Jrue Holiday

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Couper Moorhead

1. At this point, everyone knows what HEAT vs. Celtics looks like. Even without Jimmy Butler, out for personal reasons, we’ve seen these teams play each other so many times in recent years there just isn’t much left for surprise or imagination.

Even start, on all sides, Miami matching Boston in the Shot Quality department – scaling up their threes, Caleb Martin (15 points on 12 shots) hitting two early, without their main downhill force – as the Celtics came up empty chasing early mismatches. Erik Spoelstra dipped into zone waters early, as he’s done in the past couple weeks, and it wasn’t until Bam Adebayo’s first stint on the bench that Boston started gaining any offensive traction, finishing the first quarter with consecutive lobs to Kristaps Porzingis.

It was Boston with hands on the wheel at that point, though, their threes starting to fall as the good looks started to flow. Josh Richardson exited the game at the nine-minute mark of the second with an apparent shoulder injury, not to return, and rather than go deeper into his rotation Spoelstra tightened it up. Aggression from Terry Rozier and Adebayo kept Miami in striking distance, but converting less than 30 percent from outside kept them holding the status quo, down 10, rather than making up much ground. Boston by nine at the break, the HEAT waiting on the makes required for a real run.

The lead reached as much as 15 early in the third as things started to slip away, but then the makes came. First Tyler Herro from the left wing, then Martin – Porzingis zoning him from the paint, giving up the catch-and-shoot to a degree – in the right corner followed by Herro on a stepback, altogether a 13-2 run to make a game of it. Boston pushed it back to double digits after a coupe threes of their own, at which point Rozier was injured on a drive and had to leave the game, with Boston selecting Orlando Robinson to shoot the free throws, of which he made both. Herro kept scoring, taking mismatches one-on-one, to keep closing the lead after another pair of threes from Jrue Holiday. Miami down seven after three.

The building came to life in the middle of the fourth when Jaylen Brown was assessed a flagrant foul on Duncan Robinson, those two free throws lowering the deficit to seven once again, followed up by an and-one from Adebayo to make it four. Once again, Boston had a three in response, only to miss a layup and two free throws as the HEAT punched back. Even with Miami down three rotation players, this was the game everyone wanted to see, Boston’s late-game mettle tested in a postseason-like environment. Boston executed well enough, but Herro kept coming, hitting a pair of threes in the closing minutes to close it to two on the back of big margin plays from Haywood Highsmith. An combined offensive rebound from Brown and Porzingis sunk Miami’s chances in the end, forcing free throws to put Boston up six with 14.6 left, but this was, as always, what you expect from Miami and Boston. Sure, there are the outlier blowouts when the threes swing dramatically in one direction or another, but you expect the feisty nip-and-tuck, no matter who is available. Miami falls, 110-106, with two road games remaining until the All-Star break.

2. Both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown made at least half their shots – often with Highsmith and Martin draped all over them – to score 46 on 36 shots, and we know what Boston, with their combination of switching and rim protection, can do defensively, but this game came down to what the new addition in Holiday and Porzingis offered. Whenever Miami put together a mini-run to get within a possession or two, it was Holiday (15 points on 5-of-6 from three) who regularly had the answer, his shots always keeping Miami at arm’s length (Boston shot 41 percent from three to Miami’s 30 percent). And of course Holiday’s defense is always impactful as he’s one of the best players in the league at avoiding Adebayo’s screens and getting over the top to contest while still helping down for his teammates otherwise.

Porzingis, however, changes the geography of the floor. While Boston has often played five-out in the past, Al Horford has never quite been a high-volume shooter in the way that Kevin Love is for Miami in his backup minutes. Porzingis, however, will fire away, the Celtics perpetually a pick-and-pop away from a three or, when things slow down and the game tightens up, a switch of that same action often give Porzingis a smaller player to post-up at the nail. Porzingis scored 25 points on 14 shots, getting to the line for 7-of-9 on free throws as he didn’t just settle for the over-the-top opportunities, and his floor spacing down the stretch lends Boston a bit more consistency to their late-game execution whereas Miami had previously been able to pack the paint a little. Still a winnable game, of course, but Porzingis – who made the zone life difficult in the first half – has changed the look and feel of a matchup we otherwise know just about everything about.

3. Credit to Adebayo for shouldering the shot-creation load, even at the cost of his own efficiency (22 points on 7-of-18 shooting), with Miami down so many ballhandlers, and credit, too, to Highsmith for three offensive rebound and two steals that opened a window for Miami that was nearly closed shut, but it was Herro who gave his team a chance.

Rough start for Herro, too, as he opened 1-of-7 from the field against Boston’s switches, but he stuck with it, slowly gaining momentum in the second half taking the threes that were there against Horford’s drop coverage while impressively taking multiple mismatches off-the-bounce for pull-ups and floaters. Nothing came easy for Herro, with Boston throwing one athletic defender after another his way, but without Butler or Rozier he was game for what was required. Another glimpse at what Miami was missing from a shotmaking perspective without Herro during the postseason last year, with this matchup always feeling like it takes place in April or May regardless of the actual date.

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Coup's Takeaways: Tyler Herro Gives Miami A Chance As Boston Holds On For Victory

Goddess, sing the rage of Jimmy ButlerDestructive, how it gave his opponents endless pain

Less than a year ago, Jimmy Butler missed what will go down as one of the most important shots in the history of the Miami HEAT. Down two to the Boston Celtics with 20 seconds left in Game 7, Butler sprinted the ball up the floor after a Marcus Smart miss and took a three off the bounce. It hit front iron. Miami lost. The decision was called into question by the countless talkers who talk about an NBA Eastern Conference Finals.

Was it the right shot? The wrong shot? The debate, as constructed, missed the point entirely. It was the shot Butler took because it’s the shot Butler takes. It’s in his very nature. Butler plays for wins. Right play? Wrong play? He’s the guy with the ball.

“He’s just such a killer,” Kevin Love says. “Lions like to hunt, man. They make their kill and they want to keep hunting.”

Butler has been on the prowl since the opening moments of this series against Milwaukee. In the first quarter of a 35-point Game 1, he took more shots than he had ever taken in an opening period with Miami. In a blowout Game 2 loss, he still put up 25 points on 12 shots. His 30 points on 19 shots in Game 3, blowing up Milwaukee’s coverages all night long, felt almost casual. Against the team that had led him down the path toward one of his worst postseason series two years ago, he had already been nothing short of tremendous.

