NBA Postseason

Couper Moorhead

New York took the season series against Miami, 3-1, with all four games decided by nine points or less. The last time Miami and New York met in the playoffs was all the way back in 2012, when the HEAT took the First Round series, 4-1, on their way to an eventual championship. They also faced off in four consecutive seasons from 1997 to 2000, with Miami taking the first and New York taking the final three.

Game 1, February 2: Big start from Bam Adebayo (14 first-half points on six shots) as he was too much for Jericho Sims, and Caleb Martin made what might have been the best play of his career stuffing Julius Randle at the rim on the break, but for as much as they struggled to put the ball in the net the Knicks still led by three after two because the HEAT were having just as much trouble in the half-court. If they weren’t scoring off turnovers – the aggression in the passing lanes was turned up to 11 perhaps because the Knicks were missing steady starting point guard Jalen Brunson – it was again up against the clock, again with threes coming in at little more than a trickle.Another good start for New York after the break, opening with a 11-0 run to go up 14. Another hit back from Miami, with Herro draining three straight triples as part of a 19-4 run to put the HEAT back in front. RJ Barrett was getting into the paint with such ease the HEAT had to outright blitz him, which got the Knicks onto their heels long enough to stem the tide as they continued to struggle from beyond the arc. And yet as the Knicks finally got a couple corner looks to go in, they led by five after three.

Knicks back up 11 a few minutes later, but it’s 2023 so of course we ended up with another clutch game. With 3:20 to play and Bam Adebayo doing literally everything a basketball player can be expected to do to keep his team in the game, it was Knicks by four. Joined by Herro (25 points on 22 shots) down the stretch, he and Adebayo had the mid-range working. They just couldn’t get the stops until Adebayo made an incredible play to tip an inbounds steal to himself and eventually get to the line. With the HEAT down five in the last minute it looked all but over, but a quick Max Strus three and Julius Randle turnover gave them a shot with 2.1 seconds left. Herro had the shot for the win, but it hit rim and Miami fell, 106-104. Box Score

Game 2, March 3: Playoff positioning up for grabs, a tiebreaker on the line, we don’t get many regular season games like this one. Much like Wednesday’s game against the 76ers, offense wasn’t a problem in the first quarter. But also as with that game, the same was true for the opponent. The early threes fell, free-throws kept rolling in, and Miami was holding on to a one or two possession lead.

Then Julius Randle hit consecutive threes – as part of a 20-point quarter – to put the Knicks up six and New York just kept on rolling. They led by six, 37-31, after one. By the break, the lead was 15, New York having put up 71 points. They were shooting well, sure, making 10-of-22 from deep – plenty of attempts from the corners – but they were also getting into the paint, getting to the line and burning their way up and down the floor for 17 fast-break points. Jimmy Butler was parading his way to the line and getting generally whatever he wanted with deep post-ups, it just wasn’t enough to keep up.

Bam Adebayo opened the second half with six straight, two aggressive pushes in transition and a jumper over Mitchell Robinson, cutting the lead back down to nine. Offense, again, not a problem as it looked as much like a postseason style attack – isolations and post-ups and pick-and-rolls – behind the three primary scorers with Butler rolling to the rim and Herro hitting off the dribble. Randle’s ridiculous shooting kept New York out front, but with about three to play in the third Miami was still within six. Soon after, Herro looking as good as he has in 2023, it was three. Back to eight by the end of the period, New York mustering 25 in the quarter as the possession slowed and the looks got tougher.

Back and forth we went, both sides trading threes as they hovered above 40 percent from deep. Miami got it to three. New York pushed it to eight, then a couple of Victor Oladipo threes shrunk it all back to two. A Caleb Martin three, and the lead, followed. Bodies on the floor throughout, every possession as grandiose as a possession has felt all season as Miami made every Knicks inbound pass a battle. One minute to go, all tied.

It was working, but New York had been toeing the line of riding Randle isolations a little too often. Yet at that one-minute mark he hit an incredible tough and-one jumper over Bam to go up three. And then, wow. One of the wilder endings you’ll ever see. First, a Herro steal and conversion to take the lead, followed by a Knicks possession that wasn’t going anywhere but backwards, the ball loose, the ball going off Randle’s heel and somehow staying inbounds, only for Randle (43 points on 25 shots) to hit an improbable contested three, his career-high tying eighth, with 1.1 seconds to play. This time, there would be no lob for Butler at the buzzer. Knicks win, 122-120. The effort may have been for naught, but when Miami plays like they did in the second half – and shoots as well as they did – they can beat anyone. Pride doesn’t count in the standings, but it should count for something tonight. Box Score

Game 3, March 22: Neither team was going to get much separation the way this was going early on – the ball moving into open spaces on either side, any stretch of two or more missed shots feeding right into the opposing point total. Knicks go up five, then Heat go up six only for New York to follow up with an 8-0 run of their own. With everything going through Jimmy Butler, Miami threatened to open up a sizeable lead at 60-51, not just making over half of their threes but over half of their jumpers – Gabe Vincent going 6-of-7 on those, with another two quick jumpers coming in the third – in general, but by the break it was just 64-61.Maybe this wasn’t a playoff game in March. The pace was too loose and neither defense particularly sharp even if the energy was certainly there, from the players and the building. An extremely high-leverage game in the style of December basketball, if you will. But don’t tell Butler that, fully in takeover mode in the third quarter as the HEAT took a 10-point lead. New York wouldn’t go away. Jalen Brunson and Quentin Grimes were seeing to that. Miami was just executing about as well as they have all season on offense, earning some shotmaking variance along the way, with the individual performances to keep the game in hand.

