NBA Playoffs

Couper Moorhead

With about eight minutes left in the second quarter, the Celtics are fighting back fast and furious. Jayson Tatum scores nine straight points, and after falling behind by 10, again, in the first quarter Boston is within one.

Jimmy Butler catches in the right corner. Grant Williams isn’t giving him this shot, as the Celtics have occasionally done. The HEAT have nothing else going. Standstill. Butler gives a half-speed jab step to the right and then makes up his mind. He loads up from three. Williams contests. Butler’s feet barely leave the ground. The lead becomes four.

Before the game, before an elimination Game 6 in a hostile environment, P.J. Tucker and Markieff Morris were having a discussion with Butler. At one point, they put it out there.

Butler didn’t say a word in response. He looked his teammates and nodded his head.

With about eight minutes left in the third quarter, Boston is pushing again. Down three. They had already taken a momentary lead early in the period after trailing by two at the break, answered by a ludicrous Max Strus three with one second on the shot clock. Now they’re back at the summit, about to grapple the final ledge.

Butler catches the ball on the right wing, drawing Robert Williams in a cross match. Williams stands on the arc, arms out wide. Once between the legs, and Butler makes his move. He doesn’t so much as beat Williams as he gets into him, creating just enough space to cross the plane from the right hemisphere of the rim to the left. The ball goes up awkwardly, but it travels just high enough to get up over the rim. Just barely. It sits there. One beat passes. Another. The lead goes back to five.

Dwyane Wade usually only reaches out in times of great need. The morning of Game 6 was one of those times. A phone call. A text message. Something Butler needed to hear.

Butler’s knee might be banged up, Wade relayed in his messages, but nobody cares. These are the nights when you build your legacy.

“It meant the world to me,” Butler said.

You can never know when a game like this is going to happen. You can think. You can guess. You can project. You can hope. You can’t know. Not for certain. But certain players make you think it’s possible. They make you believe.

Butler had earned that belief before. Had shown he could be the last man standing and emerge victorious, at least for a night. Two years ago he dropped 40 and 35-point triple doubles on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers to stave off defeat in the NBA Finals despite the team being ravaged with injuries. Two of the greatest Finals performances anyone has ever seen. He showed everyone what it looked like to empty the tank.

He had been rolling in that postseason, playing as well as ever. You could easily argue he was topping that postseason run this time around, having dropped three 40-point games, averaging 30 along the way. Atlanta had no chance. Philadelphia challenged him to be a scorer more than a playmaker and he obliged. In Game 1 against Boston, he dropped 41 points on 19 shots. But even with Miami taking Game 3, the previous three games combined for one of the worst stretches of his career. 27 total points on 10-of-40 shooting. He was not, by any stretch, his usual self.

“I let my team down a couple of games,” Butler told ESPN during his walkoff interview.

With about 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Boston is back within four. Ime Udoka has stuck Horford on Butler, as he did down the stretch of Game 5, mimicking the choices of past coaches to put the likes of Anthony Davis and Giannis Antetokounmpo on Butler to keep him away from the rim. Tucker screens Horford off of Butler, who drives on Grant Williams. Pullup. Contact. Foul. Boston is back down seven.

Udoka clearly trusts Horford. He’s right to, but you can tell how much a coach trusts a defender by how much help they offer them. Doc Rivers trusted Joel Embiid to keep Butler away from the rim while shutting down Miami’s shooters. Butler averaged 32 points in the games that Embiid played, shooting 55 percent. Boston is doing the same. A minute after the score over Grant Williams, it’s one-on-one. Ten paces on the main drag. No help coming. No shooters to find. Nowhere to hide.

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Celtics Game 6: Jimmy Butler Attack Al Horford One-On-One

In the grand scheme of it all, maybe this is a win for Horford. If you force the shot Butler takes here, a fading jumper off a reverse pivot, over and over again, with a good contest, the percentages are probably going to work out in your favor.

Averages don’t matter in the fourth quarter of an elimination game. You get the shots you get. You make them, or you go on vacation.

Horford did everything right. Butler passes the test regardless. He passes nearly every test. His 29 field-goal attempts tie his career postseason high, and with Miami sending plenty of help, in the gaps, with blitzes or with straight up doubles at Boston’s two stars, those 29 shots are more than Tatum and Jaylen Brown take combined (26).

Butler wasn’t alone in this one, not hardly. The offensive burden was his to bear, but Kyle Lowry has his best scoring performance of the playoffs despite dealing with his own injury. A 5-of-14 in the box score isn’t going to make you look twice, but Miami doesn’t win without his four - one of them tying the game after Boston took a late three-point lead - or Strus’ three triples. Tucker and Bam Adebayo grab five offensive boards to complement their typically exceptional defense. Butler put his name on the game. His teammates gave him a hammer and a chisel.

With eight minutes left in the fourth, Boston is surging. The HEAT were just up nine. Now they’re up two after a pair of Brown free-throws. Butler catches in the left corner with Marcus Smart in front of him. Tucker moves to set a screen, to get Butler the White matchup on the switch. Butler doesn’t wait. Another three, and Miami is back up five.

It’s not always the best sign of healthy offense if Butler is shooting threes. Of the rotation players who take them – pretty much everyone who isn’t Adebayo – Butler’s percentages are typically the least inspiring. It is not what you would call Option No. 1, not by any stretch. Even after hitting a bunch of them earlier in the postseason, Butler was shooting 32 percent from deep coming into this game. But Butler has continuously shown that the percentages can be damned. Sometimes you aren’t going to get a great look, aren’t going to have a traditionally healthy offensive possession, no matter what you do. That’s the playoffs. Sometimes you just have to be willing.

It’s one of two corner threes Butler would make in the game, as many as the Celtics hit as a team. He scores 20 points on 14 isolations.

The easy and obvious and fair comparison is to James’ 45-point Game 6 in Boston back in 2012. Nearly identical situations, though the stakes were a little different for that HEAT team, having fallen to Dallas in the previous NBA Finals, under possibly the most scrutiny of any group in the history of professional sports. James stole Boston’s soul early in that one. He hushed the crowd in the opening minutes and neither they, nor the Celtics, could muster anything for him. Complete and utter domination.

The crowd on Friday night had hope. Again and again, the Celtics were right there. Either making it a one possession game or outright taking a lead. Again and again, Butler stood firm. Indomitable. The silencer.

“Jimmy brought his competitive will tonight, and it was a will that would not let us lose,” Erik Spoelstra said.

With six minutes left in the fourth, it’s a one-point game after a pair of Tatum free-throws. How many times is this the moment where the home team follows the script? They make their run, the building comes to life, they never look back. Instead, Butler comes off a screen, puts his head down, barrels through Tatum’s swiping arm and sheds Smart, arms up and not fouling, to free himself for a short jumper.

Butler’s 22 drives are a series high for any player, topping Tatum’s previous high of 17. He almost hits as many two pointers (8) in the second half as the entire Celtics team (9). He ties his season high with 20 points in the paint.