Only regular tremendous, though. ‘That’s just Jimmy, doing his thing’ styled tremendous. On brand and, after so many gargantuan postseason showings including his previous all-timer scoring 47 to stay alive in Game 6 at Boston last year, almost expected.

What he did in Game 4, dropping 56 points on 28 shots – tied for the fourth highest scoring playoff game in NBA history – was something more. The game was fading. The Bucks were in control. Butler was already the only reason the game was as close as it was, low double digits in the fourth quarter rather than a deficit far great, as he went toe-to-toe, possessions for possession against a championship-level squad. Butler reached for something that most people only dream about and pulled back a fistful of immortality. This was fiction come to life. Pure cinema. Wyatt Earp, dodging bullets as he wades into the creek to confront Curly Bill. Terry Malloy walking back into work in defiance of Johnny Friendly. Aragorn leading the charge at The Black Gate. The Bride drawing blade against the Crazy 88, only in a theater that fits 20,000.

It was Butler writing his own script, scoring again and again and again in every which way he can, screaming ‘This is my s***' for the world to hear.

Consider the achievement, as it will stand in the history books and online databases. Butler set the franchise postseason record for points in a first quarter (22) and fourth quarter (21) in the same game. He became the ninth player in postseason history to score 50 points while committing no more than a single turnover. His career high GameScore of 48.2 is the seventh highest of all time in the playoffs. He made three threes, shots Milwaukee has been giving him, the game after shooting 4-of-4 from deep and hit 16 of his 20 shots inside the arc, including 5-of-7 on long mid-range jumpers and 8-of-10 in the upper paint. He’s now true-shooting 70.8 percent on a 34.3 usage rate in this series, scoring 36.5 a night.  All along in Game 4, he defended every position, contesting a team-high 14 shots. For a team that has featured the storied performances of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, among others, Butler’s performance might be the cream of the postseason crop.

The Bucks, for their part, had all the answers a team could want to have. And yet they had none. Some of the best defensive players in the world on one of the best defensive teams in the league are on the other side. Butler wrought pain on each of them.

In a recent poll of the league’s players conducted by The Athletic, Jrue Holiday was voted the best defender in the league. Whether you agreed with that result or not, there was little doubt the position was fair. Holiday is that good, that undeniable at his craft. There have been times in this series where Holiday has appeared to defend Butler as well as anyone has ever defended Butler. Some of those battles Holiday has won, including a first-half strip on a perfect reading of Butler’s spin move that nobody else in the league makes.

“I will give him his props,” Butler said. ”He defends physical, plays hard, never takes a possession off. Those are the guys that I want to compete against.”

More often than not, it’s been Butler emerging victorious.

Holiday in his jersey? All net. Holiday stonewalling in the post? Get to the line. See space available in transition for the type of shot Butler never takes? Now is the time.

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Bucks Game 4: Butler vs. Holiday

“Jrue Holiday is one of the best defenders in the NBA and everybody says that,” Kyle Lowry said. “Jimmy is just a talented player. Jimmy goes out there and takes every assignment that the other team gives him, he tries to take that personally. Those two are just battling it out right now and I’m rolling with Jimmy at all times.”

While he’s hardly been shy about the matchup with Holiday, Butler has never been one to repeatedly bang his head against the same brick wall when other options are available. During the regular season, against less complete rosters, his modus operandi is to find the smallest, weakest defender on the other team and punish them for merely daring to exist. If you’re a small point guard, Butler is hunting that matchup relentlessly until that player is either removed from the game or the doubles are forced to come. Milwaukee doesn’t offer many such luxuries, nor do they send doubles – they haven’t sent a single one across Butler’s 41 isolations and post-ups according to tracking data. There are few obvious targets among these Bucks, but there are defenders who aren’t Holiday.

When the Bucks presented a switch, Butler took the switch. Khris Middleton repeatedly found himself involved and try as he did to stay in front, his efforts went unrewarded.

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Bucks Game 4: Butler vs. Middleton

When the Bucks tried to avoid the switch with a show and recover, he attacked right at the moment when the defense was most vulnerable.

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Bucks Game 4: Butler vs. Show Assist

And when the defense attempted to nullify his actions by going under and daring him to shoot, as Butler proved so often in Game 3 he was more than willing to shoot. Milwaukee’s entire defensive scheme is predicated on forcing you to take the shots that you don’t want to take. Butler has been more than willing, twisting and turning his opponent’s core principles against them with devastating force – as calm and composed as Ip Man in those moments, as fierce as one of the Deadly Venoms.

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Bucks Game 4: Butler Three vs. Under

Any coverage. Any defender. Even playing with the lead until they very much weren’t, the Bucks were in the 36 Chambers of Butler.

“He’s not dodging nobody,” Caleb Martin said. “Everybody is getting a piece of the 50. That’s the great thing about it. He’s going against their schemes, double teams, some guys are showing, some guys are switching, it just shows you his level of IQ on the court to be able to manipulate all the schemes to still be able to get to his spots and knock them down. It’s incredible.”

All game you could see Butler manipulating the floor, moving his teammates around the floor like pieces on a game board. Perhaps that analogy is overdone at times, but it’s nevertheless how Butler conducts his business. You go here and you go there so I get can to my spot.

“He’s highly intelligent,” Spoelstra says. “He’s one of the most intelligent basketball players in this association. You can’t do what he does on both ends of the court just by running around and trying to figure things out. He understands what we’re trying to do and he understands what they’re trying to do. They’re a very good team. It’s not as if you can just find a bunch of mistakes that they’re going to make. They’re well-schooled, well-coached, well-drilled and have a bunch of experienced players. You have to access a lot of different parts of the menu. He’s really developed his game over the years, really over the past three years, to be able to go to different things when we need it.”

There’s always the matter of Milwaukee’s interior, especially with Giannis Antetokounmpo back on the floor alongside Brook Lopez. Butler has been surgical in picking his spots with all the space being afforded him in the middle of the floor, shooting 57 percent in the upper paint and mid-range through four games and 75 percent in Game 4, but he hasn’t forgotten to occasionally push for more. It’s always a bit surprising given his brute force, shoulders-first style of play, but he can dance, too. The Bucks couldn’t follow the steps.