The Knicks – 16-of-40 from three themselves – were determined to pry it loose, taking the lead back early in the fourth with Jimmy on the bench. Back and forth. Shot for shot. Now we had ourselves a real late-April grind. Seconds away from another clutch game, but Miami kept making threes – hello, Tyler Herro (22 points on 13 shots) and Max Strus – to very quickly go up nine with 4:35 to go. With what is on the line in the standings, a ticket out of the play-in tournament, this may as well have been a playoff game – and those you win by whatever means necessary. The HEAT, as they have for a month now, continue to show they have the means on the offense end of things. Herro’s three bring them home in the end, a clutch game in the final minute, as Miami takes it 127-120. Box Score

Game 4, March 29: This one wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants, and at any moment either side had reason to be happy that the game was even close.New York kicked things off with an 8-0 run, Quentin Grimes knocking down a couple of threes, and Miami responded with a 14-0 burst of their own as the Knicks couldn’t stop coughing the ball up. Miami’s defense was certainly more energetic than the night before in Toronto, but the Knicks were also doing a fair bit of stepping on rakes while improbably missing their first six free-throws. There was a chance, a 30-20 in the second, for the HEAT to pull away a bit more as Gabe Vincent kept pace, but New York had an 11-0 run up their sleeve – more appropriately, up the sleeve of Immanuel Quickley (24 points on 14 shots) – to get back into nip and tuck territory – one team struggling from three outside of Duncan Robinson, the other team missing short floaters by the bucket load. Knicks by two after a Jalen Brunson three at the buzzer despite a 5-of-13 at the stripe.

At this point, Julius Randle was ruled out for the rest of the night after turning his ankle with a couple minutes left in the second.

About 37 lead changes – that’s probably not that far off – followed. Neither team playing well enough to pull enough nor poorly enough to be out of it. No separation, not for one second. All tied after three at a modest 76-76. Real brute force stuff. Then just as we were about to get a clutch game, it was back to the beginning with an 8-0 Knicks run to go up nine with five to play. And that was that, 101-92 in New York’s favor after a 25-16 fourth quarter. Box Score

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The Season That Was Vs. New York

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 Miami HEAT and Milwaukee Bucks are tied 1-1, with both teams leading the league in Offensive Efficiency (120+) during the playoffs so far. The HEAT have two homes games coming up starting with Game 3 on Saturday.

Even with Miami playing one of the smallest starting lineups in the league and assigning Max Strus to deal with Brook Lopez, the Bucks couldn’t figure out how to take advantage of that matchup in Game 1. Not only did Lopez attempt just seven shots in his 35 minutes, four of them coming inside the arc, but he had just six paint touches, below his season averages even with Giannis Antetokounmpo leaving the game with an injury.

In other words, the Bucks let Miami off the hook with regards to the size mismatch inside. That’s not to say going to Lopez would guarantee success, but not going to him at all was allowing the HEAT to reap all the advantages of their space-the-floor lineup without being presented with a bill on the other end.

Early in Game 2, the debt came due. While the night, and the extended margin, was ultimately defined by Milwaukee tying the single-game postseason record for made threes with 25, only three of those makes came in the first quarter. What did come were nine paint touches in those first 12 minutes alone for Lopez, three more than he had in all of Game 1, which produced 12 points, 1.33 points per possession.

“I just feel like we were not protecting the paint,” Jimmy Butler said.

How they did it was almost less interesting than how they didn’t. There was once a time when the vast majority of NBA teams would see such a massive size difference like the one between Lopez and Strus and simply send Lopez to the block for a post-up. There was once a time when zone defense and soft doubled teams – strong-siding the paint with help without committing to a full double – weren’t allowed by NBA rules, so those post-ups generally worked. But over time as smallball because more and more popular and rules changed, the teams going small began to welcome those possessions. Now able to send help in more creative ways and play two on or near the ball during the post-up – often after denying with a front, in Miami’s case – teams used those smaller defenders as bait on a line. If the big went for a post-up, they were already on the hook. The points-per-possession numbers, assuming the defense was aligned as designed, generally favored the smaller team.

Milwaukee didn’t take the bait. Rather than dipping into the often-shallow well that are static post-ups, they asked Lopez to move around more often and employ his physicality. First, with seals…

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Bucks Game 2: Lopez Paint Touches

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Bucks Game 2: Lopez Roll

“He does make a difference when he’s aggressive,” Adebayo said of Lopez. “When he’s not involved, it’s one of those things we try to take advantage of. Tonight he took advantage of having smaller guys on him.”

Lopez typically sets about 35.5 screens per 100 possessions. With Milwaukee playing sans Antetokounmpo for the moment, Lopez is setting 46.6 screens per 100 – 69 over two games, 17 more than even Adebayo – and after those screens produced just 0.95 points-per in Game 1, they skyrocketed up to 1.18 on Wednesday. Some of that comes from the major disparity in three-point shooting between the two performances, but note also that 40 of Milwaukee’s 52 points in the paint came in the first half, 26 in the first quarter alone.

“Regardless if Giannis was in or not, we realized we had an advantage in the paint on both ends of the floor and that was just a focus for us tonight, just to establish the paint,” Lopez told The Athletic’s Eric Nehm. “It’s great to see because, you know, you can see the opposing team kind of just crash in when you cut to the paint and to see guys kick out for 3s.”