With two minutes left in the game, it’s tied. Brown had just missed a pair of free-throws. Butler has the ball on the right wing. Boston doesn’t want to switch White, a good defender but giving up some size, onto Butler. Or at least it doesn’t look like they want to. It looks like White is supposed to hedge out on Butler, stop the ball, and let Smart recover to the man. If that’s the case, the coverage is blown. White doesn’t stop anything. Smart doesn’t recover. Butler gets a full head of steam, charges the lane and goes right at Horford’s chest. And one.

In the entire postseason history of the league, only Russell Westbrook had ever posted numbers to match Butler’s 47 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and four steals - each of them distributing run-stopping silence on their own. Westbrook needed 43 shots to do it that night in 2017. In making over half his attempts, Butler put up a statistical line that had never happened before. Ever. Even including regular season games, only the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Rick Barry and James Harden matched Butler’s line. Those performances didn’t happen with a season, with championship hopes, on the line.

“The game speaks for itself,” Adebayo says.

The dagger comes in the final minute. Boston clings to hope down four. Miami has to take the ball out of bounds in the corner, directly in front of Boston’s bench. There’s 2.2 on the shot clock.

Butler posts up Smart 20 feet out. Fakes right. Spins left. White comes over to help and contest. Mike Breen lets out an ‘It’s good’. Scanning the seats, you can see multiple heads fall into multiple sets of hands. Twenty thousand hearts break in unison, and that’s not even counting those at home.

It’s also an incredibly tough shot. With Boston posting its best Shot Quality – expected effective field goal percentage based on the shots taken and how well they were contested – of the series on one end, Miami’s number sits about where it’s been for the last four games, in a range that would have been one of the worst marks for the regular season. The HEAT score 21 points in the last three seconds of the shot clock, one off their own season high and the most late-clock points Boston has surrendered all season. It was notable when Philadelphia did the same to Miami, and it’s notable now. It’s a tough way to live, and would be tough to replicate in Game 7.

It also doesn’t matter now that Butler has given Miami the gift of life. There’s no guarantee that Game 7 will have to play out the same way, nor that the same will be required of Butler. It may be that Butler will have to step out into the midday sun, little hand and big hand both pointing right at twelve, and face down the same opponent. Or another hero could emerge. That’s for then.

For now, Butler gave Miami a chance to keep figuring it out. It wasn’t just a game to remember. You won’t have to remember. You will be reminded of it, on broadcasts and in articles, in tweets and in memes and in feeds. It will be recorded in every volume. A shared experience for everyone in the sport that will one day transition into legend.

No matter how the context changes in the coming days or weeks, Jimmy Butler’s 47 will never go away. Because, as Lowry so eloquently put it, ‘it was f****** incredible.’

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High Noon: Jimmy Butler Serves Up Silence In Recording His Masterpiece

There have been times in this bizarro series where it has looked like the Miami HEAT were playing against themselves. One dynamic, super-switchy team going toe-to-toe with another, each side employing similar tactics to tighten their grips on the paint. You won’t find any defense more like Miami than Boston.

“It’s like we’re looking in the mirror,” Bam Adebayo said.

“It’s like we’re literally looking at our twin,” Tyler Herro said.

What makes each unit so good defensively is that they have the versatility, the intelligence and the quick-twitch precision to execute a variety of schemes. They don’t have to switch everything, nor do they defend each opponent the same way. It’s that variety that allows them to take away what you do best, to force Trae Young and James Harden to adopt a strict outside-looking-in diet, to deny Joel Embiid his comfort zones, to repeatedly knock Kevin Durant off his spots or to cut off all of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s air supply.

It’s because these defenses, so similar in their capacity for change, adapt so seamlessly that their opponents often perish in such an ugly fashion, forced to live their offensive lives on the edge. Forced to be something other than themselves.

It’s because these defenses are so similar, that neither Miami nor Boston looks much like themselves at all.

If they’re looking in the mirror, the image they see only resembles their own. It’s a version of themselves possessed by a Kandarian demon, and it’s reaching out to apply hands to neck. If they’re looking at their twin, it’s because they can’t see themselves. You think you’re looking at you because it looks like you, but you don’t look like you. You’ve exchanged faces with someone else. Now you look like Nic Cage. It’s like looking in the mirror, only not.

Miami’s offense was nearly unrecognizable in the early stages of Game 4. They were missing shots at a historic rate, but they weren’t missing their shots. They weren’t getting their shots. They shot 3-of-20 in the first quarter. None of them were corner threes – which Miami took the second most of during the regular season – and only one of them was at the rim. Everything was in-between, and the HEAT are not an in-between team.

“We just kind of settled in and just took the first available contested shot,” Erik Spoelstra said. “Against a great defense like they have, or conversely, against us, if you fall prey to that, you're going to feel like you're in quicksand.”

They might have played their own part in wandering into the sand, as Spoelstra also noted they weren’t exactly running their offense with “great intention.” But the sand has its say as well, and struggle as you might if you don’t find a way to pull yourself clean out, you’ll only sink deeper. Boston ensured Miami sunk, for a quarter at least, about as deep they as they could possibly go as their 11 points – following eight minutes without a field goal – was the lowest scoring opening period in franchise postseason history. Boston did it with some adjustments we’ve seen before from HEAT opponents, and from the HEAT themselves.

You can’t really put it any other way other than Robert Williams, in the limited time he’s been able to play with his knee injury, has posed a problem. Miami has already been at a Shot Quality disadvantage in this series, with their number – which represents the expected effective field-goal percentage on their shots – dropping from 51.6 (Rank 18) in the regular season to 50.1 (would Rank 30) in this series. Boston, meanwhile, has been right around their usual number regardless of who the HEAT have on the court.

With Williams playing, Miami’s Shot Quality drops even further down to 49.8 – each decimal tick is more meaningful here given the relatively thin range of values at play – and down to 48.7 with Horford on the court. When either one of those two are in the game, Boston has been around +23 points per 100 possessions.

Adebayo gave Horford the business in Game 3, there’s no doubt about that. He attacked early and often in transition, and the HEAT were able to give him plenty of space to attack in one-on-one situations. In Game 4, Horford pushed back, immediately pressuring Adebayo out to the three-point line – just as the HEAT did to Embiid – to stall out the offense. Horford was generally brilliant, holding Miami to a 62.5 Offensive Rating in his 33 minutes, but it was the combination of Horford on the ball and Williams off the ball that presented the most trouble.

Let’s take a look at one of Miami’s first pick-and-rolls in Game 4.

The first thing you’ll notice is that Horford is in drop coverage. Boston may switch more than any team in the league, but they aren’t a one-trick pony. Like Miami with Adebayo, they’ll toggle between multiple coverages to keep you off balance, and they’ve been fairly assertive with when to be conservative. Namely, if Butler is handling the ball they’ll either go under the screen entirely or play a traditional drop to mitigate the damage Adebayo can do, and has done, slipping the screen mid-switch. The HEAT have handled that coverage pretty well – though having a healthy Tyler Herro and/or Kyle Lowry helps quite a bit there – scoring an exquisite 1.22 points-per-screen against drop in this series, that number drops all the way down to 0.97 with Horford on the court.

Also in that above image you’ll notice how Williams is cheating off of P.J. Tucker to seal off the rim. Williams is there so early, in fact, that Horford doesn’t even have to align himself square with Butler’s potential drive, he can simply play the space in between and take away the lob threat to Adebayo – a threat that worked wonders in Game 3, with Williams unavailable – knowing that he’s not alone.