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Bucks Game 4: Butler vs. Bigs

When Milwaukee, so devoted to pushing Butler to his left – Butler drove to his left 17 times in Game 4, his highest total of the entire season, producing 1.36 points-per-drive – miscommunicated for just a beat, Butler went right through the two-time MVP.

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Bucks Game 4: Butler Dunk On Giannis

“That was the icing on the cake,” Bam Adebayo said.

Antetokounmpo had been spinning his own brilliance for much of the night, throwing darts through the teeth of Miami’s defense as well as he ever has. In those fateful final minutes, as Miami mounted a 13-0 run, Butler discarded Antetokounmpo’s own greatness with a few flicks of his wrist.

This HEAT season has been a bit of a mess, by their standards. Not in the sense of a fractured locker room or massive roster overhaul like some other teams have dealt with. They never quite found themselves, their rotation ever in flux as they toggled between schemes and styles. We knew what they were supposed to be, but the water kept leaking through the dam no matter how many holes they tried to plug. At times, the offense wasn’t good enough. At others, the defense wasn’t as good as it seemed. There were moments when the ship appeared to be going down, just as it did when they found themselves down double digits with five minutes to go in Game 4. But they always had Butler. Their rock. Their constant. Get to the playoffs, at least, and see where Butler can take you. He’s found a way to exceed even the highest of expectations in season propelled by them.

Miami’s miraculous comeback in the last five minutes weren’t on Butler’s shoulders alone, though he did somehow score 17 in that final frame. Martin hit two massive jumpers and forced another turnover. Lowry pulled the ultimate veteran move as he stole the ball while Antetokounmpo was trying to call timeout. Adebayo stopped Antetokounmpo on two crucial possessions. Duncan Robinson wisely pulled out of a contested layup attempt to ensure Butler would get the ball back. All of them should be mentioned. They just won’t be remembered, not nearly in the same way. Every player, on either side, who appeared on the court for Game 4, is now merely engraved in Butler’s legend.

The season, and whatever this postseason run is going to be, is far from over. Miami has a chance now to knock off a No. 1 seed and move on to the second round – if they can get to this point, they can keep going – and they’re in the midst of one of the best four-game stretches of shotmaking perhaps in playoff history. Wherever it goes from here, 56 is what we’ll think of first. Once again, Butler saved his finest for the minutes that matter.

It’s the type of performance, already becoming the type of memory, that makes an entire season worth it. Worth all the clutch games. Worth all the late nights and early mornings. It’s the type of performance you think about in December and January, the type you hope to be privileged enough to bear witness to. It’s the type of performance that will be brought up in bars, or whatever bar-like establishments exist by then, in 50 years when most of the details have long since faded. An old yarn to tell your grandkids.

Thousands of years ago, deeds such as Butler’s 56 would be spun into poems so that they may be preserved throughout history. Thousands of years ago, Butler’s 56, or the equivalent on a battlefield for which sports are merely a metaphor, would have had his name recited alongside those of Achilles, Odysseus and Perseus.

Thousands of years ago, the muses would have sung Butler’s praises. Today, our storytelling isn’t so different. On a Monday night in April, we all watched the creation of a modern myth. All you need to do is turn on your television, scroll on your phone or click on that link and you’ll hear it told. The muses are all singing the same song.

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Jimmy's Lyric: After 56 Points In Game 4, Butler's Myth Will Stand The Test Of Time

Miami has taken the series lead, 2-1, over the No. 1 overall seed Milwaukee Bucks after their 121-99 victory Saturday night. Game 4 begins Monday night at 7:30 pm.

There’s only so many ways you can say it, the simplest of which is that the HEAT are currently in the middle of one of the best shotmaking stretches in franchise history.

If we were to define shotmaking, analytically, as the difference between your actual effective field-goal percentage and your expected percentage, based on Second Spectrum’s tracking data, then three of Miami’s eight best shotmaking games of the season – and three of their four best postseason shotmaking games of the past four years – have come in this series. And because there have only been three games in this series, that means they’ve strung three of those games together in a row. Depending on how you sort the dates, this is only the second or third three-game span in franchise history with an effective field-goal percentage over 64.0, regular season or playoffs. A fourth consecutive game – remember, they still shot the three extremely well in Game 2 despite the blowout loss – would probably make this best offensive stretch we’ve ever seen in Miami. No NBA team has ever shot an eFG higher than .630 in three straight postseason games, until now.

Today’s style of play skews those numbers quite a bit. Because so many threes are being taken, and effective field-goal percentage accounts for the value of threes, it’s difficult to compare 2023 offense to, say, 1999 offense. But even using regular old field-goal percentage, Miami has only 55 three-game stretches – some of which overlap, because we’re searching by spans – averaging 53.5 percent or better in the past 35 years. In the playoffs? This is only the sixth time they’ve done it, and the first time since the title run in 2012. If we search by streaks, where they have to be over 53.5 percent in each game of the stretch and the stretch isn’t just inflated by one massive outlier performance, this is the fifth time in franchise history, regular season or otherwise. Only two other NBA teams, the 2017 Warriors and 2006 Suns, have a field-goal percentage of .530 or better in three straight postseason games since 2000. It’s the second time the HEAT have ever had three-straight games of 44 percent from three on at least 25 attempts.

You get the point. What’s happening so far is wild, especially considering it’s coming in the playoffs against what has been one of the best defensive teams in the league for years now. No, they haven’t had Giannis Antetokounmpo for most of it, but all those numbers above include stretches against far, far worse defenses, too.

In some ways it’s a touchy subject. Athletes, like anyone else, can be superstitious. If a pitcher is in the middle of a perfect game or a goalie is working on a shutout, you aren’t supposed to say a word about it.

But those types of games happen within individual games. We can’t just ignore what’s happening across multiple games in a series, even if you might imagine that the players themselves might be. At some point, it might be healthier just to compartmentalize the results to avoid falling in love with them. It’s the process that got them here, to this point, and it’s the process they have to stick to.

“The good thing about getting to the point where we’re making shots now is we’ve already seen the other end of it,” Caleb Martin said. “We’ve already been through the process this year of not making shots. We’ve kind of found our stride shooting wise. We’re not necessarily going to fall in love with it to the point of where it takes away from us attacking the paint because we’ve been doing that all season.”