Is there an obvious solution here? Miami can theoretically play bigger, but putting Cody Zeller in the starting lineup brings up all the usual spacing issues we’ve discussed for years and Kevin Love isn’t a defensive answer on his own outside of taking charges. Any such move would detract from the spacing that, as we’ll get to below, is working for the HEAT so far. The answer, then, might be to just do what they’re supposed to do and do it better than they did. On many of Lopez’ interior touches, as Strus was trying to front or be physical the help behind him was either late or it didn’t come at all. Milwaukee is smart to drive the ball first to create better passing angles for Lopez rather than risky over-the-top adventures, but they can’t do that if you don’t give up the drives in the first place, shrinking into the lane from the wings as they’ve done for years. Putting Adebayo on Lopez – and not switching – instead of Portis is also an option, but that lineup might not exist by Game 3.

“We’ve got to figure that out,” Spoelstra said after the game when asked what can be done to better limit Lopez’ touches.

Milwaukee is only going to get bigger when Antetokounmpo returns. So far, Spoelstra has determined that his team’s best shot at this series is to play with as much shooting and spacing as they can get on the floor at once, at all times. Considering the state of the series, it’s probably been the right bet. The HEAT just need to clean things up same as the Bucks had to do so after Game 1, a night that was filled with just as many busted coverages on the home team’s end.

If there was a silver lining to how the second matchup played out, it was that both Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo continued to Pac Man all the real estate available to them in the middle of the floor.

Butler has been nearly perfect. During the regular season any Butler touch inside the arc but not at the rim – about 18.3 per 100 possessions – was worth 1.17 points-per-touch to the HEAT. In this series he’s getting even more of those touches and producing a staggering 1.34 points-per-touch. Again, some of that is Miami’s own shooting around him, but even on possessions where Butler doesn’t pass (a shot, a foul or a turnover the outcome) he’s scored 21 points on 17 touches (1.24 points-per). For context, a Nikola Jokic touch in those zones this season, even factoring in assist opportunities, was worth 1.29 points-per.

Put it this way. Butler just had what was probably the most efficient season of his career, with a true-shooting percentage of 64.7 on a 25.6 usage rate. In these two games, he’s true-shooting 63.9 on 31.2 percent usage, with a effective field-goal percentage even higher than in the regular season (he’s missed some free-throws). Yes, his rim attempts are down a bit, but he’s also 12-of-13 in the restricted area and 7-of-11 in the upper paint, and he’s still getting to the line.

Butler has been great after he struggled during the 2021 matchup between these teams. That’s a positive sign. Granted those struggles came with Antetokounmpo defending him on nearly half the possessions in the series, but Budenholzer has yet to play, or be able to play, that card.

As for Adebayo, it’s tough to expect too much more. He’s come out firing against Lopez – each game started with what was more or less a pindown for Adebayo to get a catch at the elbow, and he looked for his shot – and his usage rate is up to 32.9 from 25.2 in the regular season, on 55.9 true-shooting. Two years ago against the Bucks, his usage was 23.8, with 49.4 true shooting. This has been a different Adebayo than the one who took part in that sweep. He’s not just settling for the mid-range jumpers either, even if those are shots he’s going to have to make. He’s picked his spots for going right at Lopez, either accelerating around him for a finish or going right into his chest for a dunk.

“We’re going to need that from Bam, probably a lot more of that as well,” Butler said about Adebayo’s approach with Lopez through two games. “But it’s not just going to be on Bam, it’s on everyone who is attacking the rim.”

The math is still going to math with these two. While they’re working in the mid-range, the Bucks are getting to the rim and shooting threes. That’s just the nature of this particular beast, same as it was two years ago when neither could get much of anything going. This time around they’ve found an early comfort level and rhythm that gives the HEAT much more of a night-to-night foundation within their offense, one that allows them to better enjoy the fruits of some shooting variance as they did in Game 1.

Antetokounmpo changes the geography of the floor and alters the shot profile whenever he returns. There are no guarantees moving forward. But two years ago the HEAT were in a much tougher spot with their offense. Through two games at least, the Bucks have allowed 1.22 points-per-screen with Lopez in drop coverage – two years ago that number was 0.70 across the four-game series. With Adebayo and Butler playing like this, even in a Game 2 loss, there’s more reason to believe that wins are still on the menu.

The offensive theory of this season, that this team was building a better playoff offense despite taking a step back in efficiency, is holding strong enough.

Even as Milwaukee changed up their scheme a bit this year to help limit the number of threes they allow, staying home on shooters more often and defending the pick-and-roll with two men, they still like to identify an offensive player they can put Giannis Antetokounmpo on to allow him to play to his strengths, with his length, and roam defensively. Last year the Bucks did that to Caleb Martin – also having a very good series thus far, scoring 30 points on 15 shots – regularly leaving him open from three which led to Martin scoring a career-high 28 points on six makes from deep during a regular season matchup.

In this series so far, the Bucks had identified Gabe Vincent as the place where they want to stash their second big man. Antetokounmpo starting Game 1 on Vincent while Bobby Portis opened Game 2 on him. They haven’t been sitting back and leaving Vincent wide open like they may have done in the past, but the message is still pretty clear when they have a big on a point guard – especially when you consider that Budenholzer has so far resisted the opportunity to place those same bigs on Butler as he opts for Jrue Holiday instead.

The easy thing to do would be to simply ask Vincent to space the floor, to be content with pulling a little more size away from the rim. But that would be giving the Bucks something they are clearly comfortable with rather than trying to actively punish them for their choices. The punishment for putting a big on a ballhandler is often making those bigs navigate screens.

