the third.

As the Pacers continued to miss some freebies (21-of-32 at the line), Miami made their push for their first lead with Butler getting some rest early in the fourth, Jaime Jaquez Jr. getting to the paint for two – followed by a few more – and Robinson draining a wide, wide open three. All those easy scores Indiana was generating in the first half dried up as Miami packed the paint and blitzed the ball out of Haliburton’s (44 points on 15-of-28 shooting to go with 10 assists) hands as Butler hounded him one-on-one, Indiana couldn’t counter from three (11-of-43, with not a single make from their bench) and the paint remained wide open for the HEAT.

The Pacers might have come into this one as the offensive machine, looking every bit the part through the first three quarters, but it was Miami, winning just as high scoring as expected at 142-132, that sustained their own attack behind a veteran All-Star, a remarkable rookie and some good old-fashioned pressure.

2. On any normal night, especially one where you lose Adebayo in the first half, the game ball goes to Butler (36 points on 18 shots, 18-of-20 from the free-throw line) just for doing Butler things as he settled the game down by drawing so many fouls. But this was not a normal night for not a normal rookie.

While Erik Spoelstra probably decided the outcome of the game with his decision to put two on Haliburton – with Butler refusing to allow the switch as much as possible – in the fourth quarter, a coverage Indiana’s other players could not consistently take advantage of – their shot quality on threes eroded the longer Miami stretched their lead – it was Jaquez Jr., with his combination of cunning, guile and footwork, who pushed Miami in front during that early-fourth period without Butler. Whether it was getting behind unsuspecting Indiana weakside defenders for cuts or calmly eating up space until his defender had the rim right over his head, everyone who watched this game will remember it for Jaquez Jr. – stealing the night from both Butler and Haliburton, punctuating it with a fast-break alley-oop from Josh Richardson – down the stretch.

For a player who was taken outside of the lottery without much public fanfare outside of Miami, Jaquez Jr. (24 points on 8-of-13 shooting) has wasted little time making a name for himself and earning respect around the league. One suspects he won’t be getting as much single coverage for long.

3. The other side of this matchup is that Indiana isn’t exactly known for their defense. Even though Miami had a handful of clunky possessions go their way, they were still generally able to get into the paint whenever they wanted. Knowing this, then, they appeared to be passing up some threes – open, but still a higher variance play than a layup or free-throws – in order to take advantage of the advantage staring them in the face.

It's an interesting gambit up against such a potent offense, but a logical one. Until the other team proves they can stop the ball one-on-one, stop fouling or at least help from the right angles, don’t let them off the hook. The HEAT only took 21 threes in this one, but the other side of the coin was 45 free-throws – some from Indiana extending the game down the stretch – while hitting 35-of-57 in the paint, including 15-of-21 at the rim and 20-of-36 in the upper paint, for 70 total paint points. When you’re mauling the other team inside like that, beating defenders one-on-one with regularity and drawing foul after foul, then who needs threes?

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Coup's Takeaways: Jaquez Jr. And Butler Take Down Haliburton, High-Powered Pacers In Fourth Quarter

In the middle of one of Miami’s frenetic runs against the Orlando Magic Tuesday night, Kyle Lowry forced a turnover along the sideline. Lowry quickly tried to get the ball back from the ref and push it up court, since it’s now go-go-turbo time whenever Lowry is around, but Orlando made a quick substitution and the ref pushed pause on resuming play for a couple of beats.

The player Lowry was going to pass to was Tyler Herro, and Herro had more energy in him at that moment than his body knew what to do with. He bounced up and down, his hands shaking in anticipation of the ball, a huge smile plastered on his face. Let’s go. Let me go. We have to keep going, read the body language. We can’t claim to know every instance that Herro has smiled on the court in the past because we aren’t watching a 24/7 Herro Cam, but it sure seemed like that moment captured everything that’s different for Herro in the present day.

“We’re definitely having more fun than last year,” Bam Adebayo said.

