Paolo Banchero

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Couper Moorhead

1. It’s been a long, long while since anyone has witnessed a Miami versus Orlando matchup that could be described as anything in the vicinity of the beautiful game, and we sure weren’t going to start seeing it tonight.

Great defensive energy from Miami to open as they jumped out to an early 16-4 lead in the first six minutes, a new starting lineup with Caleb Martin in place of Haywood Highsmith generating turnovers and scoring off them as is intended. To say Orlando’s half-court offense, with very little going downhill outside of slow, methodical, back-down attacks from Paolo Banchero, Markelle Fultz and Franz Wagner, was struggling would have been an understatement. By the time Miami had stretched their lead out to 20 after a series of Orlando drives into a packed paint followed by HEAT threes on the runout, it was clear the issue was one of geometry – a spacing-induced hindrance – and not just of the make-or-miss variety.

And yet as soon as the lead reached its peak, Orlando settled in. With Miami sticking in zone for a bit, the Magic worked the middle of that zone with a number of short push shots and inside-out playmaking. Very little shooting from either side, but the Magic found a way to put the right players in the right players to give their best players room to drive and get to the line. By halftime, the lead was down to just seven, both teams essentially tied in half-court efficiency with Miami holding the edge on the break.

Right as Orlando appeared ready to eat into the deficit even more in the third, Miami got a few shots to fall and the Magic offense unraveled from there. It wasn’t quite a snap of the fingers, but in just a few minutes what appeared to be headed toward a tense, nail-biting affair became something of a feel-good evening, Miami’s energy levels as high as they’ve been all season with Orlando rotating to empty spaces as the ball went right past them. The HEAT by 21 after three.

A bit of drama in the fourth as Orlando got back within 10 again, only for Jimmy Butler to hit back-to-back threes, one of them a fadeaway in the corner against the shot clock, to extend the stiff arm. Crisis avoided, having Jimmy Butler (23 points on 6-of-9 shooting) on your team much better than not having Jimmy Butler on your team. Miami takes the first leg of the back-to-back, 121-95, behind a 65-46 second half.

2. There wasn’t any single dominant performance tonight – Butler’s ridiculous efficiency aside – with all nine of the nine players in the main rotation tonight scoring at least seven points, but the move of the game was the insertion of Caleb Martin (11 points on 5-of-9 shooting) into the starting group to effectively replicate the starters that played together for much of last season, only with Terry Rozier in place of Kyle Lowry. Tough for anyone to argue with the results, with Miami jumping out to that 16-4 lead in the first and holding off Orlando’s best shot to open the third.

Like Josh Richardson, when the HEAT were mired in their seven-game losing streak early last week Martin had the accountability to take a look at his own game film, noting that he simply hadn’t been playing to his own standards especially on the defensive end. Since then, Martin has anchored a press-zone that outright won games against Sacramento and Washington and tonight he helped set the tone with a pace and speed that Orlando never caught up to. Spoelstra eventually went away from that starting group last season even as Martin played well, and there’s certainly been little lineup stability this season, so only time will tell how long this move lasts – Highsmith had been playing well in his role, too, especially defensively – but for tonight it was the right move at the right time.

3. With Orlando being a step behind Miami for much of the game more precise execution may not have mattered, but for those of you who go back and watch for a second time this was one of the better examples of the season for how much having the right offensive players standing in the correct spaces can make a world of difference.

No, Orlando (18 turnovers) didn’t shoot well enough to beat Miami on an average night, making just 10-of-35 from deep, but where other teams can miss shots but still find a modicum of efficiency because their attempts are at least opening up the floor, Orlando’s situation was quite the opposite, their stable of mechanically slower, spot-up shooters giving Miami every reason to cheat further and further into driving lanes. In other words, Miami was able to play their scheme to the maximum, both Banchero (7-of-16 shooting) and Wagner (5-of-15, seven turnovers) forced to weave their way through three defenders just to get a tough floater off in the paint, their skip passes finding shooters that couldn’t get the proper shots off in time with Miami’s closeouts on point. Orlando finished with an Offensive Rating of 97.9 not just because they missed shots or because Miami defended well – that can be a chicken or the egg relationship at times, even on your best defensive nights – but because they simply weren’t operating in an ecosystem that contained the proper counters for how Miami puts their pieces on the board. If you subscribe to the theory of styles make fights, the HEAT weren’t hard up for style point in this one.

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Coup's Takeaways: Miami Takes Early Lead, Holds Off Every Orlando Threat As Caleb Martin Joins Starting Lineup

1. Miami’s cold shooting continued in the early going as they started 4-of-18 from outside with overall percentages hovering around 30 percent, and outside of the Toronto game the cost associated with those slow starts continued to be relatively low.