And when you know Lopez is still going to be sitting back in his drop, getting a big like Portis hung up on a pick means creating a sizeable pocket of time and space for someone like Vincent to operate in. Without Tyler Herro’s services, Miami needs Vincent to capitalize on those opportunities just like he did during the regular season when he dropped 28 and 27 in consecutive games against the Bucks when they were without Antetokounmpo.

Sure enough Vincent, ever comfortable against the drop, has scored 31 points on 18 total shots, shooting 11-of-18 from three, with 11 of those attempts coming off the dribble.

Is it complicated, running screens into drop coverage and shooting of the dribble? No. But it’s been effective.

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Bucks Game 2: Vincent Pull Ups

That last possession was particularly notable even if it was a miss. You could almost see Vincent thinking in real time that they couldn’t just two-point their way back into the contest as he snaked his dribble all the way back around to the arc.

Through two games Vincent has run 28 pick-and-rolls, fourth-most of any player on either team, and has helped produce 1.50 points-per-screen. He’s been paired with Adebayo for 15 of those actions.

Is Vincent going to keep up an effective field-goal percentage of 69.6 on jumpers throughout this series? Probably not, though anything is possible is small sample sizes. The same would be said of Herro if he were available, and that’s the point. Vincent is giving you Herro efficiency and shotmaking at lower volume right now, with just three turnovers across two games. There isn’t much more you can ask than that, and given his comfort working against the drop there’s also no reason he can’t continue to generate the same looks.

Milwaukee didn’t quite know what to do with Kevin Love in Game 1. For all their strengths, they’ve always been somewhat susceptible, due to both scheme and personnel, to stretch fives taking them a bit out of their comfort zone – a trait they share with almost all non-switch heavy teams. The Bucks switch more often than they used to, but they still prefer to find ways not to switch Lopez out on the perimeter where he can’t protect the rim and force long two-pointers. A stretch five, by nature, pulls him out of the paint anyways.

After Love hit a couple threes in the first half of Game 1, Mike Budenholzer did something he’s very rarely done this season, literally only 30 possessions all year, which is call up zone coverage. The idea being that with the zone you can account for Love’s shooting while keep Lopez where he’s best utilized. Miami quickly adjusted, tossing Butler into the middle of the zone where he could either attack with momentum or playmake if the defense collapses. The HEAT never missed a bit.

No zone in Game 2 for the Bucks, but surprisingly Budenholzer still matched up Lopez’ minutes with Love rather than going with someone a bit more mobile like Bobby Portis. Lopez still had to check Love out to the arc, but instead of asking him to recover to Love as he popped out into space on a screen or leaving him one-on-one with a downhill Butler, Milwaukee firmed up with something in between.

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Bucks Game 2: Delay Switch Love Pops

This is essentially a late switch by design. Jae Crowder still fights over the top of the screen to force some urgency from Butler’s attack, and he even begins to recover full to him and crowd the ball. But as soon as Butler looks back towards Love – inevitably wide open with Lopez dropping down in his usual coverage – Crowder peels off and goes for the closeout.

The pass is almost always going to be faster than the closeout, but when you know it’s coming it’s much easier to meet the ball at the shooter and contest or flat out deny the attempt than if you’re scrambling out of base coverage.

Budenholzer didn’t invent this counter coverage, and when Jrue Holiday is involved he's still fighting through or outright going under the screen, but it’s still a creative way to keep the pieces where they want them on the board. Milwaukee sure looked more comfortable doing this than they did playing a zone that they had hardly used at all.

-Milwaukee now has at least a partial share of both the regular season and postseason records for threes in a game, and both of those performances were against Miami. Back in December of 2020 the Bucks hit 29 threes as part of a 144-97 victory in Miami – something of a revenge game after the HEAT ousted them from the bubble playoffs – and their 25 in Game 2 tied them with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who hit that mark during their title run in 2016. It’s not particularly crazy given that the Bucks have historically shot a ton of threes and Miami always allows them at or near a league-high rate, but it remains quite the coincidence.

-Milwaukee’s half-court defense has allowed 110 points per 100 possessions (without factoring in offensive rebounds) in this series so far. That would have been the worst in the league, by far, during the regular season. Miami’s half-court rating is healthier largely because so many of the Bucks’ Game 2 threes came in transition, as tracked by cleaningtheglass.com. Miami was No. 23 in halfcourt offense this year, and Milwaukee was No. 3 in halfcourt defense, so the offensive results on the HEAT’s side have been as close to a best-case scenario as you could imagine. Again, there’s extreme shooting variance at play here, for both teams.

-Both teams were excellent at limiting rim attempts during the regular season, and the schemes have played out so far. Milwaukee and Miami are shooting just about 21 percent of their shots in the restricted area. Phoenix was last in the league this year at 25.9 percent.

-We mentioned before this series that the Bucks were one of the best teams against zone – albeit with Antetokounmpo – but with Miami playing almost exclusively zone in the fourth quarter on Wednesday the Bucks managed just 0.95 points per possession across 22 trips down the floor. Wouldn’t read too much into that because the Bucks started the quarter up 30 and were clearly just running the clock out, missing open threes along the way, but it’s worth noting just in case Spoelstra uses the zone going forward.

-If you were looking for an under the radar red flag on Miami’s part, it’s that the Bucks are turning the ball over on just 11.7 percent of their possessions, a rate that would have tied for best in the league in the regular season. Their shooting, from three and in the middle zones where they’ve converted on nearly half their shots, are keeping their offense more than afloat, but historically they’ve struggled when going long stretches without forcing many live-ball turnovers. The same goes for their defense, this season at least.

