Philadelphia 76ers

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Couper Moorhead

The Miami HEAT splits the season series 2-2 with the Philadelphia 76ers, winning the first two matchups including a meeting on Christmas Day that featured the best performance of the season from Jaime Jaquez Jr. The 76ers won both matchups since adding Kyle Lowry - signed after Miami traded Lowry to Charlotte for Terry Rozier - including the most recent game, April 4, which also marked the only appearance by both Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler in all four meetings.

Game 1, December 25: This might have been a special Christmas Day game, it certainly wound up as one for a certain rookie, but there was nothing unusual about how the start of this one played out.

You’re telling me one team went up double digits only for the other team to lead by the end of the first quarter? Must be HEAT game. Again without Jimmy Butler Miami had four turnovers in the first four minutes as the 76ers jumped out front thanks to the interior stylings of Tobias Harris, but almost as soon as the HEAT went down 18-8 they soon began what would eventually be a 22-1 run stretched across two quarters, during which the 76ers failed to make a shot from the field for eight straight minutes. With Tyler Herro and Jaime Jaquez Jr. – playing the part of Jimmy Butler again as Miami’s source of rim pressure – handling the volume scoring, Bam Adebayo was electric playing the part of help defender on the other end. When Adebayo sat, Philadelphia couldn’t get into the paint as the HEAT packed it, and there weren’t enough threes from the outside to compensate.

As HEAT eventually took a 63-49 lead into the break, Philadelphia was sitting on an Offensive Rating of 94.2, dropping down to 62.5 in the half-court excluding offensive rebounds. Miami was able to find similar production for their missing star, but the 76ers’ offense, with Tyrese Maxey going scoreless through the first two periods, had no way of finding another inside-out gravitational force.

Less than two minutes into the second half, Miami was up 21 and it was maybe looking like a drama-free holiday. Two minutes after that, back to just 10 again as the 76ers found their shooting. As the HEAT suddenly ran cold with Philadelphia in zone – at times something closer to a 1-3-1 than 2-3, a hybrid style like what Miami uses – the 76ers ran off a 20-4 run to get within five. By the end of the quarter it was all tied, Philadelphia having taken a brief lead.

More zone from Philadelphia to open the fourth, against which Miami random offense’d – cuts, free-throws, offensive boards – their way back into the lead. With Maxey still struggling, 2-of-17 with 6:50 remaining, the question was where Philadelphia was going to find enough offense to put them over the top. Turns out, they wouldn’t, as Miami took this clutch game, 119-113, on the strength of some late Duncan Robinson threes (some missed 76ers free-throws helped, too), with Erik Spoelstra improving to 9-0 on Christmas Day. On the night Philadelphia’s best remaining player in Maxey (12 points on 20 shots) had his worst game of the season, Miami’s rookie had his best (30 points on 15 shots, 10 rebounds, zero turnovers).

Game 2, February 14: If you enjoy early offense, this was the game for you. At least in the first half.

With Miami on a back-to-back following their rousing victory in Milwaukee last night and Philadelphia missing just about half their rotation, this wasn’t a game for defense despite the efforts of both coaches to mix in a variety of coverages. The first open look available was going up and, more often than not, in.

Philadelphia opened up a three-possession lead fairly quickly on the strength of Buddy Hield and Tyrese Maxey getting to their spots and making jumpers, but even as Miami trailed they never appeared to be struggling to find good opportunities. Just as he did against Milwaukee, Tyler Herro was able to walk into pull-up threes or otherwise explore the real estate ahead of him with the 76ers playing a ton of drop coverage – Duncan Robinson also linked up with Bam Adebayo for consecutive lobs against the same look – just about any drive had an open kick option and with Philadelphia’s backline defenders hitting the snooze button there was cut after cut after cut for easy two pointers. It’s not often that Miami goes 14-of-17 at the rim in a half, but all you had to do was watch a handful of possessions to understand why it was happening.

Hield and Maxey never quite slowed down, though, combining for 34 points – Hield even launching 1-on-5 threes before any of his teammates were back and canning them – to keep the home team out front by two at the break. Philadelphia’s attempts weren’t quite as obvious at the HEAT’s with more scattershot possessions mixed in, but talent does as talent does.

Miami opened the second half in zone as the 76ers opened up another seven-point lead, only for the game to change when Maxey had a teammate step on his foot and roll his ankle leading to Maxey going back to the locker room. Miami, cooling off from three, didn’t exactly capitalize on that period with Philadelphia lacking in ballhandling as Paul Reed finished inside, still down three when Maxey returned later in the quarter, but Duncan Robinson’s perfect night (4-of-4 from three at that point) tied it up anyway as part of an 11-0 run. Miami by one at the break, the rhythm of the game broken down but the vulnerability in the interior unchanged, an offense-first game starting to lack in offense.

Plenty of Sixers fouls early in the fourth to put Miami in the bonus even as the Sixers had gained the lead again, all that early offense gone the way of drag-it-out zone. It looked like Miami might cruise in the final minutes as Philadelphia struggled to find looks, Herro creating sufficient offense on the other end, but a quick burst closed things to three with just over 50 seconds to play before Jaime Jaquez Jr. enjoyed a free run to the rim to dunk in a Robinson miss. One Adebayo (23 points on 14 shots, 14 rebounds) offensive rebound later, Miami takes it 109-104 as they head into the All-Star break.

Game 3, March 18: Miami hasn’t seen the full-strength Philadelphia 76ers during the regular season with Joel Embiid having missed all three matchups, and the same goes in the other direction with Jimmy Butler missing each game as well. Those absences may have taken some juice out of the storylines, but these teams came into the night tied in the standings at 37-30 and each contest has been highly competitive.

Tonight was no different, with Tyrese Maxey coming out of the gates firing on his way to 17 first quarter points while Bam Adebayo did his best to match him. Maxey’s run was enough to get his team out to a 31-21 advantage, but the HEAT ran off a 10-0 run of their own stretching into the second quarter using their press-zone to stymie a Sixers bench group that started small and eventually went even smaller with KJ Martin at center. It wasn’t pretty, both sides hovering around an Offensive Rating of 100, and it certainly didn’t feel like a postseason preview, but bodies were flying around with players on both sides making second and third effort plays. Philadelphia, with Kyle Lowry now in uniform, eventually found the creases in the zone and thus their own footing to take back the lead, 51-49, going into the break, but the HEAT, with Adebayo putting up a two-quarter line of 19-9-5, were a couple of bad turnovers and missed shots at the rim away from a decent lead of their own.