How Williams was playing that pick-and-roll wasn’t a one-off. It's what he was doing all throughout the second half of the season as Boston's defense gained steam.

Where Philadelphia opted to defend most of these Butler-Adebayo actions two-on-two while cutting off access to the HEAT’s shooters, a strategy which both worked and didn’t work, Boston isn’t allowing nearly as much space. A pick-and-roll becomes a two-on-three proposition, with Ime Udoka trusting one of his capable wing defenders to manage the space between two possible HEAT shooters away from the ball, always favoring the more deadly of the two (often Max Strus).

With Boston also taking a page out of Milwaukee’s book and experimenting with having Williams be Butler’s primary defender on a handful of possessions, creating a facsimile of what last year’s Bucks’ series looked like at times with Antetokounmpo taking on that assignment, it’s a well-worn strategy for keeping Butler and his teammates away from the rim. Butler was 1-of-7 on non-rim two-pointers in the first half. The HEAT were 4-of-24 as a team.

“We settled for too many mid-range jump shots, myself included,” Butler said.

The 31 non-rim paint attempts Miami took was the second-highest total of the season, and the highest with the regulars available. Their three attempts at the rim in the first half were the second fewest of the season.

Typically, a HEAT game against Milwaukee features a decent number of those mid-range looks by design. When the HEAT hit enough of those shots, or drain threes at high-volume – something they do against the Bucks at a fairly outlandish rate – they’ll beat that defense. But what Boston managed to pull off in Game 4, with their ability and willingness to switch off-ball actions while playing somewhat conservatively in the middle of the floor, is that none of the great three-point looks that are typically available against Milwaukee were there. Their two corner-three attempts in the first half tied a season low.

Requisite passing angles are there. If Tucker is in the corner, that’s traditionally a great look. Enough of those can turn a game. Miami just couldn’t ever really get him the ball. Midway through the second quarter Butler ran another pick-and-roll with similar spacing, Horford cheating off of Tucker, and he tried to deliver the ball to Tucker. Except the pass was low and away, and by the time Tucker was able to mechanically recover and threaten to launch, the closeout was already right on top of him. At other teams, HEAT players were simply too close, or even right on top of, each other, making it far too easy for the Celtics to split the difference between two shooters with one defender.

Boston’s defense was a razor blade. Miami’s offense was operating with all the edge of melting butter.

“We need to move the ball around, get it to the open guy and let that guy make the play and live with what we get out of it,” Butler said.

Of course, the HEAT are trying to do much of the same on the other end. They don’t have the size and length of Boston, but the philosophy is the same and Boston’s drives are down, as are their paint touches. Much of what we’ve spent all year talking about the Miami’s defense is working as intended. The Celtics are only scoring 108.6 points per 100, down from 113 in the regular season.

“They have the same tendencies [as us],” Adebayo said. “They get in the gaps.”

When Miami tried to get in the gaps in Game 4, the extra efforts they need to fill in behind weren’t quite there. Here Tucker pulls all the way off Grant Williams to crowd the paint, and Tatum makes the quick read for a cross-court pass.

The good news is that the Celtics didn’t have some extraordinary offensive game. They won because of their early defense and the fact that they were able to consistently get to the free-throw line – save your complaints on that one, the HEAT are being plenty physical and the Celtics played into the contact rather than on their heels in this one. Unlike some other teams, the Celtics are involving Adebayo in as few screens as possible, choosing to seek matchups small-for-small and avoid the Adebayo switch. All that twisting and turning in the halfcourt has led to some flat offense. The bad news is that Boston only shot 8-of-34 from three. Some of their misses were just misses.

More critically, Boston’s offense wasn’t helping the HEAT at all. If there are any numbers you remember from this piece, remember this: Miami is scoring 1.09 points per possession through four games. When they are able to play off a defensive rebound or a steal, they are scoring a rather absurd 1.36 points per possession. When they are playing off a Boston make, either a field-goal or a free-throw, their offensive efficiency drops down 0.97.

Those same splits are present for Boston, as they are for pretty much any team, but they aren’t nearly as dramatic. Miami’s best offense, by miles and miles and miles, has come off defensive stops. The Celtics may have been missing some shots in Game 4, but they only turned the ball over three times. In maintaining their composure and not feeding the mistakes into Miami’s transition – stops beget scores beget stops all over again, just like the last 10 minutes of MEN – while succumbing to Miami’s never-ending pressure, the Celtics were upping their chances on both ends of the court.

The reality here is that despite four fairly lopsided games – though we can’t act like Miami almost losing their big lead in Game 3 was a non-issue given how they played with advantages at times this season – Boston likely has the greater margin for error at this point. Regardless of who has more healthy bodies, the HEAT have been outscored by 28, and Boston holds a significant scoring edge in the final two-thirds of the shot clock, 1.17 points-per-possessions to Miami’s 1.06 (0.99 in the final eight seconds, while Boston’s number remains the same). The Celtics have been less reliant on the defense-to-offense-to-defense feedback loop.

“Even if it was early in the clock or halfway through the clock, we just didn't really execute with purpose and we paid the price for that,” Spoelstra said.

And yet the series is 2-2, and the HEAT have both avenues to improve and homecourt. Shooting 27.4 percent on pullup jumpers, well below their averages, is something they can reverse in a hurry. Those are shots they hit against Milwaukee in the past and against Philadelphia in the second round, and they are shots they can hit again, with Victor Oladipo adding a nice boost in that department in Game 4. With better spacing, Butler and Adebayo can find better angles to attack. If Boston is going to cheat off of good shooters, those good shooters are going to have opportunities. Boston did a nice job switching smaller guards away from danger off the ball in Game 4. If Miami plays with a little more pace in the halfcourt, they'll find those matchups again. None of what the Celtics are doing is new, and vice versa. We’re quickly reaching the point of the series where the answers lie in doing what you do, knowing what’s coming from the film, and doing it better.

The adjustments were plenty doable when the Philadelphia series was tied, 2-2, and they’re plenty doable now. Boston is better than that team, but they haven’t proven themselves infallible. Miami might need their pressure to pay off more like it in did in the first quarter of Game 3 (5 steals) and the third quarter of Game 1 (10 steals), but they’re here because they’re one of the best teams in the league at applying aggressive, physical and (more often than not) disciplined pressure. Turnovers, especially steals, might be a bit more of a high-variance play than we typically discuss them as – similar to three-point shooting – yet that doesn’t mean you sit back and let them happen. You go out and take them.

“The turnovers in the playoffs don’t feel the same as the turnovers in the regular season,” Caleb Martin said. “If you turn the ball over, it feels like it’s three turnovers just because possessions are cut short and every possession has so much importance in the playoffs.

“It’s kind of a dagger to your team whenever you turn the ball over that much.”

If turnovers are the dagger, the HEAT and Celtics must feel at times like they’re trying to stab themselves in the back. You won’t find two defenses more similar than these, yet it’s those similarities that are making these teams look, at times, very much unlike themselves.

This series may feel like looking in the mirror, only the image in the reflection may not always look like what you expect.