-It tracks that Milwaukee’s drives are slightly down without Antetokounmpo, but they’re scoring 1.15 points-per on drives that end in a shot, foul or turnover. If you factor in their drives that end in passes, and thus threes, that number jumps up to 1.35.

-For what it’s worth, Adebayo has only switched seven screens in the series so far and Miami is switching five fewer screens per 100 possessions than usual. Defense boils down to ‘They’re switching too much’ far less than you might think.

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The Series So Far: Milwaukee Targets Their Size, Bam And Jimmy Raise The Floor, Gabe Vincent Steps Up And A Pick-And-Roll Adjustment Avoids Larger Changes

These teams can’t get out of each other’s way. Each time they meet, the Bucks have been the favorites, which is why it was such a surprise to some when Miami knocked them off their No. 1 seed perch in only five games during the Orlando Bubble. When the sequel came along a year later, Milwaukee restocked with Jrue Holiday, it was a clean sweep – only Game 1 was competitive with wild shooting performances on either side.

Now the HEAT get another shot at what may be the prohibitive favorite. The No. 8 seed has won before, the 2007 Golden State Warriors took down the 67-win Dallas Mavericks and the 2011 Memphis Grizzlies beat the 61-win San Antonio Spurs. Both those teams entered the playoffs with a bit more pedigree than this HEAT group – Memphis had a Net Rating of +2.5 while Golden State was around +2.0 after acquiring Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington before the trade deadline – that has been outscored by half a point per 100 possessions.

There’s little doubt that a HEAT victory would constitute one of the greatest upsets in league history were it to happen. For that reason, nobody is going to pick Miami and understandably so. It’s nobody’s ideal position to be in, maybe, but it’s also one that allows for a degree of freedom. Miami has a blank check here, free from producer’s notes and budget constraints. This is their Babylon – or, judging from reports, their Beau Is Afraid – to make, their vision to live by absent expectations. Everything from here on out is pure upside, and there are plenty of players in that locker room who are familiar with what it takes to topple the Bucks. If this season of Miami basketball has taught us anything, it’s to never expect the expected. This team finds ways to surprise you, at least as far as all roads somehow leading to the same clutch situations with five minutes to go. All they need is a couple of those close games to be in business.

Even if Giannis Antetokounmpo didn’t play – he only played in five of a possible 16 quarters against the HEAT this season – January 12 was a significant game in the developmental story of Bam Adebayo. After slowly adjusting to and progressing against deep drop coverage over the past four years, maybe the two most aggressive scoring months of Adebayo’s career culminated in nine shots made in the paint with Lopez acting as the closest defender, according to player tracking data from Second Spectrum. At the time, it was the most paint shots anyone had ever, in nearly 360 games, hit against Lopez in a single game.

How Adebayo did it wasn’t much of a mystery. There were no complicated schemes or adjustments involved. Whether he caught the ball in the post or in the paint, he ate the space that Lopez, prioritizing the rim as ever, offered up. Against a team that has managed to pull off the difficult two-step of being Top 5 in preventing shots both at the rim and from the arc, finding success meant scoring in between and Adebayo made 9-of-14 shots in the upper paint en route to a Miami victory.

Just do that four times and win the series, right? It’s not that simple. Take a look at these images from different HEAT-Bucks games this season.

They’re the same picture. An Adebayo unencumbered. &nbsp;Milwaukee is able to shut off the water in the two most efficient zones on the floor because they drop all their length back as their many guards chase shooters over the top of screens and handoffs and push them off the arc while shutting down passing lanes elsewhere with tight coverage. That means the pick-and-roll often becomes a two-on-two affair, and the pocket is empty. In theory, this is a series tailor made for the Tyler Herro and Adebayo connection. Of the 73 players who faced at least 300 possessions of pick-and-roll drop coverage, Herro was No. 22 producing 1.07 points-per-screen. When it was Herro and Adebayo together against drop, that number rises to 1.12 points-per.

(In the past Milwaukee has sent more help into the paint, often leaving a shooter open as a result. That’s how Caleb Martin scored his career-high 28 last year, with the Bucks daring him to beat them outside and Martin hitting 6-of-8. The Bucks have changed things up a bit this year, but this is still in their wheelhouse.)

It’s no secret that Miami’s offense, at No. 25 overall, struggled to maintain much traction this season. Most of the attention has gone towards the sizeable dip in three-point shooting across the board, but there was also a refocusing of the offensive approach by Erik Spoelstra. After the scoring flat tire that was the Eastern Conference Finals – when the HEAT were highly reliant on forcing live-ball turnovers to juice their own scoring – Spoelstra sought to build an offense that could sustain in the postseason without relying as heavily on shooting. Part of that shift was a determination to get Adebayo in scoring positions rather than Adebayo beginning most possessions looking to free up his teammates. Any Adebayo pick-and-roll – particularly those with Herro through the early and middle parts of the season until Butler’s post All-Star usage went up – produced solid offense, and on possessions where Adebayo got the ball and shot, drew a foul or turned the ball over, Miami got 1.11 points per possession. Not an elite number, but a good, reliable one in a season where the HEAT needed all the consistency they could find on that end. Need to keep the train on the tracks? Find Adebayo with a pocket pass.

The other side of the coin is that the most common result was an Adebayo jumper – he took more upper paint jumpers (184) than anyone in the league, with only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (163) even coming close. Adebayo shot 52.2 percent on those shots, 49.7 percent on all upper paint shots (600 attempts), with the jumper falling off a bit outside of 10 feet. Good, workable numbers overall, just not the most valuable shot on the floor if it’s going to be your primary objective. As good as Milwaukee is, they have the eighth fastest defensive pace – they don’t grind out defensive possessions up against the shot clock – in part because teams often take the first shots available to them in the drop.