Contrary to most reports, Herro had a perfectly fine season his sophomore year. A line of 15 points, five rebounds and three assists, with 54.3% True Shooting on 23.5% Usage is nothing to sneeze at for a 21-year-old. It just wasn’t what people expected – or what they wanted which is a different thing altogether – after a run to the NBA Finals that included a 37-point breakout in a pivotal Game 4 against the Boston Celtics. Why Herro was expected to take a major leap forward when the team had essentially a six-week offseason during a pandemic is a bit confounding, but the point that got lost in all the sauce is that Herro’s sophomore leap came between the 2019-20 regular season and the onset of play in the Orlando Bubble. He worked diligently with assistant coach Chris Quinn during that pause in action and came into Orlando an improved on-ball player, finishing creatively in the paint and making passes he hadn’t even attempted months prior.

Never mind that Herro didn’t make a significant leap forward between his first two seasons, he made a leap during his first one.

This isn’t all to say Herro was the same player in his second go-round. The skillset was more dynamic, the efficiency dipped slightly and an early experiment as a starting point guard (amidst a ton of lineup absences) didn’t go particularly well, but more than anything else, the joy seemed to be gone – as it was for many around the league. At the time, Herro couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“I wouldn’t say my confidence wavered,” Herro said last May, before the postseason. “There was just a change in something, I don’t know what it was. I just felt like shots weren’t falling. Whatever the case may be.”

New year, and now everyone appears to have a little more pep in their step. Herro kicked things off averaging 22.4 points in five preseason games, and through three in the regular season he’s at 23.3. Flashy stuff, the sort of number that catches the eye, silences the critics and fuels the boosters for a while, but the points are also somewhat beside the point. For a player who was a net-negative on pure impact when he was on the court his first two seasons, he’s closer to neutral at the moment. On a rather inconspicuous scoring night against Orlando (13 points on 12 shots) he led the team as a plus-19.

“It’s all about impacting winning,” Spoelstra said. “That’s the bottom line. It’s a little bit of a shame that everybody just looks at the final column in the box score just to see how many points somebody scores to gauge their impact on the game, but Tyler is developing all the different facets of trying to impact winning.”

Of course it’s great that the shots are falling. Herro is 8-of-12 from mid-range, 8-of-21 on above-break threes and has an effective field-goal percentage of 53.3 on pull-up jumpers. Anyone who has seen his footwork and the easy, quick release wasn’t going to be too worried about that, the main question was what heights of efficiency Herro would be able to reach. More on that a bit later. What’s impressive is that Herro’s early season hasn’t been all about whether the shots fall. He’s been able to be what the team needs him to be on a given night.

“He’s learning day in and day out, on the fly at that,” Jimmy Butler said. “It’s kind of tough being the scorer that he is and then having to flip that switch like ‘You know what, I got to make that play’. I think he’s handled it incredibly well, like a pro’s pro.”

With Lowry out of the lineup against Indiana, Miami didn’t just need shot making, shot creation was required. Gone are Goran Dragic and Kendrick Nunn. There’s no cavalry coming when one of Miami’s lead playmakers is out. The burden will fall on Herro, more often than not. Against the Pacers, that meant creating 28 field-goal attempts.

“The game called for that,” Butler said. “I’m not going to lie to you. We want him to be aggressive. He took all shots that he thinks he can make. I’m not mad at that at all. We want him to stay aggressive, stay confident, because we’re going to need him to be that way throughout the year.”

It was mostly pull-ups against the Pacers, yes, on the way to 30 points (following 27 on opening night against the Bucks) but there were also regular forays into the paint. Even a some of those led to denials by longer defenders, there was a willingness to find and accept contact throughout.

“I think the added strength has helped him be able to handle that contact,” Spoelstra said.

Knowing what Miami needed from Herro, the Pacers chose to pressure and trap him to get the ball out of his hands. That created a few turnovers, and Herro didn’t record an assist in the game, but he willingly moved off the ball when the possession called for it – Butler consistently sprung free playing the roll man – and had eight potential assists.

“Big picture, it’s just trying to take out Tyler,” Bam Adebayo said. “It’s still the wrong move, especially if you have Jimmy setting it or me setting it and he gets that pocket pass off and we have shooters in the corner, we get to be aggressive. [He’s] definitely getting a lot of respect in this league.”

Unless there’s a new trend in the league this season, most teams aren’t going to trap or blitz all that often. What Herro is going to see regularly, what the book on his seems to be at the moment, is what he saw against Orlando and that’s pressure. Regular, constant pressure. Defenders trying to get up in his belly and make him uncomfortable.