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Mirror's Edge: The HEAT And Celtics Defenses Couldn’t Be More Similar, And That’s Making The Offense Nearly Unrecognizable

From the beginning, you could tell something was different.

In his entire postseason career, Bam Adebayo had never taken a shot in the first two minutes of the game after four or more dribbles. That may sound far too specific, but it’s an easy way to filter out all the randomness and get right down to what we’re really looking for which are shots that Adebayo had to create entirely on his own. Him vs. The Other Guy shots. Go and get it shots.

Adebayo had taken one of those early shots in a postseason game before, and it was in Game 2 against Boston. That one, with Adebayo posting up the smaller Jaylen Brown on a switch, was wobbly. Brown poked the dribble away and after Adebayo recovered, he wound up forcing a contested fadeaway jumper that clanged off the heel of the rim. Not exactly the outcome that Adebayo, nor Erik Spoelstra, is looking for.

That’s not the shot Adebayo took in the opening minutes of Game 3. After Kyle Lowry, in his return from a hamstring injury, immediately gassed up the transition offense with a push off a rebound that eventually became a Max Strus trail three, Miami’s next possession began with Adebayo bringing the ball up the court. With his teammates all running to the weakside, all that was between Adebayo and the rim was Al Horford.

One second later, Horford was not between Adebayo and the rim.

That morning at the team’s shootaround, Spoelstra had said something a little different himself. Spoelstra has long attempted to combat criticism of Adebayo, and he’s never been off base in his approach to doing so. For years, Spoelstra has remained on message when it came to his All-Star center. It’s not about the scoring or the points or the shots. It’s about his unselfishness in creating opportunities for his teammates, and the burden that comes with the team needing him to play the engine to the offense. It’s about his defense, as one of the most switchable centers in the history of the league. It’s about his impact on winning. All of it true, and the reminders were oft needed.

But after Adebayo attempted just four and six shots in two homes games against the Celtics – amounting to a combined usage rate under 11, below where P.J. Tucker finished the regular season – Spoelstra’s tact changed.

“We want him more involved. I have to do a better job of that, of making sure he’s involved, engaged,” he said at shootaround. “I think we’ll be able to get him in places where he can be assertive.”

The response was colossal. Not only did Adebayo answer the call with 31 points and a team-leading +17, his 22 field-goal attempts were a career-high for any game, postseason or otherwise – which happens to be Kevin Garnett’s postseason high with the Celtics, if that interests you. More pointedly, 15 of those shots were unassisted – also a career-high.

“I needed to pick up my weight,” Adebayo said. “These last couple of games, my team has been depending on me and I haven’t showed up. I took it upon myself to lock in.”

With two minutes left in the first half, Adebayo had Brown on him again. As Lowry directed traffic, Adebayo stopped just outside the paint, waited for the ball to reach the wing and raised his hand offering a target. This time, there was no fadeaway jumper. Face up. Baseline dribble. Spin back. Hook. He moved Brown where he wanted him to go. He dictated.

“It wasn't just leaning back and shooting floaters,” Strus said. “He was being physical. He was getting to the rim. He was just involved a lot more, and we need that.”

“Adebayo kind of put his shoulder into whoever was guarding him, into their chest,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said. “Guys have to take ownership of that matchup and defend like we're capable of.”

Some of Adebayo’s usual diet was present. A feed from Lowry or Strus or Tyler Herro on the rim run when the defense overreacted to the shooters. An offensive rebound and-one. A pass from Jimmy Butler in transition after running the floor. All the usual shots that come his way when the offense is functioning as intended and Adebayo is playing with his usual energy. On most any other nights those shots would have been sufficient. With the Celtics clawing their way back from a 26-point deficit after the HEAT took the first quarter, 39-18, and Butler taken out for the rest of the game at halftime due to knee inflammation, someone was going to have to create enough of something. Of anything.

“He just stabilized us,” Spoelstra said. “It got a little gnarly out there and when it did, we were able to get the ball to Bam and just get something coherent.”

Sometimes you just have to be the guy to take the shot, make or miss, because that is what is required. Some nights, with Boston’s switching defense doing everything it can to flatten out a team that wants to move the ball, Goose isn’t enough. You need Maverick. There’s stability in willingness.

“Tonight we needed the scoring and we needed kind of that offensive punch early on,” Spoelstra said.

Up four with 90 seconds left and four seconds on the shot clock, another handoff for Strus isn’t the need even if Strus had hit the biggest shot of his career the possession prior. Up four with 90 seconds left and four seconds on the shot clock is when the talent plays. Nobody else, on the road with a hostile crowd bearing down, is going to keep the powder keg quiet.

“He did his version of what Jimmy does in terms of doing what's necessary for the game,” Spoelstra said. “He was extremely assertive. It happened in a lot of moments that were fully in the context of how we want to play. He was just way more assertive on the catch and those moments in between.”

On the catch stands out there. While Spoelstra assuredly pushed a few buttons to get Adebayo in the right spots, especially with Lowry on hand to conduct the orchestra, the implication is that no matter where Adebayo was touching the ball, what mattered most was what he did with it. You can draw up whatever you want to draw up, the only one who can do it is the guy who does the doing. The ball finds energy, as it always has with Adebayo, but it also finds desire.

“Same old play calls,” Adebayo said when asked if anything was different about the offense in Game 3. “Just a different mentality.”

“Bam took it on himself,” Lowry said.

Will it look the same in Game 4? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe that’s the need, maybe it isn’t. Adebayo was a good isolation scorer during the regular season – second best on the team after Butler – at 1.03 point-per-iso, No. 18 of the 68 players who used at least 200 such possessions this season. He performed right to that level in Game 3. He was slightly less effective in the post, but still capable against the right matchup and again he didn’t overperform his averages to an unsustainable degree. Shooting 10-of-15 on those unassisted shots will be tough to repeat. So, too, will be 11-of-13 in the paint and 4-of-8 on long mid-range twos. He’s a good-not-great mid-range shooter – the percentages fell off a cliff this year, which might not be unrelated to his thumb injury – and the more contested looks won’t always fall.

They went in in Game 3, enough to give the HEAT a 2-1 series lead on the road, and they don’t go in unless they’re taken in the first place. Next game, impact might come from his other talents – all of which were still on display with 10 rebounds, six assists, four steals and a block – first.

“I just want to win,” Lowry said. “I don't give a damn how many shots he takes. A win is a win.”

Adebayo will never be who everyone wants him to be. Nobody ever is. Every player of immense talent has been second guessed and criticized. Be that. Be this. Sometimes the critics are right, sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes they’re both, either on purpose or by mistake. But they’ll always be there. The noise will always be there. And the noise, right or wrong in the broad strokes, is ever impatient when youth shows its promise.

“Tonight was special,” Strus said. “Just because of all the noise and all the criticism that he's been getting, for him to step up like that was huge.”

Adebayo will never be who everyone wants him to be. He’ll be whatever he makes of himself. Whatever he puts on himself. Saturday night he was willing to put himself in a position to fail when his team needed it, because that is the only way to succeed.

Who he’ll become isn’t here yet. Who he is now was a little different than who he was two days ago, and that was enough to be the difference.