Back to the photos above, of which there are plenty more examples. Even with Adebayo now more willing to take those shots and make them at a good clip, Milwaukee rarely played him any differently. Maybe Lopez would take a step or two up, contesting better than many might give him credit for, but they rarely altered their overall philosophy. If Adebayo was going to hurt them with two-point jumpers, so be it.

Is that going to continue to be the case? Is the pocket going to remain as empty as it was before? The last couple of months especially have been defined by team bringing over a third defender to disrupt Adebayo’s upper paint catches, leading to his attempts per 100 possessions dropping from 22 pre-March to around 18 since – coincidentally the same period when Miami’s offense was trending closer toward league average with all those bodies in the paint.

Milwaukee can do what all those other teams, including Atlanta and Chicago in recent play-in games, did if they want. They even had Antetokounmpo dig in on Adebayo a couple times in February. It’s just not typically in their DNA to commit extra bodies just to prevent a non-rim attempt.

If the space is there, then, and the help doesn’t help, many possessions will flow through Adebayo into the shot that has become his calling card.

“Shoot my shots, get to my spots, and live with the results,” Adebayo said of his plan against Milwaukee’s coverage.

Miami’s run to the 2020 NBA Finals, which went through Milwaukee, had the unfortunate side effect of giving other teams some ideas when it came to dealing with Jimmy Butler. Granted some of this had to do with Adebayo being injured for much of that series, but the Los Angeles Lakers put Anthony Davis on Butler, having Davis go under screens and use all his length to absorb Butler’s typically bruising, shoulders-forward drives. LeBron James defended Butler for 181 touches in that series. Davis defended him for 176. Nobody else had more than 59 possessions. Butler still managed to put up two of the better games in Finals history through sheer brute force, but Miami’s offense, free flowing as it was that season, was as labored as ever.

That same postseason, Giannis Antetokounmpo only defended Butler for 20 possessions across five games while Wes Matthews was the primary on 171 touches. In the sweep a year later, even with P.J. Tucker on the roster, Antetokounmpo took Butler for 147 possessions – double that of anyone else not named Tucker – including the very first possession of the first game. Mike Budenholzer wasn’t about to waste any time waiting to be forced into an adjustment and Butler, for really the only time in a HEAT uniform, struggled as he shot 29 percent from the field on his way to 14.5 points a night. Even if Miami managed to shed Antetokounmpo with a screen, Butler’s downhill path would be blocked by the presence of Brook Lopez while Antetokounmpo recovered in the rear-view mirror.

Fast forward to the one game where both teams were healthy this season, February 2, and Antetokounmpo only defended Butler for five touches – these numbers aren’t exactly perfect when you watch the clips, but they’re accurate enough at the highs and the lows – while Matthews and Holiday took the brunt of the assignment.

So the question going into Game 1, then, is whether Budenholzer was playing possum for the regular season, ready to spring Antetokounmpo on Butler the moment the games started to really matter. We’ll find out soon, but even if it’s not the move from the jump it’s always one in Milwaukee’s back pocket – and when and if it happens how Miami tries to get Butler to his spots without relying on too many 15-foot-and-out makes will be a major storyline.

The case used to be that Miami defended Antetokounmpo better than any team. Similar to how the HEAT had previously given a very different player in Trae Young absolute fits, of the 11 games with a GameScore under 10 on Antetokounmpo’s ledger since his first MVP season, three of those belonged to Miami. During the 2019-20 season, an Antetokounmpo drive alone was worth 1.10 points per possession. In the series against Miami, during which he scored just 22 points a game on 50 percent shooting, that number dropped to 1.03. Even in the sweep the next year, when Miami lacked a true power forward next to Adebayo, Antetokounmpo only shot 45 percent overall.

The story was typically repetitive. With Adebayo anchoring the heart of the defense, Miami would build a wall, early and often in transition, as well or better than any team in the league, taking charges and stone-walling drives, forcing Antetokounmpo into kickouts and/or jumpers – the latter of which always played right into the HEAT’s hands. Over the last four years, Antetokounmpo is shooting an effective field goal percentage of 41.9 across 1,780 jumpers. Against Miami, that effective rate drops to 21.3. Only Boston and Golden State held him to a lower effective field-goal percentage overall than Miami’s 50.6. The blueprint wasn’t exactly a secret across the league, the HEAT were simply among the very best at executing it.

Things have started to change in the past couple of seasons. Antetokounmpo grew more comfortable making the right reads and getting off the ball earlier when he drew help. He started setting more screens, an effort aided by Holiday’s arrival – Milwaukee no longer having an Eric Bledsoe that Miami could ignore at the arc was also a major shift in this dynamic. And of course the HEAT’s personnel changed year to year.

This year Miami is playing smaller than ever, going with Max Strus and Tyler Herro in the same starting lineup – effectively putting Butler at power forward – while playing Kevin Love as a five-out backup center. Even replete with players willing to step in and manufacture a charge, The Wall, such as it is, is as small as it’s been. In the one complete game Antetokounmpo played against Miami this year, he put together probably his best performance against the HEAT – it was, by GameScore – posting a 35-point triple double on 19 shots and finished a +19 in an eight-point victory. It all looked rather effortless, at least in the context of a matchup that had always made his efforts look particularly laborious. When the HEAT lost to the Bucks it was supposed to be because they took away Antetokounmpo’s bread and butter and made the rest of the Bucks beat them, preferably from the outside. That one game in February was worth a raised eyebrow.