The upper hand went to the Sixers early in the third, back-to-back threes from Lowry and Mo Bamba putting them up 63-51 with a 12-2 run as Miami struggled to find good looks on their own end. Another Miami timeout followed just a couple minutes later as the Sixers scored a pair of buckets in scramble situations, the lead up to 17 at that point. Miami, on a back-to-back, stuck with it, a few scores allowing them to set back up in the press-zone again, but Maxey held out the stiff arm to keep Miami at bay even with Adebayo hitting his fifth consecutive three. Still just an 11-point game after a Highsmith three in the corner, but that was short lived, Sixers up 14 going into the fourth with Duncan Robinson out for the game with back discomfort.

A Thomas Bryant three bounced sky high and in to open the fourth to give Miami a little traction, the lead soon after down to seven with the zone again bothering Philadelphia’s bench unit. Back-to-back pullup threes from Terry Rozier followed, Miami hitting jumpers and forcing turnovers, and so it was tied. Clutch minutes followed, Philadelphia jumping up six as the HEAT sent double teams at Maxey, Lowry (16 points on 11 shots) making plays on both sides of the ball as he and Maxey handled the zone with more poise than the backups. Caleb Martin stole the inbounds with the shot clock about to turn off and Jaime Jaquez Jr. had a corner look with Miami down four, but it bounced off and the Sixers closed this one out, 98-81, as Philadelphia moves up to No. 6 in the Eastern Conference.

Game 4, April 4: Miami has had many, many games with Philadelphia in recent seasons and we’ve seen all variety of outcomes, clutch games, late blowouts, early blowouts, the works. But we haven’t seen much in the way of weird, wacky and strange until tonight.

The HEAT couldn’t get much of anything going at the open, shots not falling as nothing going towards the rim – the 76ers swarmed the paint anytime the ball got going downhill – with Philadelphia jumping out to a 17-2 lead with a hot start from Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid, who made his return from knee surgery just two days ago. In true Miami fashion, just as soon as things appeared dire they found a new gear, a couple threes getting them back within seven before the Sixers pushed it all the way back to 16.

Then Haywood Highsmith entered the game and Erik Spoelstra dialed up the press-zone, Highsmith forcing two backcourt steals which led to an 8-0 run without Philadelphia even getting the ball across halfcourt. Even more Highsmith – impossibly, incredulously, ludicrously locked in against his former franchise – after that, back-to-back threes, including one off the glass, dropping in, Miami eventually snatching the lead at 46-43. Then Maxey and Embiid (45 first-half points combined) got going again, Embiid working his way into post position and Maxey hunting small-small pick-and-rolls for mismatches, to go all the way backup by 16 again. As is that wasn’t a wild enough ride, the HEAT put together a quick 8-0 run to finish the half, a Bam Adebayo and-one as Embiid pressured him at the top of the arc and a Terry Rozier buzzer beater after a steal mitigating the damage. Still an eight point game after two quarters, but outside of some misses on open threes against the zone Philadelphia had it going in the halfcourt while it was the transition game, particularly those pick-sixes, that kept Miami’s offense afloat.

The second half wasn’t about to cease with the strangeness, Miami still relying – you could sense pace had been emphasized – on their fast-break while Maxey and Embiid worked incredible nights out of more methodical offense. Every time the Sixers made a mistake, the HEAT capitalized. Every time the HEAT made a run, the Sixers answered. Once again, the bench unit and the zone made the greatest impression, finishing the quarter – the end of quarters were their comfort zone tonight –on an 8-0 run, capped off by a Jimmy Butler attack. Miami by one going into the fourth of a livewire, but somewhat stylistically perplexing, contest.

Suddenly, Miami by eight, a 17-0 run in all, which quickly became two after a couple Philadelphia threes against the zone. Then it was the Sixers’ turn to try zone, which Miami was prepared for, scoring on a couple cuts to go up eight again, Spoelstra going with long stretches of Kevin Love and his five-out look. A couple minutes later, following a Kelly Oubre Jr. corner look, Philly was back up one. Back and forth and back and forth. In the end the offense stalled, Maxey extending it just enough, and even though a contested Rozier (22 points on 20 shots) three fell to give Miami life an extended HEAT possession came up empty and that was it. Miami loses an important game in the race to escape the Play-In Tournament, 109-105, as they head to Houston overnight for a back-to-back.

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The Season That Was Vs. Philadelphia

1. Miami has had many, many games with Philadelphia in recent seasons and we’ve seen all variety of outcomes, clutch games, late blowouts, early blowouts, the works. But we haven’t seen much in the way of weird, wacky and strange until tonight.

2. While there was a late assist from Oubre Jr., who finished a couple transition plays and hit that big corner three, this one was decided by the combination of Embiid and Maxey. It was Maxey who did the early damage in pick-and-roll as Adebayo had to stay semi-attached to Embiid, then Embiid doing damage for long stretches after whenever he could get a touch against anyone who wasn’t Adebayo. Philadelphia’s half-court offense was so good, so methodical, that Miami wound up playing far more zone than usual even after the initial shock-and-awe of Highsmith’s pressure wore off. Eventually Miami stopped allowing Maxey to hunt switches whenever the coverage flipped back to man-to-man, putting two on the ball to get it out of Maxey’s hands, but Maxey showed a matured approach to floor management, finding the passing seams (11 assists) and never forcing it until he found the looks and space he wanted.

There wasn’t a ton at the rim for Philadelphia – or Miami, both sides with just eight restricted area makes – but Embiid (29 points on 25 shots) and Maxey (37 points on 26 shots) did what the best players do in beating them over the top, combining to shoot 16-of-27 on non-rim two pointers in much the same way a combination like Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic would, hunting the looks they knew they could get rather than being forced into them. In the end the Sixers only scored 112.4 per 100, 92.0 points per 100 plays in the halfcourt, so the defense did its job from a top-down perspective as Philadelphia didn’t get much production outside of its main two, but much of Miami’s stops came when Maxey (+26) sat. Such is life sometimes against great players, the sort that can beat even your best coverages.