Last night was just another reminder of who Adebayo has always been.

“He's a winning player,” Spoelstra said. “He really is the heart and soul of our group. You can count on him all the time. He doesn't get caught up in all the noise and everything. He's just out there competing. Playing winning basketball. Doing it on both ends and doing what is necessary.”

feel-the-need-bam-adebayo-answers-the-call-on-the-grand-stage

Feel The Need: Bam Adebayo Answers The Call On The Grand Stage

The defense the Miami HEAT played in the first half of Game 1 barely looked like the defense that got them to 53 wins in the regular season much less the defense that got them to the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Boston Celtics were coming off a tight turnaround from a Sunday afternoon Game 7. They were missing two starters in Marcus Smart, out with an injury, and Al Horford, ruled out hours before the game. And yet in those early quarters they were comfortable as ever. After the HEAT spent two series holding Trae Young and James Harden to a strictly outside-the-walls shot diet, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown had little trouble getting into the middle of the floor. They would move the ball side to side, probing for the half-second seam that opens up as Miami’s gap-loading defense shift from one threat to another, and when the opportunity presented itself they pounced.

Again and again, Boston punched right through the teeth of the defense. Their 126.5 Offensive Rating in the first half was the second-highest allowed by the HEAT during the playoffs and among the ten-worst surrendered during the regular season. Boston’s 42 points in the paint, the exact points Miami’s entire defense is designed to prevent, were the most against the HEAT in the first half in any game since 2012.

“That was almost record setting what they were doing to our defense in the first half in terms of getting into the paint and breaking us down,” Erik Spoelstra said.

The problem was twofold. Not only was Boston scoring with ease, which has the obvious effect of lots of points going on the board in a game decided on who has the most points, their efficiency was keeping Miami’s offense in a box. Every time the ball went through the net on one end meant Boston’s typically sharp defense was able to run back and get set. A HEAT offense that doesn’t often thrive in a halfcourt setting had nowhere to go but a 24-second grind. It’s a dangerous feedback loop to try and survive in. That Miami was down just eight points at the break – thanks to Jimmy Butler, incredible again with 41 points, and Tyler Herro shouldering the scoring burden – was a minor victory in itself.

Then the third quarter hit, one that featured the rare one-two combo of a 22-2 run to open and a 17-3 run to close. It wasn’t just the quarter that won the game thanks to a 39-14 margin, it was a proof of concept for the entire series, the blueprint for how Miami can punch their ticket to the next round.

It started, as it often does – as it often has to – with this team, with the defense. As they repaired the shell around the paint meant to deter all comers at all costs, Boston scored just six points in the paint after the break. Boston drives, worth 1.04 points-per-drive in the first half including assist opportunities, declined sharply in value to 0.65 points-per-drive. Miami didn’t just come out of the break executing better, with players in the right spots adhering to Spoelstra’s scheme, they were simultaneously ferocious and loose. The former in the sense that they were just as quick-footed on first rotation as on the third and fourth. The latter in the sense that they played with such confidence as to break the defensive rules when the possibility of making a play was at hand.

“[We] started guarding,” P.J. Tucker said. “Started taking pride in getting kills. At the end of the day that's what it comes down to. It's having the right coverage, being aggressive, staying in front of, moving feet, not fouling, doing all of that. You have multiple efforts. It's the Conference Finals. Can't just do one thing. [It’s] two, three, four, five things, in a single possession sometimes, whatever it takes. We finally got that effort in the second half.”

This time, if Robert Williams rolled to the rim to create a lob angle for Tatum, Tucker seamlessly switched downhill and, with backside help at the ready, shut the passing window with the swiftness.

This time, if Robert Williams did get a touch in the paint, there was 6-foot-3 Gabe Vincent – setting a career-high with three blocks that all could have easily been categorized as steals – collapsing into the paint hands at the ready to save points.

Boston scored 1.09 points-per-direct-screen in the first half, which factors in all of the drop-offs to Williams. In the second half, with Bam Adebayo simultaneously pressuring and containing the ball like few others can, that number was 0.61.

“We contained the ball at the point of attack a little bit better,” Spoelstra said. “To say that you can do that mano y mano without any help is totally unrealistic. It has to be a team defense. You have to get in the gaps. You have to rotate. You have to make multiple efforts.”

This time, it was the Celtics on their heels. And teams on their heels make mistakes. Miami had already made their run through the first six minutes of the quarter, throwing down the UNO reverse card to take an eight-point lead after trailing by eight at the break, but it was a normal run. The sort of run you expect a good team at home to make. What transformed a normal run into a gamebreaker was a 45-ish-second sequence in the middle of the quarter, one that is better seen than described.

Offense begets halfcourt situations for the defense, defense feeds the offense transitions. Miami played in transition 19.6 percent of the time in Game 1, which was their fifth-highest mark of the season.

“Being able to get half-court stops and then being able to run in transition,” Bam Adebayo said. “We want to live like that.”

Miami’s halfcourt offense was better than expected in this one, with their 112.2 halfcourt points-per-play falling far north of above-average. After spending time adjusting to the length, speed and precision of Boston, Herro arrived for his first shift and immediately began hunting pockets of space with Robert Williams in drop coverage. The Celtics are an incredible switching team, but the HEAT found success having Butler or Adebayo or P.J. Tucker either slip into the middle of the floor mid-switch or seal off one defender and take him on a roll to the rim. They manufactured two-on-the-ball situations against a team built around avoiding them. As Boston made a final run down the stretch, Butler relentlessly hunted Payton Pritchard as the Celtics did everything they could to avoid that one particular switch. It was as good a start as Miami could ask for with regards to their halfcourt execution.

It’s also not going to get any easier. Boston should get Smart and Horford back sooner than later, and they have plenty of obvious items to clean up between games. There are going to be some ugly nights for both sides when it comes to scoring the ball, and that’s why quarters like the third are going to be so crucial. Every moment in the open floor will be a moment of freedom.

“You have two really good defenses and you're looking for any kind of advantages in the margins,” Spoelstra said. “Whatever we're saying, I guarantee they are saying it.”

If you think about it too hard you’ll fall into a chicken or the egg paradox. We can ask if the Feedback Loop of Prosperity begins with the defense feeding the offense transition opportunities or with the offense providing the defense with makes that force the other team into the halfcourt and we can go back and forth until the galaxy collapses into itself. Both are true. Both are critical. Miami scored 1.18 points-per-possession off defensive rebounds or steals against 1.12 points-per off made shots or free-throws, a significant gap though a smaller one than we’ve seen from them during the regular season. But on the other side Boston’s efficiency fell from 1.41 points-per-possessions after a rebound or steal to 1.00 following makes.

The more Miami fed the beast, the more Boston’s starved. If both teams play to their best selves for every minute of this series, who knows what would happen, but that scenario is impossible because the Vitruvian best self in this case can only be obtained in a manner that prevents the other side from also doing so. There is no give without the take.

If you’re Boston, a team that can also get stuck in the mud, you come away from that game thinking that the first step would be to stop tripping over our own feet, stop handing over points by the bushel – they also had some truly dreadful fouls – and make the HEAT earn it in the halfcourt. As they get healthier, they’ll be able to switch more easily. The HEAT are going to get flattened out at times. That much will be unavoidable. There are adjustments and tweaks and edits on deck and nothing seen in Game 1 did much to dissuade the notion that this should be a long, great series.