What’s the answer now? It’s no different. Adebayo has to shoulder the bulk of the burden – which is often going to leave smaller players to deal with Lopez, given the current rotation – and he’s going to need his teammates to shrink the floor with pinpoint timing and precision. You don’t want to give up threes to a team full of ready and willing shooters, but there are no other options in the game of you have to give up something. There’s no clever scheme where you give up driving lanes and free rolls. You have to help, and you have to be razor sharp with your closeouts when Antetokounmpo – with whom the Bucks’ rim frequency goes up a full 11 percentage points, the highest On/Off difference in the league – passes into the space you vacated. At the very least, you have to find him in transition. Milwaukee has the fourth-highest transition frequency off live rebounds, as you would expect from a team with a freight train in uniform. The HEAT will probably need to be careful and selective when crashing their own offensive glass – the Bucks are already the No. 2 defensive rebounding team – even if that’s something they sometimes rely on.

The first two games of this series will be telling. Whether or not the Bucks win their home games, keep an eye on Antetokounmpo’s process. If he’s still taking the occasional jumpers and not getting to the rim as often as it seems he should, that’s a win. You’ll take that process if it takes Milwaukee shooting lights out from three to win, and it leaves the door open for Miami to capitalize on their own opportunities from deep with some variance games. But we shouldn’t take for granted what the HEAT used to be able to do. This roster is different than it was four, three or even two years ago, and Antetokounmpo is a different player.

-This is a big one, but relatively simple so it won’t get its own section. As you know, the HEAT played the most zone (1,379 possessions) in recorded NBA history this season. Milwaukee, however, faced the second most zone (439 possessions) of any team this year, and they scored 1.23 points per possession against it, second best. That doesn’t guarantee the Bucks success moving forward, but it’s safe to say they won’t be caught off guard.

-No team limits corner threes from opponents better than Milwaukee, while a large part of Miami’s uptick in shooting after All-Star was due to getting up to 41 percent in the corners.

-By that same token, Milwaukee led the league in shooting from the corners after All-Star, where the HEAT have given up the most attempts, by frequency, in the league.

-Milwaukee was the No. 3 half-court defense this season, and best defense against the teams with Top 10 Offensive Ratings.

-The Bucks were only No. 14 in half-court offense, but since Khris Middleton returned to the lineup – mostly for good, but with some absences as they managed his usage – on January 23 they were No. 4.

-Miami deserves credit for Chicago only pulling in five offensive boards on Friday after what happened with Atlanta, but keep in mind that the Bulls crash their misses far less than the Hawks. There weren’t nearly as many possessions with two or three Bulls chasing misses as there were in the first play-in game. The good news is that despite their size the Bucks don’t tend to attack their own glass unless Bobby Portis and his boundless energy is on the floor. That said, this is the sort of thing coaches can easily toggle on or off. Prior rebounding initiatives are not guaranteed to repeat themselves in a single series.

-When the Bucks have had Holiday, Middleton, Antetokounmpo and Lopez on the floor this season, across just 300 possessions due to various injuries, they’ve outscored teams by 19.5 points per 100. That’s the second-best four-man group in the league behind the Golden State Warriors starters.

-Middleton was a full participant in Thursday’s practice, so pending the official injury reports it’s looking like the Bucks are going to be whole for Game 1.

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HEAT vs. Bucks Preview: The Saga Continues With A Focus On Defensive Tactics For Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler And Giannis Antetokounmpo

Miami and Milwaukee split the season series, 2-2, with each side winning a pair of home games. Giannis Antetokounmpo only played in five of a possible 16 quarters, missing the two-game set in Miami back in January and only playing one quarter after the All-Star break. These teams have recently met in the playoffs twice, a five game Miami victory in 2020 and a sweep in favor of Milwaukee in 2021.

Game 1, January 12: The HEAT scored just 14 points in the opening period, Brook Lopez doing his part to keep them away from the rim while Jrue Holiday and Jevon Carter were pesky as ever getting around screens and hounding ballhandlers. An interesting contrast of styles, where the HEAT are typically the ones launching threes shorthanded they were largely pushed into the mid-range – attempting 25 non-rim two’s in the first half – while the Bucks took on that boom-or-bust identity, putting up 27 threes over the first two quarters. That dichotomy was partially responsible for Milwaukee going up by as much as 15 in the second quarter, with Carter hitting four of his first eight threes, and it was also part of why the HEAT were able to tie things up by the half when all their twos, spurred on by one of the better stretches of Gabe Vincent offense (13 points before the break) we’ve seen this season, started to drop. Milwaukee had just eight points in the paint at the half, with quite literally zero attempts at the rim.

By the third, the HEAT had their groove. More Milwaukee misses and turnovers, more chances to push in transition. The Bucks still hung around, but they were forced into a timeout just 45 seconds into the fourth after giving up pick-six and Victor Oladipo stepped into a three after Carter went under a screen to put the HEAT up 10. With Milwaukee on a back-to-back and missing their entire source of downhill movement in Giannis Antetokounmpo, the HEAT had more verve the rest of the way. Everything opened up. The Bucks, still hunting those threes, couldn’t get enough long balls to drop – they hit 22, but it took 57 to get there – and that was that as Miami rode that double-digit victory to the end, 108-102. Hopefully both teams are a bit healthier by the time Saturday’s rematch rolls around, but nobody who has watched Miami all season is going to complain about a rare semi-comfortable victory. Box Score

Game 2, January 14: Miami didn’t waste any time this go round. With the Bucks again taking a ton of threes without their primary source of paint points, and this time those threes weren’t falling at nearly the same rate, the HEAT just ran their stuff, followed the lead of a scorching hot Gabe Vincent (8-of-10 for 21 points in the first half) and jumped out to an early eight-point lead – stretched to as much as 15 at one point – which they carried right into the break. It wasn’t always pretty, especially when Bam Adebayo sat and the offense slowed to a crawl, as we saw some turnovers which are somewhat typical of a 1 pm start time.