3. Part of the reason this was such a strange game is that Miami rarely, if ever, runs with such frequency, such purpose. In fact 22.1 percent of their possessions qualified as transition, in the 95th percentile across the league, and they scored an incredible 161.9 points per 100 transition plays. Some of it was after steals and deflections, as they are wont to do, but the way you suspected a clear gameplanned intention was in how quickly the ball was moving up the floor after every rebound, and sometimes after every make. If a Sixers player missed a layup or anything going to the rim that forced them to the ground, it was Miami scoring on those 5-on-4 and 4-on-3 possessions with elite efficiency, countering their own difficulties in the halfcourt (76.5 points per 100 halfcourt plays).

Oddly enough, the non-transition offense looked best when Philadelphia went to zone, all those cutters ready for their moment especially with Love (+25) spacing out at the five. But in those final minutes, Embiid back in – looking quite switchable in space for someone who just came returned to play – Miami scored just three points in the final six and a half minutes. Transition carried them to the finish line, and they had their opportunities no doubt, but the halfcourt wasn’t able to break through at the close.

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Coup's Takeaways : HEAT Fight Back, Take Late Lead But Drop Thriller To 76ers

The Miami HEAT are 37-31, No. 8 in the Eastern Conference with a Net Rating of +0.5, No. 18 in the league. They finish up their road trip Wednesday in Cleveland before heading back home for four. With just a few weeks left in the regular season, here’s what we’ve been noting and noticing.

After Bam Adebayo hit a three in his second consecutive game on Friday in Detroit, Erik Spoelstra had this to say about the long gestating prospect of Adebayo incorporating more triples into his arsenal.

“I had this discussion with him during the summer when he was working on his corner three. I was cool with that, I want him to work on the three, but I told him the three that would be more available would be the one at the top. That’s where he ends up being more often. The spacing, it doesn’t really make sense for our roster for him to be in the corner.”

Sure enough, one game later with Miami finishing up a two-game series with Detroit, Adebayo caught the ball in the exact same spot as his previous two threes with the game on the line, made possible in part by Cade Cunningham making the curious decision to shoot a stepback three with nine seconds on the clock in a tie game. Adebayo hit the shot, of course, saving Miami from what would have been a very tough loss and handing NBA content creators the most dramatic moment of the day until Kyrie Irving hit a left-handed baby hook over Nikola Jokic from the free-throw line about an hour later.

Drama aside, the buzzer-beating game winner – No. 17 in HEAT franchise history and the second of Adebayo’s career after he hit a baseline jumper to sink the Brooklyn Nets back in 2021 – fit right into what Spoelstra was talking about. For many centers over the past decade it has made sense for them to begin stretching their games out to the corners. It’s a shorter shot and a natural progression for all those big men who once would have been pick-and-pop mid-range specialists. Even Chris Bosh spent a decent amount of time in the corners back in those days, albeit with some above-the-break game-winners to his own name, just to make space for LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to get downhill.

Adebayo isn’t just a center on offense, though, he’s a hub. There’s rarely ever a reason for him to be in the corner, and thus away from the ball, because Miami runs just about everything through him – barring Jimmy Butler post-ups – in some form or fashion, be it in pick-and-rolls or handoffs or post-ups. Those things don’t happen in the corners. In the past three seasons, Adebayo hasn’t attempted a single corner three (he’s 12-of-79 on all attempts in his career, but there are quite a few heaves and last-second shots mixed in). In the way that Miami has tried to replicate Adebayo’s actions with their backup centers at times, players like Meyers Leonard and Dewayne Dedmon rarely shot out of the corners, either, most of their attempts coming as they trailed in from the top or in pick-and-pops. Even Kelly Olynyk and Kevin Love, by far the highest volume shooting big men Miami has had in the past five seasons, take fewer than 20 percent of their threes out of the corners. That’s just not where Spoelstra wants his centers, especially those with on-ball skills.

Of course as we say this Adebayo hit a corner three Monday night against Philadelphia – stretching his streak to five straight makes in all – but that was a in a semi-transition situation where the play naturally pushed Adebayo into the spot. Sure enough, two quarters later Paul Reed was still backing off Adebayo at the arc when Adebayo hit his second three.

It's natural to see Adebayo hit a three in five straight games for the first time in his career and think Miami’s offense is about to shift, but we’re a long, long way from that happening. Right now teams are giving Adebayo that shot because he doesn’t take them – though Sunday’s buzzer beater was more of a scramble situation with Adebayo’s defender moving to cut off Terry Rozier. That typically isn’t going to change until Adebayo starts taking those shots regularly, and it’s not going to change in a way that truly matters as far as the geography on the floor until Adebayo starts making them regularly. Not just one or two a week, one or two a game. And we really don’t have any sense of how good a shooter he can be from that range, though it is interesting that these threes have come at the same time as Adebayo has been in a bit of a funk from the free-throw line (61.7 percent since All-Star).

In other words, we’ll see. Adebayo taking threes has been a topic of conversation for years so there isn’t much left to say until it starts happening – a point we’ve just barely reached today. The occasional take or make is fun and makes for good conversation. At the right time they can outright hand Miami a win. But the path to truly changing how defenses treat you is a long one, and there are growing pains along that road.

If the threes continue to come, though, they’re clearly going to come from the top. That’s the only way for Adebayo to find those shots without Miami completely changing how he functions within an offense that largely functions based on how and where he moves.

There isn’t much anyone can do with Nikola Jokic other than make him work harder for his shots than the next guy, but Adebayo has proven himself to be among those who make him work the hardest. In two games against Miami this regular season Jokic has 30 combined points on 11-of-23 shooting to go with 13 combined assists. Fine numbers, if a little short of what the two-time MVP can put up in his sleep, and Denver won both of those games relatively comfortably down the stretch, but it wasn’t as if Jokic was walking into his spots and taking easy shots. Instead, many of Denver’s possessions looked like this, at least when they were trying to get Jokic the ball inside the arc.

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Notebook 73: Bam Fronting Jokic

“There’s no one better in the league who can negotiate this,” Spoelstra said after the game. “First of all nobody will go toe-to-toe, minute-for-minute against Jokic other than Bam. Bam signs up for that and he’ll put himself out there and be vulnerable to the competition. That’s the competitor of all competitors. That just sets the tone, but it is difficult. You have to negotiate so many different things. At the top of the floor, in the post – they started to post him up a little more then once you’re comfortable with that they go to the two-man action, then you have to do pick-and-roll basketball, then the ball goes back to him and you have to play him off the dribble and try to disrupt passing angles and all that. But that’s why Bam is Bam.