Each side had their moments. Boston won three quarters. The HEAT dominated one, in a similar manner to how they thoroughly controlled the fourth quarters of the 2020 Eastern Conference Finals. It was the way they owned that one period, the way every aspect of their game temporarily coalesced into something more, that will have to sustain them during coming periods of famine.

At long as they’re defending like they can, a feast is always around the corner. And the beast is always hungry.

feed-the-beast-with-jimmy-butler-bam-adebayo-and-one-dominant-quarter-miami-finds-its-blueprint-for-beating-boston

Feed The Beast: With Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo And One Dominant Quarter, Miami Finds Its Blueprint For Beating Boston

What you’re about to see may end up being one of the greatest defensive battles in recent history.

After a torrid run through the second half of the regular season, the Boston Celtics finished as the No. 1 defense in the league. The Miami HEAT finished just behind them at No. 4, and when Bam Adebayo was available – he missed 26 games mostly due an injured thumb ligament – they had a defense that would have been No. 1. No teams switched more pick-and-rolls than these two, and no teams forced more isolations. The Celtics allowed the third-fewest direct paint touches per 100 possessions, per Second Spectrum, and with Adebayo on the court Miami allowed the second fewest.

“If both teams are on top of their games this should be a series where neither team is scoring 130,” Erik Spoelstra said. “Both teams hang their hats on rock solid team defense, making multiple efforts and being disciplined to schemes.”

Forget a rock fight, there’s a very good chance that this series is the (legally and within the rules) basketball equivalent of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David pummeling each other for six minutes in an alleyway. Except they won’t be fighting over a pair of alien-revealing sunglasses. It’ll be a ticket to the NBA Finals, what could be Miami’s second trip in three years and sixth in the past 13, or Boston’s first since 2010.

Miami’s last Finals berth is a good place to start.

Despite ending in six games, the 2020 Conference Finals were as close as it gets. Miami finished that round with an Offensive Rating of 114.2 and Defensive Rating of 114.0, with wins of three, five and three points as they took a 3-1 series lead – a series in which they were actually outscored by a single, lonely point. The HEAT were also outscored in each of the first three quarters. So the difference, as you might guess, was in the fourth where Miami posted a Net Rating of +13.5 per 100 possessions, outscoring Boston by 22 points in all.

That may not sound all that wild in the end but consider the context. Miami had the third-worst Offensive Rating in the fourth quarter that season. Boston had the second best. But in the clutch, the last five minutes of a game when the score is within five points either way, they were fairly even, with Miami at No. 24 and Boston at No. 26. Both sides had some warning flags about their abilities to score down the stretch headed into that series, but in the postseason the HEAT swung one way – largely thanks to good three-point shooting and Jimmy Butler being something North of incredible – Boston didn’t swing at all and that was the difference. You probably remember some big Butler shots or Tyler Herro, as a rookie, going off for 37, with 17 in the fourth, of a pivotal Game 5, but so much of what worked for Miami was the stops they were getting. Whenever the Celtics couldn’t get a good look or turned the ball over, with Miami playing plenty of zone thanks to their multitude of rangy defenders, it gave the HEAT life going the other way.

Is that series relevant to this one? Does it matter? Somewhat and a little.

The core groups are mostly the same. Butler, Adebayo and Herro on one side, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart on the other. All those players are better or, in the case of Butler, the one true veteran of the group, at the very least just as good. We’ll get to all of them in a minute. The rest of the supporting casts have changed dramatically.

On Boston’s side, for as good as Tatum and Brown and Smart already were at that time the team was still built with the talents of veteran All-Stars Kemba Walker and Gordon Hayward – who returned from an injury in Game 3 – in mind. While during the regular season all of Boston’s scoring talent made it easy for them to move Adebayo around the court and always have someone to attack one of Miami’s weaker defensive links, Hayward never looked himself in that series and Walker was continually engulfed by the HEAT’s big wings after they acquired Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala at the trade deadline. Grant Williams and Robert Williams were on the team but were so young they weren’t quite ready for primetime. The center rotation consisted of Daniel Theis and Enes Freedom. Brad Wanamaker was playing backup point.

Since then the Celtics have reconfigured around their youth. Tatum and Brown lead the scoring. Smart starts at point. Al Horford has returned to the fold looking as good as ever. The Williamses are major rotation pieces – Robert was available, coming off an injury, to play in Game 7 of the Milwaukee series but didn’t see the court – and Derrick White, acquired at the deadline, rounds things out. They might not be quite as dynamic as the former group, but they make up for it with a precise, switching defense that features very few obvious pressure points.

Miami has undergone both more and less change. Less in the sense that Butler and Adebayo are still the featured pieces, Herro has grown into a neon lightning rod off the bench and there’s still dynamic shooting available, with Max Strus slotting into the starting lineup where Duncan Robinson was two years ago. More in the sense that everything else is different. P.J. Tucker is as good a fit as a flexible four next to Adebayo has anyone could have hoped for. Dewayne Dedmon has been a revelation as a backup center. Victor Oladipo has pushed himself into the rotation to give the HEAT a little downhill mojo and defensive stability. Gabe Vincent is the epitome of this group’s Find A Way ethos and Caleb Martin is ready to plug-and-play into any lineup at a moment’s notice. All season long this group has proven itself better, both more consistent and more potent, than that 2020 team that found another gear in the Orlando Bubble.

The big question is the status of Kyle Lowry and his hamstring. In the previous Boston series, Goran Dragic was the unsung hero as he averaged 22-5-4 on 40 percent shooting from three in Miami’s four victories. Miami may have won those games in the clutch, but Dragic kept them alive in the third and early fourth quarters. In his place is Lowry, a defensive upgrade who has consistently been the source of the HEAT’s most stable offensive flow. The HEAT have players who are more than capable of stepping up in his stead, of providing two-way impact and making plays. They just don’t offer the same dominate-a-quarter capability, on or off the ball, that Lowry does.

That’s where we are now. Both teams are different, both teams are a better, both teams have ways of getting to the other by playing to their own identity.

And for as different as these teams are, they still share similar weaknesses to the groups of two seasons ago. The HEAT’s fourth-quarter offense finished No. 21, No. 24 in the clutch. Boston was No. 26 in clutch offense and despite being No. 8 in halfcourt offense they were also reliant on that halfcourt execution with how little they added in transition. Both sides can get stuck in the muck and flattened out when the game slows down.

If anything has regularly gotten in Miami’s way, it’s their late-game offense. While their pick-and-roll numbers against switches are better than you might think – No. 6 in the league – switching, good switching, is what kills the ball movement for a team that is at its best when the ball is traveling by air rather than ground. Butler was incredible in isolation this season, No. 7 among 54 players with at least 250 isolations at 1.09 points-per, and especially so when Lowry was available to set him up. As much as Miami worked on hunting matchups this season in anticipation of the postseason, too much of one thing is never their thing.