“This is also part of the evolution of really good players in this league,” Spoelstra said. “Scouting reports will change, they’ll start to try to do things to take him out of his rhythm.
Pressure would be No. 1, trapping would be No. 2. He’s already seen both of those things early on in the season.”

Pressure worked for Orlando, somewhat. Bouncy as Herro is and as tight as his handle is getting, he’s not going to blow by most defenders so much as work an angle against them using the threat of his quick jumper. Bodies will get in his way, but with pressure comes space. With space comes opportunity, and Herro delivered nine assists, two off his career high, on 12 potential hookups.

“He’s better than what I’ve seen before and what I thought, personally,” Lowry said, asked about Herro’s passing. “He’s playing extremely well. He has an ability to score. He’s not necessarily playmaking but he had some great dimes tonight. When he’s not looking to score, it makes it easier because all the attention is on him. He’s making it easier for his teammates to be open, because he’s looking to score, he’s aggressive. He’s looking for the shots and the passes are coming open.

“He made a pass to Markieff tonight (first clip in the video below) and he knew what he was doing the whole time because he had the attention on him. He was just waiting for the defense to come to him and then drop it off to Kieff for a layup.”

That’s growth. As Lowry put it, Herro may not be manipulating the defense like a true lead, all-the-time playmaker, but what you’re seeing is a player learning how to take advantage of his own gifts. He’s learning how to be the player he’s going to be. Nobody else. Just him. Maybe he’s not Paul Atreides, the . Maybe he’s the Duncan Idaho of this group, and that’s great. Paul Atreides doesn’t  without Duncan Idaho.

The whiplash that happens with each Herro performance doesn’t benefit anybody but those who get the clicks from it. Like most players, he’s probably not the perennial All-Star some think he is nor is he part of a pu-pu platter trade package that others have in mind. He’s in between. If you want to deeply analyze his game, you’ll see a player who has only taken eight percent (5-of-58) of his shots at the rim. He’s had to develop his touch and creativity in the paint because he’s going to have to hit creative touch shots in the paint to score there. He might be more of a two-and-a-half level scorer than the full three. And for as much as Herro has worked on his body, the defense is still going to be picked on. Indiana just showed that. It’s all fine. You can still be an All-Star with that profile, even without many free-throw attempts, it just means some nights are going to run hot, some will run cold. In between, he’s learning how to be a winning player when it’s lukewarm.

Let’s just let it happen. Drop the comparisons for a bit and allow Herro to dictate the terms of his successes and failures without measuring him up against anyone else. There’s a good player here, if you want to see it, one who could turn the tide of a playoff series or win Sixth Man of the Year. There’s also one who needs work and polish and refinement, who is settling into a role that may be less than what those delivering hype by megaphone deemed his destiny when he burst on to the scene.

For now, Herro is putting in the work, and the work is pure. Let’s let him be himself for a little bit, because he’s clearly finding out and digging into exactly who that player is. That way we leave room for surprise rather than I-told-you-so, and there’s nothing better than being surprised by a young talent.

“You can tell that switch has switched for him. It’s his third year, he’s making that growth, he’s making that next step,” Adebayo said. “I’m proud of the young fella. I feel like he’s going to be great.”

herald-of-the-change-as-tyler-herro-finds-the-player-hes-going-to-be-we-should-let-him-be-just-that

Herald Of The Change: As Tyler Herro Finds The Player He's Going To Be, We Should Let Him Be Just That

Odd as it may sound in regard to a team that surged back from a brutal start to the season to solidify position in the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff race, something wasn’t quite clicking for the Miami HEAT.

On paper, their profile was relatively unchanged year-over-year. They were getting the same shots on the same actions with the same players. The attempts just weren’t turning into makes. Efficiency for nearly every individual had fallen off somewhere between five and ten percent, with the cumulative effective of the team’s offense dropping from No. 7 to No. 25 headed into last night’s (excellent offensive game) against Portland. The rankings difference is exacerbated by a league-wide scoring explosion – the HEAT’s 2019-20 offense would have been about average this year – but there are no points awarded for added context.

Worse yet, there weren’t any particularly good answers for how to turn things around beyond, ‘Make more shots.’