A little bit more drama in the third as the HEAT couldn’t escape some second-half blues. Milwaukee closed it to three a couple of times, their offensive efficiency rising and falling based almost entirely on their three-point shooting, but Miami kept finding a way to push it back to six or seven. A three. A floater. An offensive board. With free-throws tough to come by for either side and Lopez still conceding space in that drop, this was as much a shotmaking game as the HEAT have had all year (season-best 11-of-22 from three). Not a perfect night in that regard. Who cares as long as you make more shots than the other team?

As was the case on Thursday, Milwaukee just didn’t have enough offensive verve to keep themselves in it in the fourth quarter. A dominant, 34-24, period that Jimmy Butler didn’t even have to play in thanks to a surge from Victor Oladipo, to clinch a 111-95 victory and a sweep of this two-game series. Miami may not have had to face the Bucks at their best, but you beat the team in front of you and they handled business as well as could be expected. Box Score

Game 3, February 4: There were at least three times in the first half where it looked like things might be slipping away for the HEAT. They were down 15-7 early, and they fought back. They were down 25-16 a little later, and they fought back. Then they were down 48-38 in the second quarter, only to tie things up at 62-62 by the break. With Giannis Antetokounmpo checking all of his own boxes (18 first-half points on seven shots) and the Bucks generating plenty of open threes, it felt like the HEAT were in survival mode until a strong close to the half by Tyler Herro (18 through two, eating up drop coverage as usual), but that’s what this team is good at. They survive. They only turned the ball over once, they crashed the glass and they took 12 more shots than the Bucks, who missed a handful of free-throws. It’s a very 2023 HEAT thing that they were tied at halftime of a game where they were being out-shot by six effective field-goal percentage points, but that’s what this season is.Bucks jumped out to another quick lead after that, and once again, you guessed it, the HEAT fought back and even took the lead. With Jimmy Butler (32 points on 21 shots) hitting everything he put up, including a corner three, no matter how contested or through how much contact he had to go. Bucks up five again, then Miami takes the lead again only to give up a corner three to lose it. Back and forth we went. This again, then that again. Another Bucks run as Butler and Bam Adebayo (16 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists) sat at the open of the fourth to go up seven had things on tilt.

Down nine with two minutes to go, Miami still managed to make this another clutch game as far as the official scorekeeping goes, but it was but a fleeting moment as the Bucks stayed in control for a 123-115 victory. The HEAT may have hit just enough of their two pointers, but the Bucks hit just enough of their threes (14-of-40) as Antetokounmpo led the way.&nbsp;Box Score

Game 4, February 24: Unfortunately the Bucks hit the dimmer switch on all the new rotation excitement in the first half as they dropped 42 in the first quarter – the most Miami has allowed in any quarter this season – and a season-high 73 in the first half for any HEAT opponent. Even with Giannis Antetokounmpo playing just six minutes before exiting the game with a knocked-knee injury, Milwaukee was generally getting most of the looks they wanted while holding the HEAT to mostly contested mid-range looks. It would have looked worse than 73-56 were it not for some fast-break points and offensive boards, because the Bucks shooting 55 percent from the field and 10-of-21 on threes was more the result of good process than the glow of Lady Fortune shining on their shooters.

It wasn’t much better after that. Miami couldn’t get any threes to fall and the Bucks rarely looked uncomfortable. The lead quickly stretched out to 20 and hung around there for most of the third with not much of note really happening. Milwaukee’s offense slowed down, at least, without Antetokounmpo around to get them downhill, but the HEAT’s frigid shooting prevented them from gaining any sort of traction in the half court.

Miami wasn’t the only team with a rough outing coming out of All-Star break, but a 128-99 loss is a 128-99 loss whichever way you slice it. Jimmy Butler dropped in 23 in just 21 minutes and Caleb Martin added 17 on 10 shots in his new bench role, but Milwaukee continues to offer matchup issues and when a very good team on both ends of the floor shoots 19-of-46 from three, you’re going to need one of your best games of the season to beat them. Box Score

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The Season That Was Vs. Milwaukee

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.

maximum-overdrive-once-a-two-way-player-mighty-max-strus-has-become-a-critical-piece-to-miamis-championship-aspirations

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

With just over five minutes to play in Game 4 and Philadelphia up only seven points thanks to a masterful 40-point performance from Jimmy Butler, James Harden has the ball. As the 76ers point guard Harden often has the ball, but in this case he really has it. After inbounding to Tyrese Maxey and getting it back with 16 on the shot clock, Harden proceeds to hold the ball for the next 14 seconds, doing nothing but getting the best switch defender in the league in Bam Adebayo switched onto him.

The clock is melting. Harden isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Adebayo. As we’ve seen so many times in this series already, Harden crosses over a couple times, jabs his right foot forward, steps back and launches a three. Adebayo is locked in the entire way. Hands up. Contest. Jump to the side to avoid the foul. He plays it as well as you can possibly play it.