You could make the case that Milwaukee has simplified things for the HEAT. With just about all of their bigs – which is really just Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis at the moment – playing mostly drop coverage, Miami is always just a pick-and-roll away from getting a decent shot off. No, you don’t want to have to rely on 45 percent mid-range jumpers to sustain you night to night, but as we’re seeing there’s an entire universe of possibilities which can occur in a small sample size. Miami is getting 38 points off screen assists right now after averaging about 21 in the regular season. Night to night, the HEAT have a pretty good idea of where their shots are going to come from.

“We just want to get to our strengths more often,” Erik Spoelstra said. “Milwaukee will try to take us out of our strengths. There’s a discipline to playing with intentionality offensively, and I think we’ve been way more purposeful. Again, it always looks better if you make shots, but you can still find ways to win regardless. The shot profile, I like it. We’re taking the shots that are available and they’re a very good team so it’s not like you’re going to get exactly what you want all the time.”

Is all of this sustainable? Can the HEAT continue to be the No. 1 offense in the postseason after finishing the regular season down at No. 25? From a statistical perspective, the answer is pretty clear, at least over time. But these are basketball players who actually have to go out and shoot the shots. Nothing controls what they do but them, not percentages and probabilities. There’s still room for a little magic in sports. And you know what they say about pilots about to fly into an asteroid field? Never tell them the odds.

Jimmy Butler’s threes are a couple of epic poems and an entry into the D'Aulaires Collection from obtaining mythical status. It doesn’t make sense that a player could seemingly snap his fingers and become a better shooter in the playoffs – something that isn’t entirely unrelated to him becoming a more willing shooter at the same time – but that’s pretty much what happens.

Over his four years with Miami, Butler is shooting 26.6 percent from three on 2.8 attempts per 100 possessions. In the playoffs, those numbers jump up to 35.6 percent on 4.0 attempts per 100. Granted, that comparison ignores that Butler was a much more efficient shooter overall this season. He hit four-year highs in pretty much every mid-range area, and his 35 percent from three was the only time he’s even topped 30 while wearing a HEAT uniform. So maybe this is the year it shouldn’t actually be a surprise, but 4-of-4 from three is 4-of-4 from three – exactly what Butler did in Game 3 – and judging from how Milwaukee chose to cover Butler, maybe they were as surprised as anyone.

Defenders backing off and giving Butler space is nothing new. It might happen less than you think given that Butler is only No. 34 in the league with 563 pick-and-rolls against under coverage over the past four years, but that number isn’t nothing. A Butler-led screen has been worth 1.03 points-per-possession since he’s joined Miami, and when teams have gone under on his screens he’s produced 0.97 points-per – not a major drop but enough to catch the eye of any team trying to figure out how to deal with him. Those splits were a little more intense this year, with under coverage limiting Butler – and the HEAT, given that this factors in assist opportunities – to 0.91 points-per as opposed 1.11 against all other schemes.

Through the first two games of this series, Milwaukee’s gamble was paying off in small samples. Miami had just four points on the seven Butler screens that Milwaukee went under on. That flipped in Game 3.

We won’t use the tracking data specifically for this because it doesn’t capture all of the possessions where Milwaukee simply backed off and dared him to shoot, but again 4-of-4 from three tells you what you need to know. The Bucks told him to shoot if he wanted to, and Butler answered with makes.

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Bucks Game 3: Jimmy Back Off Threes

“If you’re playing that far off,” Spoelstra said. “I feel like we’ve faced a similar coverage in years past. You have to take those shots. He’s worked on it diligently. You have to keep defenses honest. It’s not as if he’s just pulling out of a hat right now at this time of the year. He really works at it. Those were the appropriate plays tonight.”

Butler’s career-high in a postseason game is five threes, set back in 2015 with Chicago. This was the fifth time he’s hit four, but the first time he’s ever shot 3-of-3 much less 4-of-4. To his credit, this sort of I Dare You coverage has never affected him too much. Whether or not the shots go in, he’s oscillated between being willing to take the shots being offered up or just brute forcing his way into the paint regardless.

“I can shoot the ball whenever I want,” Butler said. I know I can make it. I’m not worried. Even if you back up off of me, if I want to get into the paint, I’ll still get into the paint. If I want to shoot a mid-range jump shot, I’ll still shoot a mid-range jump shot. That’s part of picking your spots and when you can get to what you want to get to, you can do whatever you want to do.”

Keep an eye on how Milwaukee is playing Butler in Game 4. He may be unlikely to have a perfect night from deep again, something the Bucks could surely be counted on, but being down in a series may make the No. 1 seed a little more reticent to play this sort of defensive mini-game given that their scheme already gives up some shots by its very nature.

Of course, as we continue to mention there’s the Antetokounmpo option. He’s been unavailable thus far, but there’s a non-zero chance that if he plays in Game 4 he also starts on Butler from opening tip. Considering Butler is now true-shooting 67 percent on 32.5 percent usage, attacking early and often to give his team leads that they held onto in Games 1 and 3 – likely Miami’s best path toward success in this series – everything has to be on the Bucks’ table.

Duncan Robinson was having a good enough night. With the team needing some volume shooting in the wake of Tyler Herro’s hand injury, coming off the bench to shoot 5-of-6 from three was a man doing his job to the letter.

Following the theme of the series and what we’ve been talking about here, it’s probably not the worst thing for Robinson to know that there is space available for him on the floor. A couple of his threes were pretty tough, but there was also this one where an entire ocean separated him and the biggest body on the floor as he flew around a screen.

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Bucks Game 3: Duncan Drop Three

Still, this is all expected of Robinson to a degree. Even if his shooting has waxed and waned since those two historical seasons that essentially kick-started his career, he’s always had the talent. Shooting 32.8 percent from deep in the regular season this year was far more surprising than the fact that he’s now at 77 percent in the playoffs to lead all players in the league. This is what he does.

What he does not do very often, is take the best defenders in the league right to the cup. Robinson has developed his off-dribble game over the past few seasons to account for and counter defenses pressuring up on him and the arc and running him off the line. He’s mixed in some downhill action probably a little more than he gets credit for.

He does not, however, have many plays like this on his ledger.

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Bucks Game 3: Duncan Attacks Holiday

Not only did Robinson cross Holiday over to create the driving angle, he also put him shoulder right into him to finish through contact at the rim.

“He’s a great defender and a really good player,” Robinson said of Holiday. “You make a couple and they press up like that, obviously you create a little advantage for yourself.”