“That’s why I always say, year after year, he should be in consideration for Defensive Player of the Year. Because he can do things and will put himself out there to do things that the majority of the league won’t because it’s easier to not do it. Sometimes you’re going to get beat because Jokic is a great player, sometimes you’re going to get scored on or fouled or you play your pick-and-roll defense, the ball goes back to him and he scores because somebody else didn’t do their job. There’s a lot of things that go into it. They’re a complex team.”

We don’t need to oversell Adebayo’s defense on Jokic considering how well Denver has played Miami over the past few years. The results are the results. But watch that clip again and see how much size he’s giving up, using his speed to his advantage by fighting back in front for position midway through a possession. You aren’t going to find anyone who stops Jokic, but you’re also not going to find many players who make him work like Adebayo, who spent much of that game blowing up Denver’s bread-and-butter actions between Jokic and Jamal Murray in drop coverage until Reggie Jackson hit a couple jumpers in the drop cushion in the fourth quarter.

Even more Adebayo because why not? He’s Miami’s constant, holding the team together one both sides of the floor through all the various injuries that continue to plague the team.

Against Philadelphia on Monday, Adebayo had 20 points and six assists on 8-of-10 shooting through three quarters. Then, in the fourth quarter of what eventually became a clutch game, he took zero shots as Miami lost by seven. What happened?

First things first, with Miami’s full court pressing bench unit, including Thomas Bryant, storming back against the Sixers’ bench, Adebayo didn’t come into the game until just under the six minute mark after he had been waiting at the table. We’re talking about less than half a quarter. His first possession back on the floor he’s immediately in pick-and-roll with Rozier, eventually getting the ball back at the top of the arc before he swung it to Caleb Martin for a spot-up look.

Second possession, another screen for Rozier that Rozier took in for a layup. Third possession, another pick-and-roll with Rozier with Adebayo getting help up by Buddy Hield with the low man, Tyrese Maxey, sinking into the paint. After a Jaquez Jr. post-up, more Adebayo screens, Maxey continuing to pull into the paint to chuck Adebayo off his roll.

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Notebook 73: Maxey Low Man Bam

Later Adebayo gets a catch at the elbow in an offensive rebound situation, but two players sink in and he kicks it to Martin for an eventual and-one drive. There was an opportunity for a post-up with just over a minute to play, but Nic Batum fronted the pass with a short clock and Rozier was forced into a three. From there on, mostly scramble situations as the HEAT trailed in the final minute.

Adebayo was involved in just about every possession, either setting a screen or getting a playmaking touch, with his usual zone mostly taken away by Philadelphia clogging the lane with third and fourth defenders. You might ask why not try to get Adebayo some early post touches, which is a question that the Sixers had answered earlier in the game when they clearly showed their intention to double Adebayo’s post touches.

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Notebook 73: Bam Post Doubled

Drawing two in the post is often a good situation for Miami, but they were generating solid offense out of pick-and-roll without having to worry about killing their own shot clock trying to setup post touches.

Big picture, this is a story that just about every big man in the league has dealt with, including Joel Embiid. As players who generally don’t bring the ball up and attack from 30 feet out, they’re reliant on other players getting them the ball in their spots. Defenses, then, can sell out on taking away those spots to deny said big man their touches outright, and so many, many, many centers who had previously been rolling have struggled to find shots down the stretch of close games. Sure, you can force the issue, which can possibly lead to tough shots as the defense collapses on your dribble anyway, but such is life for the modern center. A defense focused on taking away their touches isn’t all too different from a defense focused on taking away a guard with doubles and blitzes on screens – the difference is the guard starts the possession with the ball while a center might not touch it at all.

We don’t need to harp on Cunningham’s decision to shoot with nine seconds on the clock on Sunday anymore, but there is one small aspect of that play worth drawing attention to. Cunningham told Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press that he “read that they were about to double” which is part of why he decided to shoot early, not wanting to be forced into giving the ball up. Still not a reason to give Miami time to go the other way, but it’s an explanation.

Was Miami going to double? Watch Caleb Martin on the play.

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Notebook 73: Caleb Stunting Cade

The way the floor is setup there, it’s a little hard to believe that Martin was going to double out of the strong side corner and leave Evan Fournier wide open. But Martin’s activity, with that quick little stunt, clearly caught Cunningham’s attention. Whether or not Spoelstra had told anyone to double – this possession came off a steal, so there was no timeout for special instructions – we’ll probably never know. What’s important is that Martin made Cunningham think the double was coming, and that small movement was enough to afford the HEAT enough time for a game winner on the other end.

Just another small, winning play to write on Martin’s ledger , which is already full of them.

The players with the most interesting roles on the HEAT roster right now are Nikola Jovic and Haywood Highsmith. Jovic we’ve discussed recently. He either starts or he doesn’t play at all, and it remains to be seen whether his current starting spot – before the injury that’s had him out the past two games – will endure into the postseason.

Highsmith, on the other hand, has been all over the place. Some of that is due to a series of injuries earlier in the season, before which he had started 14 consecutive games in which he was available. He also started seven straight in across January and February, but since then he’s played over 20 minutes six times, between 10 and 19 minutes three times and fewer than 10 minutes six times (while appearing in the game). The only game he didn’t see the court – remember, just about every HEAT game has been close so his minutes haven’t been a function of garbage time in the fourth quarter – was against Denver on the road, which in itself was interesting given Spoelstra used him in spot minutes against Jamal Murray last season in the Finals. Highsmith then played seven minutes against Denver in Miami.

Injuries to the rest of the roster are always a factor, which is why the games where he played four, five or six minutes are so interesting right now. In a sense, he’s in the rotation without being a rotation player – a specialist role where nearly every game requires his specialty at a different time or quarter. And when he is on the court, Spoelstra typically has him exclusively on the other team’s best or second-best scorer, with Highsmith seeing minutes against Murray, Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a primary defender.

“I’m just staying ready,” Highsmith says. “Sometimes I don’t know if I’m going to play but it is what it is, just have to stay ready for when my number is called. Every time he looks down the bench I’m ready in case he says my name.”