Helps that Orlando, like Brooklyn earlier this week, was struggling just as much from the outside. The Magic held control relatively firmly for most of the first half regardless, doubling up Miami in the paint with all of their size and length, but did just enough in the margins – on the offensive glass and at the free-throw line – to stay within striking distance. By the time a few shots started to fall, Tyler Herro hitting three threes in his first 15 minutes, it was enough to close the gap to two points at the break despite a 100.0 Offensive Rating. When the shots are missing it’s easy to focus on those and those alone, but Orlando was struggling as much if not more in the halfcourt (4-of-16 from three), especially as Erik Spoelstra toggled in and out of zone.

Jimmy Butler, who has not been aggressive from the outside since returning from injury, opened the second half with a pair of threes, including a contested one up against the shot clock, to even things up. But Orlando would regain control almost immediately with an 11-2 run, stretching their lead to double digits as the shot-clock violations mounted, relatively speaking, for Miami. Within striking distance down 12 going into the fourth on the HEAT’s side, the task ahead being two steps ahead of an Orlando team rotating exceptionally well ahead of the pass and keeping the ball out of the paint, and off the line, on the other end.

Magic by 18 a few minutes into the fourth on a couple transition scores, Miami still working against time with the ball in their hands. A major swing play soon after that to keep the HEAT alive, a near-pick-six turnover for Orlando bouncing Miami’s way and ending up in Herro’s hands for a wide-open three. That was the last surge of any sort, however, as Orlando’s grip held firm the rest of the way, Spoelstra pulling most of the rotation with just under three minutes to play. A rough night in what’s been a rough offensive week, a 105-87 loss in the end, but still just one week of many more still to play.

2. Miami’s offensive struggles began six days ago against Brooklyn, a game they were able to edge out in overtime, but in much of the losses to Toronto and Atlanta the issues, such as they were, had as much to do with make-or-miss regression – Miami was shooting incredibly well through the first two months or so, this felt like a natural cold spell – as with anything else other than some uncharacteristic turnovers. Tonight, however, did not feel like a make-or-miss game. Instead, Miami’s 85.5 Offensive Rating is a credit to their opponent.

Orlando is one of the biggest teams in the league, no doubt, a roster full of upsized guards, long wings and mobile big men, but this game was about more than just size. The Magic were consistently ahead of Miami’s passes with their rotations, pre-rotating the low man against Miami’s pick-and-rolls to shrink operating room and earn a handful of deflections. And one-on-one they were disciplined enough to limit their fouls, especially in the back half of the night, to allow their size to do the work for them while still disrupting the ball in hand. It was particularly noticeable that Miami attempted just 12 shots in the upper paint, typically their comfort zone, largely because of how crowded the lane was on the catch. You don’t force a team to work up against the shot clock as often as the HEAT did tonight just by being big, so give Orlando their due for one of the best and most complete defensive efforts, particularly as they were able to blend coverages and schemes to keep the ballhandlers on their toes, Miami has seen this season.

3. Not much more to say about this one other than that Orlando won the points in the paint battle 54-36, with most of their 28 free-throw attempts also coming on paint touches. This is where you expect the Magic to succeed off their size – they only shot 9-of-28 from three, almost exactly the same as Miami percentage-wise – because that’s their strength. The HEAT can typically afford a paint margin such as that against Orlando because Orlando has to spend so much energy – and risk potentially damaging turnovers – working the right passing angles to capitalize on their size, but it does give the Magic a theoretically higher offensive floor because of the specific matchups. In the end it wasn’t the over-the-top, triangulating passes that beat Miami, it was a handful of drives and offensive rebounds (36.6 second-chance rate for Orlando) in the late third and early fourth quarter that kept the HEAT at bay. The HEAT lost this game on offense for the most part, but Orlando was still able to hit their strengths on the other end.

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Coup's Takeaways: Orlando Pulls Away In Second Half As Miami’s Offense Stalls

1. It’s been a while since the HEAT have had all of their guys healthy, but tonight they faced off against an Orlando team missing a bunch of their own guys and the result was a choppy evening.

Very little rhythm for either side early on, Miami hitting three of their first four threes as they almost seem to do when missing multiple rotation players, with both teams struggling to stay above the 40 percent line from the field. Still, the HEAT looked like the team better equipped to handle a shortage of rotation players, running their usual offense as best they could – albeit with a few more turnovers thanks to a handsy Orlando group – while the Magic were asking Paolo Banchero to carry an even heavier load than usual, their approach looking much more heliocentric around a single star than intended.