“The end result, we’re just missing shots,” Bam Adebayo said. “I feel like we’re getting everything we want, the shots we’re getting just won’t fall. It’s not an indictment or anything, we’re just learning how to play through adversity.”

That’s correct, at least on paper. There was nothing wrong with the process. Eventually you expect water to find its level. The problem was you can’t always wait for the Progression Fairy to bless you in time with the playoffs less than two months away, championship aspirations in hand, and your last major opportunity to change the roster staring you in the face.

So with Thursday’s deadline rapidly approaching, the HEAT’s front office chose the path of action as they traded away Kelly Olynyk, Avery Bradley, Chris Silva and Maurice Harkless in two separate trades to bring in two-time All-Star Victor Oladipo from the Houston Rockets and Nemanja Bjelica from the Sacramento Kings.

For all of Miami’s recent success, their lineups have at times tilted too far one way or the other, slimming the margin for error for a given shift. You could see where a little more shooting here, a little more defense there or some playmaking thrown in could make the entire operation sing. Better yet if all that came in the same package, a two-way player who could compliment the dynamic skillsets of Adebayo and Jimmy Butler. Oladipo can bring balance to the force.

“Victor Oladipo will give us an entirely different player than we have on this team.” Pat Riley said.

A first-time All-Star upon joining the Indiana Pacers in 2017-18, on 23-5-4 averages and 47/37/79 shooting splits, Oladipo dealt with injuries the following season before rupturing his quadriceps tendon after 36 games. His return last year was interrupted after 13 games by the coronavirus pandemic, and when he played in Orlando he clearly was not himself. An abbreviated offseason later, he’s traded after nine games and traded again after 20 more. Stability has not been his friend for years. Now he has to find his role with a team playing for the big one.

Good thing, then, that Miami has a ready-made role for him.

Part of what made Oladipo a breakout star was his emergence as a dominant defender, stifling ballhandlers and playing the passing lanes with aplomb as he led the league with 2.4 steals per game. Just as we said when Trevor Ariza was acquired last week, that versatility slots right into a Miami system that constantly demands mobile helpers. Where Ariza has the length to play the four spot, Oladipo can man the helm against the league’s most quick-twitch, creative guards. Between those two, Butler, Adebayo and Andre Iguodala, the HEAT can comfortably switch every position.

What matters most is that Oladipo can do all of that while being a three-level threat ball-in-hand. No, his efficiency isn’t what it was that All-Star year, when he posted 57.7 percent true-shooting on a 30 percent usage rate. It doesn’t have to be that, either. Miami’s is not a heliocentric approach built around high-usage players. It’s a universe, not a galaxy. The ball moves. When it finds a player with an opportunity, everyone is empowered to take it.

“I’m really excited about the fact he brings us a different presence,” Riley said. “He’s not just a shooter. He can really defend. Victor brings us a little bit of a different dimension in how he scores. He can make threes, can make medium range, can make pull-ups, can go the rim. He’s a great free throw shooter.”

While Oladipo has generally been a capable, slightly above-average catch-and-shoot player – currently having a nice year at 39.4 percent, less so on his pull-ups – it’s his ability to get downhill that could prove to be a panacea.

Can he run a pick-and-roll with Adebayo at 25-feet? Sure. But it won’t have to be so deliberate. Flow into a weakside handoff, and Oladipo has the goods.

It will take some time for it all to come together. As much as the fit is sitting there waiting for him, nobody steps right into perfect comfort. Miami has time for some growing pains. Going through the know-your-role process might be helpful for everyone involved, considering how much the reconfiguration around the last deadline move seemed to coalesce for postseason purposes.

“It helped last year, that’s for sure, with the move we made,” Herro said. “It’ll be good to get some new guys in here and change up the feel, the atmosphere a little bit."

Of note in that deal is Olynyk going to Houston. While his shooting was up and down over the years, Olynyk was consistently near the top of the HEAT’s point-differential rankings – he was second, behind Butler, at plus-8.2 per 100 on the court this season – because he could both space the floor at high volume and act as a playmaking hub. Whether he was playing next to Hassan Whiteside, Adebayo, or as the lone big on the floor in a five-out lineup, his impact carried tremendous value beyond his own individual numbers.