Highsmith’s skillset – shooting 36 percent from three while being the only player on the roster outside of Adebayo at +1.0 or better in Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus – is mostly a known commodity, which is partially what allows Spoelstra to deploy him in so many different situations. Not every player could handle such varied and sporadic minutes, but that’s essentially been Highsmith’s journey to this point. His game fits the postseason style of basketball and his defensive versatility allows Miami to switch more than it has been during the regular season, so it’s very possible his minutes increase down the road.

For now, playing regularly is playing regularly, and that’s no small thing for a player who has beaten overwhelming odds to get to where he is.

One item we had on our early season checklist after the HEAT’s historic shooting during their Finals run and their subsequent offseason roster changes was three-point volume. Miami typically had an above-average or higher shot frequency from behind the arc during the Jimmy Butler era, especially given how few threes Butler generally takes, but they came into this campaign without many players who had taken threes at high volume in their careers.

Miami is down at No. 17 in three-point frequency this season, 35.1 percent of their field-goal attempts coming behind the arc after 37.5 percent last year and 38.6 percent the year before, and it’s not a result of the league passing them by as league volume has mostly remained static for the past four seasons. They’re simply taking fewer three-point shots than they have since Butler arrived in 2019.

Is this a good or bad thing? In a vacuum, it’s neither. The Celtics lead the league in three-point rate (43.7 percent) and they have the league’s best offense – their high variance game can also give them issues in small sample playoff series – but No. 30 is Denver which may be the most sustainable offense for the postseason and in the middle of those two is the No. 2 offense, Indiana, with the No. 15 three-point rate. Offensive success is not uniform. That said, Miami is No. 21 in Offensive Rating, they lead the league in upper paint shots – at a solid 46.9 percent – and are No. 29 in rim frequency. They’ve always been near the bottom of the league in rim rate so that isn’t anything new, now they’ve traded a few threes per game for mid-range looks.

The complicated part of this is that those mid-range looks are necessary in the postseason when the best defenses scheme away all those high-value opportunities you’ve spent the year feasting on. You’re going to need Adebayo dotted line jumpers. You’re going to need Terry Rozier and Tyler Herro pull-ups and Jimmy Butler fadeaways. No team plays into June without players who can hit those shots. Miami diversifying their offensive menu to the point where they can generally set up those looks when necessary has been a big part of their last two postseason runs.

The question is more whether, or how, Miami can scale up their volume when it is necessary, especially against all the various Eastern Conference teams that play a ton of drop coverage. Rozier will help there, as will a healthy Herro when he gets right, but as of today Miami has five games with 40-plus three-point attempts after 14 all of last season and 28 the year before when Adebayo missed a month. Against Denver last week they attempted just 21 threes, tying their season low, forcing them into a value opportunity game against one of the best two-point teams in the league. As much as you need those mid-range shots, they can’t be your only source of offensive nutrition.

Answers are only going to come in the postseason, but for now this is one of the most important trends in Miami’s offense even if, on paper, it only looks like the difference of a few percentage points.

-Miami’s 32 unique starting lineups this season are a franchise record.

-The HEAT are averaging 17.5 possessions per game that goes into the last five seconds of the shot clock, third-most in the league behind New York and Orlando. Last season they were also No. 3 with 18.6 late-clock possessions per game. Miami’s efficiency on those possessions has been around 104 points per 100 in each season.

-After missing out on clutch qualifications in a handful of December and January games – leads or deficits lingering between six and nine while never dropping below five under five minutes in the fourth – Miami is now tied for the fourth-most clutch games in the league at 37, three behind the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors. They are 19-18 in those games (32-22 last season) with a Net Rating of -17.4 (they were +14.7 last year).

-Removing assist opportunities to focus more on individual defense, Adebayo is currently No. 3 of the 63 players who have defended at least 100 isolations, per Second Spectrum tracking data, in allowing 0.78 points per. And of the 30 players who have defended at least 1,000 pick-and-rolls he’s No. 4, allowing 0.96 points-per. Rudy Gobert, at No. 1, allows 0.93. More on Adebayo’s defense coming soon.

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Coup's Notebook Vol. 73: Bam Adebayo Goes Deep, Bam Adebayo Signs Up And Bam Adebayo Gets Doubled Plus Haywood Highsmith’s On And Off Role, Caleb Martin’s Mind Games And Sound Checking Miami’s Threes

1. Miami hasn’t seen the full-strength Philadelphia 76ers during the regular season with Joel Embiid having missed all three matchups, and the same goes in the other direction with Jimmy Butler missing each game as well. Those absences may have taken some juice out of the storylines, but these teams came into the night tied in the standings at 37-30 and each contest has been highly competitive.

2. As the Sixers won this one with an Offensive Rating of 102.1, we can clearly designate this one as a defense-forward game. By that token, it featured an interesting feedback loop where Philadelphia consistently scored against Miami’s man-to-man, Maxey (30 points on 24 shots) proving himself a terror to the point that the HEAT had to send double teams his way down the stretch just to get the ball out of his hands. Both of Philadelphia’s major runs came against man coverage, those scores slowing the game down for Miami and forcing them into the halfcourt where they faced a much more physical defense than they saw the previous two games in Detroit. Lowry proved himself a significant addition in that area, swiping down at every ball within range while Batum – a larger defender than Robinson typically sees – aptly switched off his man to sink into the paint on drives, the Sixers’ big men otherwise zoning up behind most isolations and post-ups.

The loop reversed itself whenever Miami put a couple scores together. Those scores allowed them to setup their press-zone, shrinking Philadelphia’s shot clock or otherwise creating turnovers – at least three of them in the backcourt – as the Sixers bench units, and their lack of ballhandling, struggled against the pressure. Those turnovers pushed Miami out into the open floor and in turn created their own best runs of the game, early in the second and fourth quarters.

With both Butler and Embiid out it’s impossible to glean much of anything as far as what a postseason game would look like between these teams, but Philadelphia’s physicality and the way they were able to communicate switches off and on ball to clog the lane are both worth keeping in mind, as are the Sixers issues against zone – which Lowry did help assuage.