Miami jumped out to a double-digit lead in the second quarter, but Orlando slowly pushed back to take a brief lead just before the break as Caleb Houstan managed a trio of triples for a team otherwise struggling from the field. As good as Banchero was, scoring 13 on a necessary 13 shots while often seeing a second or third extra defender, Jaime Jaquez Jr. was the standout, shooting 7-of-8 in the paint for 15 points on his usual blend of timely cuts and spinning, pivoting, contact-seeking drives. Miami by one at the break, a true January In The NBA finish – unmemorable, unattractive, well earned – promised.

Again a little separation for the HEAT early in the third, never up by quite as much as it appeared they should be, again Orlando scrounged enough offense together to close the gap and take a brief lead. An uneventful quarter, neither side topping 20 points, outside of a Joe Ingles flagrant foul on Caleb Martin (back in the line), Miami by two going into the home stretch.

Orlando just kept hanging around even as Duncan Robinson (23 points on 19 shots) worked his downhills stylings, Mo Wagner finishing well inside on some tough catches. Bam Adebayo (21 points on 17 shots, +17) worked the closing moments, up just two with two to play, as he put Wagner through the hoop on a dunk out of a post-up. And yet, Banchero rose to the moment himself, putting Orlando up one with 38 seconds to play with a tough fadeaway over Jaquez Jr. with Adebayo’s help looming. But there was Adebayo again, with a simple jumper in the upper paint, taking what was right in front of him, to retake the lead, 18.5 seconds left. Then, just a little bit of luck as Banchero had a wide-open look rebounding his own miss and simply lost the ball going up, leading to a 99-96 Miami win. Each season, Adebayo finds ways to get 10 percent better and he’s made himself into a bonafide go-to option down the stretch, with another game winner on his personal ledger.

2. Two men can never be a defense all on their own, but if you caught the right possessions of tonight’s game you would have thought Bam Adebayo and Haywood Highsmith were covering all five positions. With Orlando lacking tertiary attackers around Banchero, Miami was able to always have one of Adebayo and Highsmith on him almost at all times (with Jaquez Jr. doing well feeding Banchero’s drives into Adebayo’s help when Highsmith was off the floor), switching both on and off the ball in such a way it almost looked as though Miami’s lead defenders were the top of a zone that was determined to keep Banchero from gathering any comfortable momentum going downhill. If Banchero managed to find a pick-and-roll combination involving any other player, the screener defender simply held a long show in Banchero’s face as the original defender fought through, with an overloaded defender helping over on any paint-directed passes. The open man for Banchero was often in the far corner – he’s a good passer but he’s not LeBron James or Luka Doncic with the skip passes – and Orlando wasn’t shooting well enough to capitalize when that play was made.

And when Banchero went to the post to invert the offense and give himself some interior breathing room, Miami again had multiple defenders at the ready, not with a hard double but with the constant threat of help, either from a digging defender from the top or another coming over for a strong-side zone. In short, a big night for Banchero would have had to be truly magnificent, and even the fact that he scored 25 points on 26 shots (with six assists and four turnovers), Highsmith forcing a tough look on the last and most important one, was somewhat remarkable given the type of shots he was getting.

Once again, you give Erik Spoelstra an opponent with one obvious lead creator and few other live attacking and/or shooting options, he’ll find a way to slow down all but a select few.

3. One might call this is a relentless night for Jaquez Jr. even if it wasn’t his most efficient only by his own lofty standards (19 points on 16 shots is of course efficient for most anyone). It’s still a bit unclear just how scouted Jaquez Jr. is, with how often he’s able to get to his spots, both in transition and in the halfcourt, without anyone truly challenging much less stopping his dribble, but it also may be that this is his talent and skill level regardless of how prepared his opponents are, no longer caught off guard by a surprising rookie. We’ll leave the jury out a little longer to deliberate on that point, especially with the postseason being an entirely different animal altogether, but make or miss Jaquez Jr. has continued to play his way and get off the ball whenever he draws extra attention. His Bully Ball moment of the night was drawing point guard Cole Anthony in the post and absolutely putting him in a blender, hard charging his way into one of Miami’s easiest scores of the night. He didn’t get to play the hero on what was otherwise Adebayo’s night, but at 37 minutes he was as much a factor as anyone.

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Coup's Takeaways: Bam Adebayo Saves The Day With Late Jumper To Top Magic

1. This isn’t the same Orlando Magic group you may have grown used to over the past decade. Instead of a veteran team pushing for a low postseason seed, this is a young, talented group that has earned every bit of a Top Four spot with a blend of size, defense and interior aggression.

In the second quarter, they also ran into a buzzsaw.