Robinson credited his fellow teammates with whom he regularly plays 2-on-2 and 3-on-3 after practices. From what we’ve seen in media sessions, Robinson is typically paired with another big man and does quite a bit of the ballhandling himself in those games – many of which become pretty heated as players argue over calls. If that’s what led to one of the best plays of his entire career, then it’s been time well spent.

In many ways, this series has been the tale of two defenses that accomplish similar goals in very different ways.

Miami and Milwaukee were two of the four best teams in the league in terms of limiting shots at the rim, but stylistically they were far apart. Milwaukee funneled as many actions as possible into the middle of the floor where Lopez and their other bigs waited in front of the rim. They stayed home on shooters to limit threes, and relied on their elite defenders in 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 situations. They were the No. 4 defense during the regular season, but they were No. 28 in deflections per game and No. 30 in opponent turnover percentage. Miami, on the other hand, helped a ton, fronting and doubling and shrinking the floor on any driver willing to dribble into the teeth of the beast. The HEAT finished No. 3 in forcing turnovers and No. 8 in deflections.

For as much as we’ve discussed the shooting in this series so far – the Bucks have been pretty good themselves, considering they tied the NBA record for a playoff game with 25 threes in Game 2 – Miami hadn’t quite been getting their regular defensive results in the margins. Milwaukee was taking care of the ball with just 24 turnovers in two games. Other than a zone-heavy fourth quarter of Game 2 when the Bucks were mostly running out the clock, Miami’s opponent had never looked particularly uncomfortable.

In Game 3, the Bucks felt the pressure. From the opening possessions of the game, Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin, Kyle Lowry and Victor Oladipo were playing as far up in the jerseys of their Bucks counterparts as possible. When Miami fell into a poor matchup, the help was on time and on target. Even simple entry passes for the Bucks were getting tipped.

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Bucks Game 3: Physicality Steals

"Obviously Jrue and Khris, they do a great job of coming down and getting to their shots, getting to their spots," Martins said. "We just want to do what we can to wear those guys down and get them to second guess some stuff."

Miami’s 28 deflections in Game 3 – after 29 in the first two games combined – was their second-highest total of the season. They forced 18 turnovers and 13 of those, incredibly, were live-ball – leading to 21 points for Miami going the other way. The HEAT may have been in control from the end of the first quarter on because of their shooting, but the force they were playing with would have given them a leg up regardless. This was their Make Them Feel You game of the series.

“We’re at our best defensively when we’re disruptive,” Spoelstra said. “That’s certainly the nature of this group. It’s a little bit different than some other Miami Heat teams. You have to be all-in on that. It takes great emotional, mental, spiritual, physical commitment to those kinds of efforts to be really disruptive. And they’re not an easy team to disrupt.”

You can ask the same sustainability questions about the defense as you can about the shooting even if defense generally carries over more consistently game to game. All those deflections aren’t always going to turn into points no matter how much force you’re playing with, and the Bucks will likely be prepared for the increased physicality moving forward. Every game is going to be officiated differently, too.

“That’s the playoffs man,” Kyle Lowry said. “You just have to adapt and adjust to what’s being allowed and what’s going to happen. It’s all about just making other people uncomfortable.”

-The Bucks have scored 1.37 points per possession when that possession starts with a defensive rebound or a live-ball turnover, No. 1 in the postseason. The HEAT are at 1.23 points per, No. 6. Off made shots or free-throws, Bucks are at 1.02, Heat are at 1.21.

-Only the Boston Celtics (108.8 points per 100 plays) have had a better half-court offense than Miami (104.8) in the playoffs, per cleaningtheglass.com.

-This is very much Antetokounmpo related, but the Bucks are getting out in transition just 26.4 percent of the time off live rebounds. During the regular season they were at 30.8 percent, a Top 10 mark.

-About 43 percent of Miami’s shot attempts are coming in either the upper paint or mid-range zones. They’re making 49.2 percent of those shots. Milwaukee has been even better at 50.6, including 52.2 percent in the non-paint mid-range. For all the sustainability questions about the HEAT’s shooting, almost all of it applies to what the Bucks have been doing as well.

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The Driver's Seat: The HEAT Are Taking And Making (Almost All) Of The Shots The Bucks Are Giving Them, But In Game 3 They Also Dug In With Greater Physicality

The first play of the first game of the first rematch between the Miami HEAT and the Milwaukee Bucks looked almost exactly as expected.

Starting in the left corner, Duncan Robinson flew off a series of staggered screens, receiving a handoff as he curled around the final pick set by Bam Adebayo. As he slowed his momentum and squared his body to the basket, there wasn’t a single soul in front of him. Every remaining section of Milwaukee’s defense had two feet below the free-throw line.

So, finding himself wide open for more than the split-second he needs, Robinson fired up his first shot and thunk’d it in off the back of the rim. For those first 20 seconds the proceedings looked just like the last time these teams met, those summer days when Miami’s shooters hit shot after shot after shot.

The rest of the game did not look so familiar.

On a night when both teams had nearly equal shares of positive and negative takeaways from a two-point game decided on a fading Khris Middleton jumper in the closing seconds of overtime, there were two Milwaukee defensive coverages – one expected, one less so – on which Miami’s offensive hopes may hinge.

But whether or not Miami solves those coverages, both directly related to their stars, one thing was abundantly clear: this isn’t last year, when Miami played the part of the permanent aggressor on their way to a decisive 4-1 series victory.

“It’s definitely going to be a cage fight,” Bam Adebayo said.

When Robinson wound up for that first three, the reason he was so wide open was because Brook Lopez was exercising the most extreme variation of the art form known as The Drop.

In other words, he stood in the paint and didn’t move.

Now as that happened – we’re getting in to the dangerous territory of paraphrasing Twitter as a single entity, but allow it for just a moment – there was a certain sense of “They’re Doing That Again?” going around. After all it was just last September that Miami’s cadre of shooters, including Robinson, Goran Dragic, Tyler Herro, Jae Crowder and Kendrick Nunn, seemingly punished the Bucks over and over for conceding all that space in the middle of the floor. One jumper after another fell, each one making Milwaukee’s base defensive scheme look more specifically suited for regular-season play.

But as we discussed prior to this series, that style of defense did what it was supposed to do. Miami essentially never got to the rim, and it was more through a variety of other defensive mistakes – doing the drop with small lineups, an inability to switch, losing track of shooters, fouling – that Milwaukee’s defense broke down. Brook Lopez protecting the rim is a part of the team’s identity. They were always going to show the same look.