3. Adebayo (20 points on 10 shots, 13 rebounds, six assists) was again holding Miami together on both ends for most of this one, protecting the rim with vigor while also closing out on shooters as Maxey and Lowry collapsed the defense, but he also didn’t take a single shot in the fourth quarter. That’s rarely the fault of a center, especially when Adebayo had been so aggressive – again, hitting two more threes – earlier on, and the important context is that Miami was making a comeback bid and so they were hunting threes and playing in transition as their press forced turnovers and the zone forced misses. No grand conclusions on this one as some film review is necessary to see exactly what the Sixers were doing to keep the ball out of his hands – he was plenty involved as a screen setter – but we can safely say that all the bodies and arms and legs in the paint played their part in limiting Adebayo’s touches, especially once the Sixers established that they would send double teams at him in the post almost regardless of matchup.

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Coup's Takeaways: HEAT Storm Back With Full-Court Pressure But Sixers Guards Find Another Burst In Clutch

1. If you enjoy early offense, this was the game for you. At least in the first half.

2. It wasn’t Herro’s most efficient night, dropping in 23 points on 23 shots to go with seven rebounds and seven assists, but it was a necessary one as one of Miami’s few remaining high-usage playmakers available – especially after Robinson, who finished with 20 on 7-of-11 shooting, started to see more pressure and switches coming off handoffs than he had in Milwaukee. Miami needed Herro to create and he stepped up.

One of Herro’s most interesting quotes this season came during preseason, when he noted how devastating his broken hand in Game 1 of the Bucks series was because he knew he could punish the drop coverage played by not only the Bucks but the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets as well. Since then, he’s only made his point stronger, working all that free space in the middle of the floor to get to his pull-ups, his floaters and to find teammates, often Adebayo, when the defense commits. He’ll face better defenses than what Philadelphia offered tonight, but as always you make the plays that are ahead of you and Herro regularly found the cutters who cut, the shooters who relocated to open space and his big man in Adebayo who rolled hard and often to the rim. Then, when Philadelphia again back off in drop in the last couple minutes, Herro once again rose up to drain another two that kept Miami out in front. After playing more of an off-ball role during those few games when the HEAT were fully healthy, Herro has been more than willing and able to step back into a on-ball role to get Miami through the last couple road games.

3. Another night, another game the zone completely changed. Sure, we’re repeating ourselves a couple dozen times over, but when your opponent was generally scoring at will only to score 42 second-half points after a significant coverage change, that coverage is going to get a huge chunk of credit for the victory.

After Hield and Maxey got just about whatever they wanted in the first half – Maxey did miss a chunk of the third period with the ankle injury – the switch to nearly full-time zone essentially took the ball out of their hands as the perimeter defenders on the edges of the zone pushed up to take away the three and stacked an additional defender behind the primary to take away the drive, with more bodies pinching into the driving lanes as necessary. Hield, not a dynamic driver or passer, only scored five points the rest of the way and while Maxey still got to 30 points on 23 shots, he did so forced to pick up his dribble at the free-throw line and finish tough floaters. Throw in a few sloppy turnovers that Miami took the other direction and once again the zone did its job, being disruptive while cutting off access to the rim. And with only Reed available to work the middle of the zone – Hield flashed there a few times, to no avail – where Adebayo was happy to let him shoot jumpers, the Sixers lacked the requisite offensive playmaking and shooting outside of their starting backcourt to take advantage. One of these days we’ll look back at Miami’s record when they use 25-plus zone possessions in the second half, but the bet is its pretty good barring nights when opponents have outlier shooting nights.

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Coup's Takeaways: Tyler Herro And Bam Adebayo Hold Off Sixers To Sweep Back-To-Back

1. This might have been a special Christmas Day game, it certainly wound up as one for a certain rookie, but there was nothing unusual about how the start of this one played out.

2. We won’t know until the numbers are updated later, but Miami may have faced as many zone possessions in this game as they had all season coming in (47). Sometimes it was a fairly standard 2-3 zone, sometimes it was far more dynamic than that, with defenders shrinking into the middle of the floor and interchanging with defenders at other positions when it came to close out on the ball. It’s the same tactic Erik Spoelstra often takes when Adebayo isn’t available, and Nick Nurse clearly thought it was his team’s best shot without Embiid protecting the paint.

It was working, too, at least for much of the third quarter when Miami’s threes stopped falling and they were slow to adjust to the new coverage. But as Philadelphia stayed in the scheme in the fourth the HEAT started to see the seams. It wasn’t always perfect, beautiful offense, as sometimes you just need to get fouled going for an offensive rebound or a methodical Lowry drive around the edges that leads into a tough floater. The main reason Nurse scrapped the zone down the stretch, though, may have been Jaquez Jr., whose willingness to move off the ball and wits to do it at the right time and place caught one too many 76ers sleeping.

3. It would have been a wild take just a few months ago but at this point it’s almost normal to say that with rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. on board Miami has never been better equipped to handle games without Jimmy Butler. In the past, missing Butler meant dialing up the three-point volume to compensate for the loss of interior pressure and mismatch-hunting ability. This season, even though it obviously helps to be shooting better than any team in the league, the volume is relatively unchanged as Jaquez Jr. continues to be able to work his way into the restricted area either via post-ups, cuts or hard drives. There was a stretch between the first and second quarters where Jaquez Jr. was just putting his head down and driving hard in transition, charging hard until anyone on the 76ers realized they needed to stop the ball. Questions remain about how Miami can scale their volume up, but when they’re shooting this well on the shots they’re taking and Jaquez Jr. is so consistently providing a percentage of Butler’s downhill pressure, there isn’t a ton that needs fixing. We’ve said it many times already, but as normal as it is starting to feel there’s nothing normal about what Jaquez Jr. is doing, and it has the potential to be franchise altering down the road.

On the other side, Philadelphia’s offense is built around the combination of Maxey and Embiid and when one of them was not available tonight, the 76ers simply didn’t have anyone else who could anchor and operate within the tendrils of the HEAT’s interior help. That’s to be expected as Embiid is such a unique player no team would ever be reasonably expected to be able to play the same way without them, but when the jumpers ran dry in the first half the force outside-in approach was clearly keeping Philadelphia playing catch-up. In the second half, as Philadelphia was playing off Miami’s misses against the zone, the shots fell and the approach worked as they scored 37 in the third, accentuated by a few blow-by rim attacks which have been a thorn in Miami’s side at times especially when Adebayo isn’t on the court. Once the shooting normalized a bit more, Philadelphia was again taking a one direction approach, and with Adebayo on the floor the defense was once again what it should be.