It was a fairly non-descript start on both sides, Tyler Herro opening with 10 of the HEAT’s first 20 while Orlando punctured their defense for a few more basket cuts than anyone is comfortable with. The lead went back and forth a bit, both sides grinding out points with Orlando getting into the paint, Miami hitting jumpers – once again hitting a chunk of their early threes in a game Jimmy Butler misses, which is a real, statistically founded thing – and scoring off Magic turnovers. With 6:40 to play in the second quarter and Bam Adebayo in foul trouble, it was all knotted up at 36-36.

Miami wouldn’t miss a shot the rest of the half. We can talk all we want about smooth, crisp offensive execution, which was all present to be sure, but making 12 straight shots without your two best players on the floor against a Top 5 defense is as special as it gets. Making five triples during that stretch – 11-of-18 in the first half – Miami scored 32 points in six minutes and change as part of a 17-0 run that put them 18 going into the break. It doesn’t get much better than that stretch, one that will come up in conversation years from now.

As well as the HEAT were shooting, Orlando was just as poor. With Miami up 19 towards the end of the third, the HEAT had hit 20 of their 35 attempts outside of the paint while Orlando was just 9-of-30 in those same zones, including 4-of-22 from deep. Basketball is a simple game sometimes, make or miss, with most all else being equal.

Nothing much doing for the Magic from there as Miami rode that dominant second quarter run and cruised to the finish. You should almost always win when you shoot this much better than your opponent – 15-of-29 from three versus 9-of-36, with most makes coming late – but a logical result doesn’t make the process of getting there any less impressive. Miami takes this one, 115-106, with the Magic making a very, very late but very furious push to keep the score respectable. One of the better wins of the season goes on the ledger.

2. Herro (28 points on 17 shots, 4-of-5 from deep, eight rebounds, seven assists) was as good as it gets, punishing Orlando’s drop coverage over and over again with either quick pulls from three or by methodically eating up space in the middle and finding comfortable jumpers. It’s one thing for the HEAT to shoot this well as a team, another thing entirely for it to happen on the same night that Herro didn’t know how to miss a jumper. That’s a recipe for an Offensive Rating of 120+, and sure enough the HEAT finished at 121.6.

But where Herro will get the deserved accolades, the unsung hero of the night is Haywood Highsmith. While Orlando wasn’t exactly letting him shoot in the first half, he was clearly one of the designated players they were comfortable helping off of. To Highsmith’s credit, he shot early and often and didn’t stop any time he was open, making back-to-back triples during that magical second-quarter run, as he finished with 15 points on 4-of-9 from three (a career-high in attempts), the most impressive number there being the sheer number of attempts. There’s nothing more harmful to an offense than a shooter who won’t shoot when he’s open and Highsmith has been game this season no matter how his percentages have fluctuated. Add in some high-energy, timely offensive boards and his typically excellent one-on-one defense – you can make a pretty good argument that he’s Miami’s second-best isolation defender behind Adebyayo – and Highsmith continues to carve out a firm spot in the rotation whenever health has allowed.

3. The No. 1 pick in 2022, Paolo Banchero has lived up to his billing, putting up All-Star caliber numbers as he sets Orlando on the path towards something meaningful. He’s also just 21 years old, with plenty of learning to do.

Orlando has not been a very good shooting team this season so it’s likely Miami came in planning to take away the paint as much as possible – also likely considering that’s their base defensive philosophy in the first place. But with Orlando unable to convert much of anything from outside there was nothing at all preventing interior help against one of Orlando’s most potent downhill forces. Whenever Banchero put the ball on the floor, there was another body sliding over into his driving lanes and a third body waiting in the wings. The most elite offensive players in the league can read that secondary help, which is tougher than it sounds to do consistently, and find the shooters it leaves open, but Banchero was often stuck in between, shooting over multiple defenders on his way to a 2-of-12 night, plus three turnovers, with just one make in the paint by the time Orlando was down 20 in the final five minutes. It helps, too, when you have a defender of Highsmith’s caliber limiting those initial blow-bys so the help is coming to a place of strength rather than playing catch up on an attacker who has already beat his man. Banchero will get his reps in and improve against these coverages, but every young player has to endure scouting reports tailored to their strengths and their team’s weaknesses.

Paolo Banchero

Coup's Takeaways: Miami Takes Early Lead, Holds Off Every Orlando Threat As Caleb Martin Joins Starting Lineup

Coup's Takeaways: Orlando Pulls Away In Second Half As Miami’s Offense Stalls

Coup's Takeaways: Bam Adebayo Saves The Day With Late Jumper To Top Magic

Coup's Takeaways: HEAT's Perfect, Magical Second Quarter Run Carries Them To Victory In Orlando