So it makes sense that Miami’s other deal of the day involved a player who is as close a “facsimile of Kelly,” as Riley said, as you’re going to find.

“With [Olynyk] not being here,” Spoelstra said. “You know, [Bjelica’s] not the same player, we’re not trying to compare them, but he brings the spacing, the three-point shooting at that size.”

Bjelica is his own player, of course, but the HEAT will likely ask him to do all the same things. Space the floor and pull the trigger when you’re open, run handoffs, pop off picks and punish the occasional switch. There’s skill here beyond a shooter. He can put the ball on the deck and make a play.

Spoelstra still has his work cut out for him. The proverbial Good Problem is to have more talented players than you can use. By the time the postseason rolls around the rotation will be trimmed and talent will be on the bench. The options are a little more dynamic now with a player in Oladipo who can slot in next to anyone. And no matter how the percentages play out, there should be a little less pressure on the make-or-miss aspect of Miami’s attack.

“We don’t always have to depend on making threes,” Riley said, in reference to Oladipo’s slashing skillset.

All this while maintaining flexibility for this coming offseason and its glass clinks – on second thought that might never be a thing again, so let’s swap in no-contact toasting – all around. No matter how well the pieces fall into place tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that, the HEAT needed to put them all back in the box, swap a few out, and give it a good shake.

We’ve got a fuzzy idea of what that puzzle is going to eventually look like, but give it time. Chances are, it’ll all make sense in the end.

the-oladipo-shake-up

The Oladipo Shake Up

Before Game 2 of a series that Miami now leads 3-0, Erik Spoelstra had something to say.

“Nobody was paying an attention three years ago to how Bam [Adebayo] was playing, and now everyone has an opinion on whether he needs to shoot it, where he needs to shoot it, how aggressive he needs to be. He’s doing the right things for our team. That’s the only thing that matters. Everyone else can stick it up you know where.”

The money quote at the end made the rounds on Twitter, but the message was clear. If all you’re looking at are the makes, misses and points, you’re missing the point. Adebayo is more than any one column in the box-score. He’s more than any one role. For the HEAT, he’s everything. And from whom much is demanded, much is expected.

So, let’s look at the totality of Adebayo in Game 3. Start to finish. This is a Bam Game.

1. First possession of the game, the HEAT appear to set up a designed lob for Adebayo going backdoor. When Duncan Robinson isn’t able to set a clean screen, Adebayo resets, collects the ball and flows immediately into a handoff for a Robinson three, perfectly timing the rotation of his body to afford his shooter the inches he needs.

Only Nikola Jokic and his Denver backcourt ran more handoffs than Adebayo and Robinson, and no duo was as prolific as the HEAT’s was in posting 1.33 points per possession when attacking, per Second Spectrum data.

After the Toronto Raptors limited Robinson to just one make on four attempts from deep during seeding games, Adebayo stated plainly that it was ‘unacceptable’ for Robinson to have so few opportunities.

“I can’t dictate if Duncan’s shot goes in or not, but I can dictate if he gets an open look,” Adebayo said. “That’s my whole goal. If he gets an open look and he misses, then I can live with that because he has an open look and Duncan has made millions of those shots.”

2. ‘O’ is a strange movie in the basketball sphere. The finale in Julia Stiles’ turn-of-the-century trilogy of modern Shakespeare reimaginings, it nevertheless features Josh Hartnett as the modern-day Iago lamenting his under-appreciated role on a private school’s basketball team alongside Mekhi Phifer’s star player, the updated Othello.

“I’m considered a utility man,” Hartnett’s character says. “I rebound, I can shoot, I play guard, forward, power forward. You name the position, I play it.”

Sounds a bit like Bam’s possession-to-possession role, though with considerably less upside. Adebayo was fourth in the league in screen assists this season, posting 5.1 a game, and that’s carried over right to the playoffs. In Game 3, he led both teams with eight.

But where Hartnett’s Hugo-as-Iago complains about his lack of recognition for such things, as that story heads toward tragedy, Adebayo’s teammates do nothing but sing his praises.

“He’s a huge part of the team success, my success, everything,” Robinson said.

3. Pacers coach Nate McMillan swapped out Aaron Holiday for his sweet-shooting brother Justin in his starting lineup for Game 3, and the HEAT quickly tried to take advantage of the slender defender. Some teams might choose to do so by putting that player in pick-and-roll and hopefully drawing a mismatch they can exploit in the post.