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Coup's Takeaways: Jaquez Jr. Has His Latest Best Game As Miami Takes Down Philadelphia On Christmas Day

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.

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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.

With 1.4 seconds on the shot clock, the ball goes through. Before the game ends and the 76ers tie the series up 2-2, Harden hits two more three with under three on the clock. No team in the league forces more defensive possessions into the final five on the clickety than the HEAT, and when they do that, when the seconds are exhausted and the walls are closing in, they only surrender 0.82 points per possession. Elite, A-Number-One stuff.

In Game 4 the 76ers had 24 possessions – the seventh-most Miami has forced all season – go into the final five on the clock. You know what they scored on those? A whopping 1.72 points-per-possession. In Game 3 that numbers was 1.13.

“In those last five minutes,” Erik Spoelstra said, “they had probably a handful of possessions that went all the way down to the end of the clock and made some big shots.”

That’s probably putting it lightly, given the context. They weren’t just big shots, they were some of the biggest shots that have been hit against the HEAT all season. If you go through all 91 games Miami has played this season, the 34 points they allowed in the final five on the clock in Game 3 was a season high. And then that number was immediately topped by the 43 in Game 4.

You’ve probably heard the term Make or Miss League a few times in your experience watching the NBA. It’s either the most reductive or most accurate form of analysis, but sometimes it’s all you can say. Sometimes Dwyane Wade doesn’t make a three for four months before making two in the final minutes of a do-or-die game Charlotte. Sometimes Jimmy Butler hits four threes in a game against Atlanta after shooting 23 percent from deep during the regular season. It feels great when you win those. But sometimes Harden, who was shooting 32 percent on 40 postseason stepback threes heading into Game 4, sticks a dagger in you and there’s nothing you can do.

Maybe the shot-making is all it is. Maybe it’s all it ever is, really. Maybe the HEAT lost the last two games simply because they, the best shooting team in the regular season, shot 23 and 20 percent from deep in consecutive games while their opponent topped 48 percent on threes both nights. After posting their second-worst Shot Quality of the season in Game 3 upon Joel Embiid’s return, Miami’s looks returned to more normal-ish levels in Game 4. Shouldn’t the makes have followed?

“There aren’t any absolutes with that,” Spoelstra said. “In Game 3 we didn’t really generate enough good looks and our offense was really flat. I thought tonight we actually had some really good looks, we just missed them. That’s part of the game, part of the playoffs, sometimes you don’t make shots but you still have opportunities to grind out and get a win in the mud. We were able to do that tonight. We were close, we were banging on the door.”

The 76ers had the same gripes with the Basketball Gods after shooting 17 and 26 percent from three in the first two games, each semi-winnable without their best player.

“It just seemed like it kind of flipped,” Spoelstra said. “It feels like Philly was saying the same thing in two games in Miami. We’re saying the same thing here.”

“In Game 2 our composure was good,” 76ers coach Doc Rivers said. “We just couldn’t make shots. Now we’re making shots.”

Maybe it is that simple, the series will be decided by who makes more threes over the next two or three games and we can stop writing right here. It really could be that simple.

To start, despite what we said about the HEAT’s Shot Quality improving in Game 4, which it did, they only generated four uncontested looks – as they’re tracked by Second Spectrum – all evening. In the second half they only took one corner three, the best three you can get, after taking three in all of Game 3. There were good and open looks to be sure, but there are degrees to good and open. Are you facing down a hard closeout? Is someone trailing behind you? Did you have to dribble and relocate? Did you get a clean catch? Miami had the worst Shot Quality on threes this season largely because so many are either off the dribble or off movement, so they can make tough threes, but how many good, clean looks are the team’s best shooters really getting?

The key here is in understanding how Philadelphia is defending Butler. On one hand Butler has been brilliant these last two games, scoring 33 and 40 points and largely standing as the sole reason Miami has been able to hang within single digits when they have. But Butler has also had to be brilliant because the 76ers are defending him in the complete opposite manner to how the HEAT are treating Harden, Embiid and Trae Young before them.

It’s part of their base defensive scheme, but the HEAT have pointed at Harden and Embiid, wagged their finger side to side and said, ‘Nope, not you two.’ They load up multiple bodies into Harden’s driving lanes. They front Embiid – second in the league with 8.9 post-ups per game, he only has four total through two games in part because Bam Adebayo is putting on a fronting clinic – and have help always at the ready to swarm him when the pass is in the air. Here’s a quick look at two possessions, the first a reminder of what the floor balance looks like when Harden has the ball and Embiid is on the bench, the second how Miami tilts their entire effort towards the mere threat of an Embiid post-up.

While Shot Quality for Philadelphia has largely remained flat through all four games, that’s partially due to Harden’s particular brand of threes drag the overall number down like an anchor. It’s been pretty clear that the likes of Danny Green, Tobias Harris, Georges Niang and Tyrese Maxey have all benefitted from the tilt of Embiid’s gravity. Looking at only those four shooters, the 76ers’ three-point Shot Quality in Games 1 and 2 was 51.1, which would have ranked dead last during the regular season. In Games 3 and 4 that number rose to 53.2, which would have ranked a much healthier eighth.

We’re playing with pretty small samples here, but that tracks with possessions like this one (camera is messy on the second, but you get the idea with the help sucking in on Embiid in the middle):

On the other end of the floor, Philadelphia is playing things very differently. During each of the past two postgame press conferences, Butler has mentioned that he probably wants to pass the ball a little more than he has. The 76ers have engineered their defense to prevent that. While they are showing help off certain players – they’re well aware that Tucker is primarily a corner-three specialist, for example, so he’s not getting the same attention while running through other zones on the floor, and they’re playing off Butler when he doesn’t have the ball – if you’re Tyler Herro or Max Strus, both of whom are coming off incredible shooting seasons, Rivers is positioning his players so that their airspace is as minimal as it can possibly be.

Let’s play a little Where’s Waldo. Try to find Strus on this play, where Butler is coming off a Bam Adebayo screen and trying to get downhill against Embiid (he takes a jumper).

Where are Strus and Herro on this play, a Butler isolation on the left side of the court? Does this look different to you from how Miami is loading up on Harden and Embiid?