In Boston’s two blowout wins against Miami – one early in the season, one without Butler, Lowry and Tucker – their switching reduced the HEAT’s flow to a trickle. Those were two of the most juiceless offensive performances of the season, though one of them can be mostly excused due to absences and the other occurred with Erik Spoelstra using a different rotation.

If anything has regularly gotten in Boston’s way, it’s also their offense – though less so after New Year’s, from when they had the No. 2 Offensive Rating. The defense almost always plays, but you can jam them up with switching and get them playing one-on-one. Sound familiar?

That’s not exactly what happened when the HEAT went up to Boston in March and took the fourth quarter, 27-15, on their way to an eight-point win – a game that featured Lowry shooting 6-of-12 from three. Even with Miami locked in defensively, the Celtics never stopped moving the ball. Brown missed a dunk and a layup, they missed some corner threes with Miami aggressively helping off the strong side to get in the way of drives, Tatum only attempted three shots and they shot 6-of-22 overall, 1-of-8 from deep. Meanwhile the HEAT didn’t earn one shot at the rim in the halfcourt, but shooting 5-of-9 on non-rim two’s, most coming from Butler, was enough.

Curiously, Butler was able to shake free in the mid-range because Boston did what Philadelphia just finished doing. They spent a lot of time hugging Miami’s shooters while defending Butler’s pick-and-roll two-on-two, exactly the reason Butler was giving the 76ers fits with his constant forays into the paint while optimal three-point looks were hard to come by.

“We’ll continually take what the Celtics give us, whether it’s an open three or getting into the paint,” Butler said.

We might end up seeing is the same dichotomy we just witnessed in the last series. The HEAT showing Boston’s best scorer in Tatum a crowd to limit his aggression, the Celtics cutting off Miami’s shooters and putting the weight on Butler’s back. Then again, Ime Udoka might watch that film, see what Butler did with games of 33, 40 and 32 points, and decide against taking that path. And Tatum is a much-improved playmaker, with more height than Trae Young or James Harden, so giving him passing lanes may be a trickier matter than it was two years ago. Maybe this entire series comes down to each side executing a similar scheme, switching and loading up the gaps and building a shell around the paint while allowing threes in bunches. That’s what the HEAT do normally, and it would hardly be a departure for a Boston squad that limited paint touches slightly more. That’s the larger point with what we’re about to see. Either team has the personnel to execute just about anything their coaches can think up.

“They have a lot of defensive leaders, guys that are vocal, they’re physical, and they’re really, really good at communicating,” Tucker said. “It’s a lot of the same traits that we have, too.”

It would be surprising if we didn’t see some zone on Miami’s part. No team faced more zone than Boston this season, by about 80 possessions over the team in second place, for good reason. They scored 1.01 points-per-possession against zone, third worst in the league. We’re only talking 460 possessions so it’s not a huge sample, but teams clearly saw something that made them use it, and Spoelstra has never been afraid to dial up various zone looks starting with a full-court press that drops back to shorten the shot clock. There’s history here, too, as Miami used zone against Boston in that 2020 series for a whopping 188 possessions, against which the Celtics scored 1.07 points-per.

But Boston didn’t have Horford’s skills nor his composure in the middle of the floor that year. With Horford on the court, Boston’s efficiency against zone jumps up to 1.09. Not a great number, but one that is survivable in a tight playoff game. Udoka, who Spoelstra was kind enough to remind everyone was on the bench for San Antonio during those epic Finals series in 2013 and 2014, is not going to be caught off guard.

We could go on for pages about every little tweak each coach could try. Does Boston send help at Herro when he comes off a screen? Does Tatum earn himself any hard doubles? Which shooters will either coach be comfortable playing off of in order to keep another foot in the paint? In which scenarios will the switchiest teams in the league actively avoid switches, or can they effectively pre-switch a screen to keep who they want involved in the action? How do the Celtics work around Adebayo on defense and how often can Adebayo punish switches on offense by slipping screens? How does Miami attack the paint if Robert Williams is good to go and back to defending off-center, looming in the paint to deter all comers – a look Caleb Martin was more than happy to attack back in January? Does either team want to or need to play smaller lineups with so many versatile defenders on hand?

Each side has a dozen answers for each question and the ability to raise another dozen questions with their own decisions. By the time we get a handle on the details of how these teams have chosen to defend, everything could change by the next game.

There will be no panacea in this series. No elixir that one coach can cook up that will decide who advances. These teams are too good for that, and they have too many options. The best path either side has to scoring might be to get stops and play off misses and turnovers. Miami was already keeping their halfcourt offense afloat against Philadelphia with some timely offensive rebounding, and they might need to dial that up even more against a Boston team that finished No. 17 in Defensive Rebounding percentage. Boston rarely gets to the line, so Miami’s occasional propensity for fouling might not be as much of an issue this time around.

Whoever wins, they’ll win it in the margins. They’ll stagnate their opponent’s offense more often than they get stagnant themselves. They’ll move and cut and make themselves difficult to guard. They’ll find ways to get three, four or five easy baskets even when they seem impossible. They’ll win loose balls, and they’ll be more composed. At some point, they’ll be the ones to hit more threes in the right game, or they’ll hit a couple tough shots in the final minutes. They’ll be great, in every sense.

The winner is going to have to earn this, and there’s no better kind of series than one that has to be won in the trenches.

the-multiverse-of-defense-behind-jimmy-butler-and-jayson-tatum-the-eastern-conference-finals-features-two-teams-that-can-and-will-do-anything-and-everything-to-stop-you

The Multiverse Of Defense: Behind Jimmy Butler And Jayson Tatum, The Eastern Conference Finals Features Two Teams That Can And Will Do Anything And Everything To Stop You

When he said it, at least one eyebrow was raised.

It’s a quiet early-January morning after a Miami HEAT shootaround and assistant coach Anthony Carter, perpetual smile-haver and lightness-bringer, is discussing his relationship with workout partner Max Strus, who Carter describes as “the type that gets in his own head sometimes.”

The topic of Joe Harris, the starting shooting guard for the Brooklyn Nets who missed a large portion of the season with an ankle injury, comes up. Both about the same height and weight, the player who spent the past five seasons shooting 45 percent from three seemed an appropriate blueprint for what the HEAT’s developmental program could try and turn Strus into. Harris was a dynamic, mobile shooter who could also get to the rim, either by putting the ball on the deck or cutting off his own gravity. And his somewhat stocky, thicker build allowed him to hold up relatively well in a defensive system that asked him to switch a ton.

If Strus, an undrafted guard out of DePaul University who joined Miami on a two-way contract in 2020 after being waived by the Boston Celtics and tearing his ACL during a stint in Chicago, could somehow become even a facsimile of Harris that would be yet another victory for a franchise on a never-ending heater when it comes to undrafted success stories.

“I think he’s already there,” Carter said. “I just think Joe is getting more minutes than him.”

Strus wasn’t exactly riding the pine at this stage of the season. With the team injury depleted and dealing with health and safety protocols, Strus started eight games in late December and early January and had the best stretch of a career that, to that point, had been brief both in time spent healthy off the court and playing on it. He scored a career-high 32 points against Orlando and kept running from there, hitting 47 threes over his next 13 games. There was clearly a real player there – that much anyone could see from how well Strus played at Las Vegas Summer League several months prior – but he still seemed to be just getting off the starting line. Being on the same level of a veteran like Harris was a few hurdles down the track.