“Their base coverage I think is what’s unique,” Erik Spoelstra said in the week before Game 1. “There aren’t a lot of teams that can do what they do in terms of protecting the rim and protecting the paint.”

So while Robinson was springing free at his heart’s content…

…the Bucks had already baked in the possibilities of those shots falling into their thinking. There would be no kneejerk adjustments.

“We knew going in that’s what we were going to see,” Robinson said. “That’s what [Lopez] does, he’s one of the best in the league at it, protecting the rim. They do a good job of keeping him back there and bullying and muscling through screens, trying to slide under and make it tough on guards. It’s give and take. If he’s going to be back there, there’s going to be opportunities for guys to come off.”

Eventually the Bucks did as Robinson says, muscling through screens to contest more of those threes as the game wore on. That Miami eventually settled on a franchise-postseason high 20 makes from deep was more a testament to their own shotmaking, and ability to make plays in random offense, than any looks the Bucks were outright conceding. All the while, the HEAT took just 16 shots at the rim (making six). Forced into 33 non-rim two’s, and those shots not falling (10 makes), Miami finished with an Offensive Rating of 97.3. It was their worst offensive night in over month.

“We missed a lot of easy ones, mid-range shots, that definitely hurt us a little bit,” Dragic said.

Most notably, gone were the cuts and lobs that so often sustained the team’s offense through the dry spells of the season. If shooters were run off the line, Miami’s playmakers could attack as much as they wanted – to a degree. There was still Lopez, perched under the rim and unwavering in his stance, inviting shots of lower expected value.

“We had stretches where they didn’t go in, but you try not to get too caught up in the results,” Robinson said. “We know what they want to do, it’s protect the paint and force those tough twos.”

“You miss shots. You got days like that. That’s ok. You just have to bounce back,” added Butler.

The HEAT have the shooters to take advantage of those opportunities, regardless of whether or not they’re the shots Milwaukee wants them to take. They proved as much last year. And even if Lopez eats up the cuts and lobs, there are still ways the HEAT can use their off-ball movement to get the Bucks in rotation. Toward the end of the first half, a designed Robinson cut seemingly had nowhere to go, but he took the ball baseline and found a shooter as the defense collapsed.

There’s more of that gold to be mined. The HEAT can’t afford to stop moving. Stagnation is strangulation for their offense.

“They’re not going to all the sudden give easy baskets at the rim,” Spoelstra said. “You’re going to have to do things with pace and purpose and move them.”

Lopez does have a man he is defending. He doesn’t get to just sit under the rim all day long picking daisies. This is where Adebayo factors in.

We don’t need to fully relitigate Adebayo’s offensive role. We talked over that plenty a month ago. It doesn’t have to be a commentary on his entire career track every time he struggles against a team that drops into the paint and protects the rim – and he did struggle in shooting 4-of-15 for just nine points. Those 15 attempts were third on the team, by the way. It’s not like he wasn’t putting the ball up.

“I just have to make the shots,” Adebayo said, keeping his commentary short and to the point. “I didn’t make shots today.”

Truth is, Adebayo has a ton of responsibility creating shots for others. The only way for most of his teammates to take advantage of Lopez playing deep drop is for Adebayo to set a screen or deliver a handoff. It’s a pick-and-roll coverage, after all. Every mid-range shot he takes is an open look his teammates don’t get. Adebayo has to make sure everyone gets fed, for the good of the team.

And yet there’s a balance. If you’re never attacking the space given to you, you’re letting the defense off the hook. Just as Adebayo asks his teammates, across the spectrum of defensive capabilities, to Guard Your Yard, they ask him to Attack The Block.

“I feel like he needs to be more aggressive,” Dragic said. “I’m not saying to take that mid-range shot, but he got that ability to put the ball on the floor and be more physical and try to challenge him at the rim. I know Lopez is big, but I think Bam has that quality that he can do it many ways against him.”

In the end, it’s not all on Adebayo to beat Milwaukee’s drop coverage. The team needs, collectively, for just enough to fall. They made their threes and tough two’s at elite rates last year and games were still nip-and-tuck affairs. Even on a poor shooting night for Adebayo and Butler, they were two makes away from a 1-0 series lead.

“We probably, in this game, didn’t need to have great shooting nights from different guys,” Spoelstra said. “Just make one or two more that were in your wheelhouse. It’s not like we’re trying to get a certain percentage for an entire season. These are small game samples.”

In other words, whether it’s open threes or tough twos, make what you need to win.

While the drop coverage was expected, where Milwaukee surprised out of the gate was in having Giannis Antetokounmpo defend Jimmy Butler from the start.

This was a bit of a sticking point for the Bucks last year. Coach Mike Budenholzer appeared to be reluctant to put Antetokounmpo, one of the league’s premier help defenders, on Butler even as Butler was running rampant through fourth quarters with nobody capable of stopping him. Eventually they did go to that matchup, but with Antetokounmpo picking up Butler beyond the arc the HEAT were fairly easily able to screen him and get Butler going downhill. Milwaukee threw down their ace in the hole. Miami had the spades.

This time around, Budenholzer didn’t hesitate. Instead of Antetokounmpo trying to defend Butler as though he were the size of Jrue Holiday, Milwaukee adopted a blueprint put forth by the Los Angeles Lakers. Like Anthony Davis before him, now Antetokounmpo was, often though not always, going under the screens. And if the HEAT attempted to use a smaller player to force a switch, the Bucks would have the small defender show out onto Butler and hold his position for just a beat to allow Antetokounmpo to find ideal recovery positioning.

Not only did Budenholzer use a creative Los Angeles strategy to stymie Butler’s downhill motivations, that style of switch avoidance is exactly what Miami used to avoid getting defenders like Robinson, Herro and Dragic caught on an island with LeBron James. The HEAT may have knocked them out of the playoffs, but the Bucks were paying attention.

If you were wondering why Butler took nine three-point attempts, one off his career-high, there’s your answer.

“Taking what they’re giving,” Butler said. “I may shoot nine next game as well. They’ll fall, I know that. Get in there, work on some touch. Touch was a little bit off. I’m cool. I think we’ll all live with that.”