The HEAT do just that, but they invert it as they ask Adebayo to handle. Despite the screen not forcing the switch, he gets to the cup.

After running about one pick-and-roll with the ball every four games his first two seasons, Adebayo increased that rate nearly ten-fold this season, producing 1.07 points per possession.

4. They can do things the traditional way, too. Adebayo’s post-up rates have fallen since his rookie year even as they grew in volume by way of simply playing more minutes, but these plays represent the future of where Adebayo’s game can eventually be. Just as with mid-range jumpers you can’t expect a massive change overnight. You need reps for that. This is playoff basketball, though, and the more switches there are the more mismatches you have to find ways to punish.

Switch again onto Justin Holiday and cut off the drive.

Since Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill joined the HEAT’s roster in full on February 9 following the trade with the Memphis Grizzlies, Adebayo has switched 144 pick-and-rolls. Only P.J. Tucker, Houston’s defensive cog, has switched more.

As a team, the HEAT are switching at a Houston-like rate in the playoffs, inducing the third-most isolations of any postseason team. It’s a scheme that only works because Adebayo, as he’s long shown, can swap to any player on the floor.

“He’s what makes us go. There’s a huge difference when he’s off the floor, on both ends of it,” Jimmy Butler said.

6. The elbow is Adebayo’s home. Only Jokic and Domantas Sabonis touched the ball at the elbow more often than Adebayo, and all three averaged the same number of assists from that spot. Nobody has more elbow touches in the playoffs.

As teams have scouted and schemed Robinson, preparing to lock onto him as he navigates screens as Victor Oladipo does here anticipating the Butler screen, Robinson has had to learn when to make the appropriate counter cut. If there’s a passing window, Adebayo hits it.

There’s a reason Robinson shot 81.5 percent at the rim this season.

7. The byproduct of all of Miami’s switching has been, by design, a ton of isolations from Indiana. Though they can’t always be picky as the shot clock works against them, the Pacers have been clear about which matchups they prefer.

"It's no secret who they're going at, they're going at me and Duncan,” Tyler Herro said.

While this is more of a forced switch due to Turner pushing Herro into the post, Miami’s scheme is doing as much as it can to protect the players that need assistance. That means there has been plenty of help coming from the weak-side, as Crowder does here. And as Indiana has done what it can to move Adebayo as far from the ball as possible, that means sometimes his job is to help the helper.

“It’s up to me, Jimmy, Derrick, Iggy, Jae, the guys that are prime defenders and have great hands, it’s up to us to protect those guys,” Adebayo said.

Not only does he nail this closeout, but he has the reflexes and agility not to fly out at Oladipo. Instead, Adebayo’s staying on the balls of his feet leaves the shooter hesitating, and missing.

8. Let’s appreciate the fluidity with which Adebayo bounces between spots here, switching first on the dribble hand-off, immediately pinching off the Aaron Holiday drive and then recovering as Butler signals another switch.

“I challenge him daily to take on all the 1-through-5 responsibilities on both ends of the court,” Spoelstra said. “He just gobbles it up.”

9. Ho-hum. Just the team’s ostensible center pushing coast-to-coast *off a free throw*, stopping his momentum when he draws two in the paint and finding the open shooter in the corner.

The full-court handle is not something the HEAT knew he could do when making the call on draft night, but it became readily apparent there was something there. After Adebayo was a game or two into his Summer League campaign, assistant coach Chris Quinn saw an opportunity.

“We give him the freedom to bust out,” Quinn said while heading the team in Orlando that summer. “You can see how fast he is with the ball.”

10. there stands the Bam Man
quarterback surveys alone
waiting until not

It seemed like a good place for a haiku. Let me have this.

11. Two things to appreciate about these last two plays:

1. Just as he does going from one switch to one help rotation to the next, Adebayo flows between offensive options as he keeps his dribble live and head up. When Robinson makes his move, Adebayo has already seen it coming.

2. In the second clip, after running a pick-and-roll with Dragic and rolling into the paint after Dragic rejected the screen, Adebayo simply pops back out to the elbow and gets back to running offense with no delay. He knows how important he is to the offense, even though he may not be getting a shooting opportunity. The cog in the machine keeps on turning.