Carter, matter of fact as ever, was ahead of everyone else that morning. Maybe even ahead of Spoelstra, under whom Strus’ minutes fluctuated in the coming months. Sometimes 13 minutes. Sometimes 20. Forty on one night, six a couple weeks later. Miami had more talented, playable players than could possibly be fit into a reasonable rotation, and like plenty of others Strus was sometimes on the outside looking in.

But after a four-game losing streak in late March that was one of the ugliest weeks in recent HEAT memory, Spoelstra swapped Strus for Duncan Robinson in the starting lineup and Carter’s statement months earlier began to look more prescient.

No longer an injury fill-in, Strus was now playing with the core group. Jimmy Butler. Bam Adebayo. Kyle Lowry. P.J. Tucker. This was the starting lineup that had championship expectations. One would understand if Strus felt any pressure.

“None,” he said. “I didn’t feel any.”

From there, the HEAT got back to winning and they’ve kept winning ever since. Miami closed the regular season on a 6-0 winning streak, only dropping a meaningless final-day game to Orlando when most of the regulars sat out, and have gone 8-3 over the first two rounds to clinch a spot in the Eastern Conference Finals. With Strus in the starting lineup, the HEAT are 21-5. He’s shooting 35 percent from three on 8.5 attempts per game, with all the gravity and spacing that comes with that volume. Better yet, the HEAT are plus-142 when Strus is on the court, with a plus-37.1 on-off differential, which leads all players in the postseason.

“I’m on Max so much, man,” Tucker said. “He’s gotten so much better from the time we started this year. He’s definitely our most improved. He’s really stepped up to be a guy we can count on.”

That the HEAT can count on Strus as a shooter isn’t a surprise. The system, which had already featured Wayne Ellington and Robinson in handoff-heavy roles and had one of the most selfless centers in the league on hand, was ready made for his skillset. Plug. Play. Boogie.

That they can count on him to be playmaker with the ball in his hands, to capitalize on the attention he draws on the perimeter and find his teammates – to produce 0.92 points per pick-and-roll in a pinch – has been slightly more eye catching only because it would be that way for almost any young player who doesn’t come into the league as a Day One playmaker. It was a development when Adebayo started whipping passes out of the paint to open shooters during his rookie season, and it’s a development when Strus ties his career-high with five assists in a closeout game on the road in the playoffs. These are not assists you just fall into swinging the ball around the horn:

But the real surprise is how far Strus has come defensively. Opposing teams have always called up the perceived weak links in Miami’s switch-all scheme. Tyler Herro (249) and Robinson (233) were No. 8 and No. 13 in total isolations defended this season. Considering Bam Adebayo, at 270, was just ahead of them despite being the player Miami wanted on all the best scorers tells you how other teams tended to gear their approach. Strus wasn’t too far behind at 211, but where Adebayo was at the very top of the list and Herro and Robinson both near the bottom in terms of efficiency allowed, Strus was smack dab in the middle. Of the 200 players who defended at least 100 isolations this season, Strus was No. 113, allowing 0.97 points-per-isolation. If you take assist opportunities out of the equation, which defenders have some but not entire control over since passing lanes open up if they get beat, Strus’ number drops to 0.88 points-per-isolation.

I bet you want to know what that number looks like during the playoffs, where players like Trae Young and James Harden have hunted for the Strus matchup. In 36 isolations, he’s allowed just 0.69 points-per without assists, 0.74 with them (44 possessions). Small samples are always finnicky, but for a reference point those numbers are right in line with Defensive Player of the Year candidate Mikal Bridges (0.75 on 39 possessions) and well ahead of actual Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart (1.18, though relatively meaningless on merely 17 possessions).

“[That’s] what he’s been showing us in practice,” Adebayo said. “He can guard. Max never backs down from a challenge. That’s why I love Max so much, he excels so much with challenges and he gets his fair share of one-on-one stops.”

It all passes the eye test, too. Against Young and Harden only, Strus has only allowed five points on 12 isolations (0.42 points-per). With Strus on the court during the playoffs, the HEAT are allowing 94.1 points per 100 possessions – the best mark on the team. It looks like this:

“Even if he doesn’t believe in himself, we believe in him being able to guard,” Tucker said. “[We’re] trying to make him do that a lot more so people can’t go at him.”

Maybe it wasn’t always the case, but it sure sounds like Strus is starting to believe, too.

“I take defense personally because people don’t think I can guard anybody,” he said. “I think I’ve been showing that that’s not true.”

The hunch was always that Strus had it in him to dial it up on that end, at least a modicum of defensive ability, because of his strength. He can move his feet and take a hit right in the chest and keep going. He does a decent job avoiding fouls, a Game 5 foulout aside, even against the league’s craftier foul-seekers. Spoelstra isn’t giving him the primary assignment by any means, but he’s proven that he can just be solid.

Is Strus suddenly a defensive stopper? That wouldn’t be fair to say, but the HEAT aren’t asking him to be. Even as they loaded up three players on both Young and Harden, with Strus always flanked by help in the gaps on either side, it hasn’t been much of a departure at all from their base scheme. The player on the ball is never on an island trying to stop an elite scorer on their own. Knowing that he has elite wingmen at his sides, Strus can focus on the trench run and not have to think about any pesky TIE Fighters. He can push up on the dribble and sit on a stepback or a crossover. To a degree, he’s protected from getting outright beat. Spoelstra’s system is putting Strus in position to succeed and Strus is doing his job.

“It’s been huge,” Strus says of Spoelstra’s confidence in him. “The most important thing he’s been saying to me is [about] my defense.”

It only gets more challenging from here. Even has he produces like a steady vet during his first real postseason run, teams aren’t going to stop calling Strus up because it’s still a better option than attacking any of Miami’s elite defenders. There are no rest days. In the postseason, as Adebayo has been saying for years now about his teammates being targeted, at some point you just have to “Guard Your Yard.”

This yard may not have a sign that reads BEWARE: MAX on the fence, but he’s proving to have more than a little bite in him.

NBA Playoffs

High Noon: Jimmy Butler Serves Up Silence In Recording His Masterpiece

Mirror's Edge: The HEAT And Celtics Defenses Couldn’t Be More Similar, And That’s Making The Offense Nearly Unrecognizable

Feel The Need: Bam Adebayo Answers The Call On The Grand Stage

Feed The Beast: With Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo And One Dominant Quarter, Miami Finds Its Blueprint For Beating Boston

The Multiverse Of Defense: Behind Jimmy Butler And Jayson Tatum, The Eastern Conference Finals Features Two Teams That Can And Will Do Anything And Everything To Stop You

Maximum Overdrive: Once A Two-Way Player, Mighty Max Strus Has Become A Critical Piece To Miami's Championship Aspirations

The Rules Of Engagement: In A Make Or Miss Series, Erik Spoelstra And Doc Rivers Are Shaping The Floor To Their Own Designs

The Turn Of The Screw: Behind P.J. Tucker's All-Court Pressure, Miami's James Harden Defense Gets In Formation