The good news is that while this is a far more creative solution for Butler than any Milwaukee tried last season, it is not infallible. The Lakers won Game 4 of the Finals largely off Davis going under on Butler’s screens, but the HEAT adjusted and through a series of screen manipulations and timed attacks were able to spring Butler loose on his way to 35 points in a Game 5 victory.

Going under sounds all well and good, but to go under a screen you have to know when and from where the screen is coming.

Butler had one of his worst shooting nights of the season going 4-of-22 – one off his high for attempts in a HEAT jersey – with just four attempts at the rim, but as was once carved into a picnic table south of the border by one Ms. Connor, there’s no fate but what you make for yourself.

“I think that’s on me,” Butler said. “I have to do a better job of attacking downhill, forcing some help and getting the ball to the perimeter. Bam as well. Goran as well. That’s been our jobs all year long, Maybe we got away from it a little bit. But back to the drawing board. Watch some film. Go through some things and get back to that.”

Depending on who you ask, both teams have something to feel good about one game in.

Fans of the HEAT might say their two best players shot a combined 8-of-37 and they only lost by two points. In overtime at that. A little progression to the mean and they’re just fine.

Fans of the Bucks might say their team shot 5-of-31 from deep, their worst shooting game of the past two seasons, and they still won. A little progression to the mean and they’re just fine.

Both sides would be correct. But there’s another layer to this. The Bucks shot poorly from three but they weren’t getting a ton of open looks. Per Second Spectrum, their Shot Quality of 49.6 (expected effective field-goal percentage) on three-pointers was their second-worst mark of the season. They only created one lonely uncontested three all game.

Meanwhile the HEAT, despite generating a ton of open jumpers, themselves had their second-worst overall Shot Quality of the season at 48.7 because they weren’t getting any high-percentage two-point shots.

Both teams have better offense in their futures, but both teams missed their shots for good reason. The swing factor will probably be whether or not Miami’s defense on Antetokounmpo, who scored 26 points on 27 shots, is as real as last year. The HEAT weren’t able to build a wall in the same way as before with Antetokounmpo being used less as a blunt object this time around, but they still swarmed his dribble and played him with their own brand of physicality. Nothing we saw on the court Saturday guarantees one of the league’s most efficient players any level of future success, but there’s seemingly also a little more breathing room this time around.

For the moment, all of this favors Milwaukee. They have the series lead, and the threes they missed are more valuable than Miami’s mid-range twos. It can’t be a bad thing for them that Saturday looked more like a hard reboot of the series, complete with cleaner and more effective switching, than a sequel.

But the thing about moments is they don’t last very long if you don’t let them.

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HEAT-Bucks Game 1: Enter The Cage Fight

The Miami HEAT beating the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last season was only a surprise if you didn’t watch the games. On paper you see that the No. 5 seed knocked off a No. 1 that had been on a 63-win pace and think, ‘Oh, that doesn’t happen very often.’ And on that you would be correct.

But in the games, where records don’t matter, the HEAT looked like the better team. They were sharper. They were more physical. They presented more unsolvable problems. They looked comfortable. They had Milwaukee on their heels. For anyone watching, the surprise would have been if the HEAT lost.

Fast forward from there, through an NBA Finals run and an incredibly short offseason, through all the Health and Safety Protocols and condensed schedules, and we’re right back in the same spot. The HEAT are again the lower seed, coming off an inconsistent regular season, trying to knock off a team with clear championship aspirations. They are, again, dangerous.

In less than a year, so much has changed on both sides that we can’t just play the hits. The HEAT want to build on everything that worked in their favor to make this is a classic sequel (and not like Aliens, which rules but is a rare breed in Sequel Town). The Bucks want to flip the script and remake the entire nature of this matchup.

Only one team can have it their way. Let’s look at some things that matter.

Coming into The Bubble a year ago, the Bucks were the No. 1 defense in the league. They had size and length across the board and they ran a conservative system that sealed off the rim at all costs, dropping bigs like Brook Lopez and forcing teams to operate in the in-between areas with Giannis Antetokounmpo lurking as a help-side defender. They gave up a ton of threes in the process and didn’t force many turnovers, but night-to-night the system wore teams down as the math worked out again and again. Teams either hit their jumpers on Milwaukee, or they lost.

Then they got to the playoffs and the Bucks did the same thing. The same one thing.

It’s a bit of a misnomer to say that Milwaukee’s defense “didn’t work” against Miami. It actually worked exactly as intended. With all that length protecting the paint, the HEAT only took 23.3 percent of their shots at the rim in that five-game series – a mark that would have ranked dead last by a wide margin during that regular season, where San Antonio was No. 30 in rim frequency at 28.6 percent. Milwaukee’s defense had a clear priority, and it succeeded in meeting that goal.

“I’m still of the belief that last year our defense held up in that series,” Pat Connaughton said this week.

The issue was that 82-game math isn’t the same as 7-game math. The HEAT may have been pushed away from the rim, but they made 47.7 percent of their non-rim paint shots, 42.5 percent of their mid-range jumpers and 40 percent on above-the-break threes. Outside of the corners, if it was a floater or a jumper then it was going down at an elite rate.

And for long stretches of the series Miami was getting those shots whenever they wanted them.

When it comes to Lopez, who can devour the entire restricted area by himself and cut off both the lobs and cuts that Miami often thrives on, we’re going to see more of the same. Even with Miami raining makes, the Bucks had a defensive rating of 108.4 when Lopez was on the floor. Just fine. When Lopez was off the floor and Antetokounmpo split the frontcourt minutes with now-retired Marvin Williams, that number ballooned to 114.3.

The way the league has gone, with smaller and smaller lineups over the past decade, most teams have also shifted toward switching screens to capitalize on the added mobility. That was one of Miami’s big adjustments last season post-trade deadline. They swapped in Jae Crowder next to Bam Adebayo and started switching everything, which they still do today, as often as the Houston Rockets teams that almost switched the Golden State Warriors into an early postseason exit.

But when Milwaukee went small last year, they were still in drop. Gone was the size and length of Lopez, now the HEAT had Williams, or even Wes Matthews, as the only resistance between them at the basket.

In the 36 minutes Williams and Antetokounmpo shared the floor during that series, the Bucks were outscored by 18.8 points per 100 possessions.

Milwaukee rethought their approach and started switching more often, but it wasn’t something they had built up positive habits and instincts on. It showed.