“He’s always going to have that offense run through him,” Spoelstra says. “Whether that means he’s going to get high assists, or high scoring, or he’s just going to set up other guys, you don’t know until you see how they’re defending. That’s how we’ve played all year long. Everyone feels comfortable when the ball is in his hands. He’s unselfish, he can facilitate, and he can be aggressive when he needs to.”

12. Head on a swivel throughout the possession, Adebayo is again in position to help the helper. Though he doesn’t quite beat Brogdon to the spot, his hands are quick enough that he either deflects or disrupts the dribble leading to an Indiana turnover.

“I feel like the player that I am, it’s hard to take me out,” Adebayo said. “That’s because I do a lot of things so well . . . It doesn’t have to always be about scoring. In Game 2 I had 7 points, but everybody said I had the biggest impact on the game. It’s little stuff like that, because at the end of the day I came into the league a defender and an energy guy. When my shots not falling, when my offense isn’t going, I can always fall back on my defense and my effort.”

13. First you think he’ll go left, so he’ll show you left.

Then you think he’ll go right, so he shows you right.

Sometimes it is about scoring. It has to be. Miami’s offense wouldn’t work as constructed if Adebayo wasn’t a threat. The HEAT’s worst game of the season may have been November 23 at Philadlephia. The team was on a back-to-back, but they lost by 27 and Bam was a minus-26 because with Joel Embiid dropping way back into the paint many of Miami’s actions evaporated. Ever since that game, Adebayo has balanced his aggression with the need to facilitate better with each game. It wasn’t all about taking more jumpers when there was space in front of him, it was about finding ways to do the job demanded of him when the defense is all about him.

“He’s in that process of learning how to play as the guy,” assistant coach Malik Allen said in the weeks following the loss. “The center. It’s not a 20 minute-a-game sample size. This is your deal. It’s an adjustment.”

14. By nature, the HEAT are not a true rim protecting team. They weren’t when Meyers Leonard was alongside Adebayo in the starting lineup, nor are they now that switching is the name of the game. Their defense is all about containment, keeping the ball out of the paint and deterring rim shots rather than defending them.

But the defense isn’t always going to be perfect. That’s what help is for, and Adebayo is the best form of rim protection on the floor. Here, he first eliminates the intent to attempt on the first rotation, and on the second he eliminates the mere thought of a shot attempt before pulling down the rebound.

“Bam was getting touches, but how he really impacted the game down the stretch was those offensive rebounds,” Robinson said. “Those are backbreaking plays. Bam’s just a winner. He just wants to win. He leaves it out there every single time we play.”

16. Switching sometimes leaves his teammates in vulnerable positions, with Dragic here stuck on an island with Brogdon who had been getting to the rim at will by this point. Adebayo has previously admitted to sometimes getting caught up in overhelping for his teammates.

“He’s got a lot more experience with that, guarding on the ball and off the ball and also doing the different schemes,” Spoelstra said. “He’ll be on their main ballhandler sometimes when he has to switch out but he’ll also be in the gaps which he’s really good at, but be able to do it while also having to close out because Turner is a very good shooter.”

Adebayo playing so high up on the floor here is scheme but it’s his ability that allows him to pinch in on Brogdon twice while still being in position to retreat back to the corner shooter in Turner. Miami almost gives up points on Warren’s clever cut, but in a league where most players are commanded never to leave the strong-side corner to help, Adebayo is one of the few players who can do both.

It’s a lot. All of this. Adebayo started this season 22 years old. This is his first year as a full-time starter. It’s his second taste of the playoffs. Yet here he is, Miami’s Atlas shouldering the greatest of burdens. Challenged with a role Spoelstra has challenged so few with.

“I’m not going to mention the name,” Spoelstra said, asked if he’s demanded as much from a player before. “You guys can probably figure it out from there. But yeah, I have.”

We’ll leave that as is. If this exercise proves nothing else, it’s how rare this is. A player who can do all this, every game, never wavering in his role. A player only getting better at the things that matter.

“When I say better, everyone assumes I’m just talking about numbers. I’m talking about winning,” Spoelstra says.

As for outside opinions, those have already been addressed.

“He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. He knows who he is,” Butler said.