Where are Miami’s shooters here, when Butler is holding the ball at the free-throw line? Are there any immediate passing angles for him to generate three-point looks?

Alright, that one was a trick. Herro isn’t even in that screen grab, but he is on the court. You see Maxey off on the left of the image? That’s where Herro is, off screen. Note that there’s 12 seconds on the shot clock, so Herro isn’t coming down the floor in transition. Spoelstra is often asking Herro and Strus to space out as wide as possible to open up the middle of the floor, and Philadelphia is sometimes taking their scheme to a comical, though effective, degree.

So you can trust that we aren’t just stealing screenshots at the exact moment to help prove a point - which to a degree is unavoidable - let's look at a handful of possessions to show Philadelphia's focus in motion. You’ll notice a consistent theme, Butler or Adebayo are working together to attack a pressure point while the best shooters on the floor have been cut off as the 76ers are often happy to defend the pick-and-roll with two bodies if one of them is Embiid. Even with the ball going towards the rim, the help, positioned on shooters, doesn’t come. For the HEAT, that would be blasphemous.

While the HEAT indeed had some open, makeable looks earlier on in the game, this is a string of six crucial possessions played out down the stretch. Watch how the defense is playing the shooters even as Butler and Adebayo are scoring in bunches.

Miami only had two catch-and-shoot threes in the fourth quarter that were deemed uncontested or lightly contested by Second Spectrum. Neither of those came from Strus or Herro.

A quick history lesson here. Tom Thibodeau, who designed some of the best defensive systems in the league in the years following the various rule changes in the early-2000’s, spent three seasons with Rivers as Associate Head Coach in Boston while the Celtics went to the NBA Finals in two out of three seasons with an elite defense centered around Kevin Garnett. When Thibodeau got the head coaching job with Chicago, he designed his entire system around the capabilities of big men like Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson. The ideas in play were similar to what we’ve seen the last two games. Use the big man to contain the immediate action and space the floor so the best shooters are cut off or at least facing a hard closeout depending on how many miles the ball would have to travel in the air. We don’t have a reason to get into who came up with what, but there’s a long history with the choices Rivers is making. He’s had success with this style. Their goals are as clear as Miami’s are when they treat high-volume ballhandlers the same as they’ve done for years.

How these concepts have played out, with spacing at a maximum - in that respect, the shooters are doing what they're meant to do by creating room for attacks - is that Butler has answered a call that keeps ringing. He’s taken 20 and 22 shots in consecutive games – Butler only took 20 or more shots three times in the entirety of Miami’s Finals run back in 2020 – but with Rivers challenging him to score Butler has obliged with a combined 73 points on efficient shooting, often going right at Embiid. Butler has been Miami’s most effective ballhandler in pick-and-rolls by a significant margin, producing 1.09 points-per-screen over 54 actions in two games, a number that’s equivalent to a Steph Curry pick-and-roll during the regular season. He’s produced 11 points on 10 isolations and Adebayo, getting similar spacing treatment on the block, has eight points on six post-ups. When those two have run a pick-and-roll together, Miami is getting 1.27 points per the entire possession that the action took place in. Not quite as effective as Harden and Embiid together – 1.24 points per screen on double the usage – but points are going on the board.

It also hasn’t quite looked like Miami’s usual offense. Not quite in the same way that the HEAT catapulted Atlanta’s vaunted offense into a different dimension in the first round, but the HEAT’s offense is one built on a balanced, motion-heavy attack, with everyone on the floor a threat in part thanks to the selflessness of lead players like Butler and Adebayo. The 76ers are trying to turn them into selfish players, at least in effect, and for as much as the HEAT are trying to grease the wheels with more complex screening actions and by having the shooters constantly relocating, the offense has been down. In Game 3 they scored just 89.8 points per 100 possessions, and while Game 4 was an improvement the final number was still a below-average 110.2.

Perhaps more telling, in the 16 minutes that Butler has sat over the past two games, Miami’s Offensive Rating has been just 51.7 as the non-Butler minutes have given Philadelphia a chance to stretch the lead in each fourth quarter. And the team’s assist rate with Butler on the floor is sitting at 55.9, down from 63.1 during the regular season.

And yet despite all of this, even with the 76ers making nearly half their threes, the HEAT have had a chance to win each game. Each contest turned on some incredible shot-making in the final period, with Maxey going off in Game 3 and Harden – posting a usage rate over 30 in a postseason game for the first time in two years – owning the end of the clock in Game 4. Through the first three games, Harden was producing just 0.63 points-per-isolation at high volume. Embiid looked more comfortable in Game 4, but he’s still being forced to work incredibly hard to even get a good catch and his own isolations have produced just five points on 10 possessions.

A little more make here and a little more miss there, and the HEAT could have easily taken one of two.

All this means for the series going forward is that each coach, barring further adjustments, have laid out their rules of engagement. Miami has tried to force the ball out of the hands of Philadelphia’s best players, and even with all the made threes the 76ers won on some incredible individual efforts. Philadelphia is trying to take away the HEAT’s best threes, and even with all the misses Butler – and Adebayo in Game 4 – was so good that Miami was right there. Both sides are doing what they intend to do and living with the consequences.

The question for Miami is whether all this takes its toll on Butler, who has had to be rather Herculean. It’s true that the HEAT underperformed their expected effective field-goal percentage from three in Game 4 by more than they have in any other game this season, but they also over-performed their expected efficiency on twos by the fourth-most this year. Make or Miss cuts both ways, and it’s not all about threes.

Still, the HEAT have had enough opportunities to capitalize on even with how they’re being defended. Game 5 could easily a huge perimeter swing, with the HEAT back at home making more of the same threes and the 76ers not getting Danny Green – 10-of-13 from three in two games – toggled into Hunter Killer mode. We could also see both Butler and Harden struggle to make as many shots and others step up in their stead. Miami is probably in pretty good shape if they’re forcing the type of shots they’ve forced in the last two fourth quarters, especially if they can get to that point with a bit of a lead rather than playing from behind. The 76ers might feel the same way on their end.

Maybe Make or Miss really is everything, but each coach has had a major say in who is doing the making and who is doing the missing. Spoelstra and Rivers have set the guidelines. The fun – and the heartbreak and joy, depending on where you sit – of the postseason is not knowing who is going to perform within them.