The numbers on this can be a little finnicky because of how the cameras pick up blown switch coverages like those shown above, but Miami scored 1.09 points per pick-and-roll when the Bucks switched. That’s better than the league-leading Dallas Mavericks pick-and-roll last season which landed at 1.05, and the Utah Jazz which hit 1.06. With handoffs, it looked even better for Miami.

In short, the HEAT forced the Bucks into an adjustment they weren’t ready for. Coach Mike Budenholzer, for his part, did what all coaches do after a playoff loss. He reassessed. Clearly making defensive flexibility a point of emphasis, Budenholzer took a team that practically never switched the season prior and made them do it at a league-average rate. Since they acquired P.J. Tucker, the key switching cog for those Houston teams alongside Miami’s Trevor Ariza, they switch with a Top 10 frequency per Second Spectrum data – about as high as they’re going to get considering Lopez still being a major piece of their defense.

It hasn’t always looked perfect. Even when the Bucks were up double digits on Miami last weekend there were still plays like Kendrick Nunn – a looming threat given his three-level scoring package – forcing a blown switch and getting right to the rim for a free dunk. But it’s part of who Milwaukee is now. Along with making some other changes to their perimeter coverage, stunting help like the Utah Jazz as players like Duncan Robinson come around handoffs, not to mention employing players like Holiday who are incredible at chasing players around screens, the Bucks have set themselves up to be a more dynamic and flexible defense.

Milwaukee still has to prove the changes can work when it counts. The HEAT aren’t going to allow for any sort of easing in process. With just about every shooter rounding into form over the past six weeks, along with plenty of guys who can pull-up at range, Miami has plenty of options to punish drop coverage. Switching can flatten the HEAT out, but they know how to beat it – Hello, Bam Adebayo slip screens – without getting forced into late-clock isolations. There are certainly switch matchups the HEAT can chase should they choose to.

“With the switching, we’ve built so many habits off of being guarded different ways, if we see a different coverage we can adjust,” Adebayo said. “It’ll be beneficial to me because if they’re switching, the pocket pass [is there] and I get to make plays.”

The Bucks might not be quite as comfortable in what they do right off the bat this time around. Miami will want to keep it that way.

We don’t need to spend too much time rehashing The Wall. It wasn’t unique to last season. Years ago Erik Spoelstra, among other coaches, took a defensive scheme once built for LeBron James – thank San Antonio – and made it their own to use against Antetokounmpo. Whatever the cost, keep the force-of-nature out of the paint. If he shoots it, he shoots it. Make or miss.

Nowadays that wall is practically Miami’s base defense regardless of opponent. If the ball threatens the paint, they shrink the floor and bring some pesky arms with veteran hands attached into the gaps. Whether they’re playing a true zone or not, it’s a shell drill. If the ball ever breaks the seal in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it, something went wrong.

There’s a bit of a question as to who starts off with the Antetokounmpo assignment, it being Crowder’s job last year but it could be Adebayo or Ariza this time around, but the two-time MVP shouldn’t have any easier time getting right to the rim.

Milwaukee knows this, and again they’ve made some small adjustments. They made a huge leap three years ago when they acquired Lopez and went to a full five-out offensive system, maximizing the space Antetokounmpo would have to attack the rim. It worked. Wonderfully so. Those MVP’s didn’t come by mistake. But as more and more teams started to lock in to Miami’s, and Toronto’s to their credit, defensive style all that space being created on the interior wound up working against Milwaukee in a backwards sort of way. With nobody to defend inside, teams had all the more bodies to cover driving lanes. The paint could be made null and void.

Look at this spacing from the series a year ago. In clearing out the paint, the Bucks only gave the HEAT more bricks for the wall.

The adjustment has been to put players, including but not limited to Lopez, in the dunker spot along the baseline. Or, as the HEAT used to refer to it during their battles with the Indiana Pacers, The Bird Box. An affectionate name for where Chris Andersen was stationed on the floor as the steady release valve for James and Dwyane Wade when they could draw the attention of Roy Hibbert.

Here’s what it looked like last weekend at the moment the HEAT stymied Antetokounmpo with another wall.

Notice the gap in space between Donte DiVincenzo in the right corner and Bryn Forbes on the left wing. That’s a massive entry point to the paint for Antetokounmpo to drives into, and a longer gap for Kendrick Nunn and Robinson to close as they pinch in. The result of this play was Antetokounmpo swinging it to Forbes who, after ducking a long closeout from Nunn, hit a three. In essence, by taking a piece out of the perimeter the Bucks can stretch the defense out to a breaking point. Sure, now Adebayo is in the paint if Antetokounmpo does break the shell, but that’s the decision Milwaukee has made.

It also makes them a better offensive rebounding team simply because they have a player stationed near the rim more often.

“They’ve surrounded Giannis with really good shooters and playmakers in Holiday and Middleton, but they also get extra opportunities at the basket with their spacing, whether that’s on cuts or spacing on drives or offensive rebounds,” Spoelstra said. “You have to account for them on the baseline where you tend to lose sight of them.”

How is this new spacing going to play out in this series? That remains to be seen. The Bucks clearly had offensive success against Miami this season as they posted Offensive Ratings of 120 or better on two separate occasions, setting the all-time record for made threes (29) in a game in one of those, but Jimmy Butler didn’t play in any of those games and Butler is one of the best, if not the best, weakside defenders in the league. All those passing lanes Milwaukee has opened up are also potential passes Butler or Ariza or Andre Iguodala can take the other way.

All we know for now is that it’s going to look different. Considering Milwaukee scored just 100.4 points per 100 possessions against Miami with a force like Antetokounmpo on the floor during that series, they’ll take any different that they can get.

The fact that Jimmy Butler didn’t play one minute against the Bucks this season isn’t just important because he’s very good. It’s because he’s also very good specifically against the Bucks.

Butler used 26 isolation possessions against the Bucks during last season’s playoffs. Care to guess how many points he scored out of those?

Jrue Holiday

Coup's Takeaways: Tyler Herro Gives Miami A Chance As Boston Holds On For Victory

Jimmy's Lyric: After 56 Points In Game 4, Butler's Myth Will Stand The Test Of Time

The Driver's Seat: The HEAT Are Taking And Making (Almost All) Of The Shots The Bucks Are Giving Them, But In Game 3 They Also Dug In With Greater Physicality

HEAT-Bucks Game 1: Enter The Cage Fight

HEAT-Bucks II: Sequel or Reboot?