Miami Heat vs Cleveland Cavaliers Game Breakdown #28
Welcome to Simply Ballin's game breakdown of the Miami Heat. After each game, you will see my thoughts on the game, film breakdown, and other interesting bits that stood out to me.
Quick Thoughts
Oh, I miss the days where a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers was a game that you knew you'd win.
They are a great team now and I'm sick of these three 7fters out there. As an NBA fan, I like watching Evan Mobley out there, but man, going up against him and the other bigs is frustrating.
You can't get mad at these losses — yes, it's frustrating and you'd like these games to be, at least somewhat competitive. You got to remember though, the Heat are missing their top two players, as well as key rotation players.
You know you're dealing with injuries when missing Caleb Martin makes a big difference.
The Heat were able to keep themselves in the game for the most part — they went on a few runs, but similar to the previous games, they weren't able to get stops.
The main reason for this loss was because of the poor shooting and that's going to be the norm until Jimmy Butler comes back. Without him or a stellar performance from both Tyler Herro and Kyle Lowry, the only way the Heat can win is by having a great shooting night.
It's either play one of the best defenses or it's shoot or bust.
Still, we got to see one of the best PJ Tucker games, which is so, so great to see.
Offensive Breakdown
As mentioned, their chance of winning depends on their shooting and this couldn't have been more clearer than from this game.
Per Cleaning the Glass, the Heat had a 5.9% free throw rate (2nd percentile), the lowest this season. They finished with nine three throws — three of them came from Duncan Robinson's 3pt attempt.
They only had 18 attempts within 5ft, which is six attempts lower than their season averages. It wasn't the fact that they didn't have people driving.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470808631809617922
Instead, it was the three 7fters waiting for anyone that attacked the rim. Once they did, everyone collapsed and there was no way you could've finished — and all that meant was drive-and-kicks.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470808775938691074
Look at the defense that waits in the paint! Luckily Tucker did finish with 5-8 but there were a few open looks that were simply missed.
But there's also a reason why they were missed.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470808896847720454
The defense didn't respect KZ Okpala at all. They treated him as if he was Ben Simmons. And that makes life a lot harder for everyone else.
Though these drive-and-kicks still generated a bunch of good looks, not because of the open shot itself, but also because it forced the defense to rotate and this allowed the offense to swing the ball or flow into better action.
One of those actions included a pick-and-roll involving Tucker
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470830086022643713
Because of the gravity of the shooters, they draw that extra defender for a split second more. And that split second is all the time for Tucker to roll and have that sweet all floater.
Since Bam Adebayo went down, Tucker's role on offense has been tremendous — everything Erik Spoelstra asked him to do, he did it perfectly. It's not too wild to argue that he has been the team's most valuable player because of his impact on both offense and defense.
I'm not comparing their talent or necessarily their style, but Tucker seems to be that Draymond Green type player for this team — for the third straight game, he finished with five or more assists.
One more good thing before we get to the bad.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470832025158434818
People say Robinson has one role and that's to shoot. But when the team is short-handed, he's much capable of doing much more on offense. He has shown flashes of this throughout the season, but hasn't been consistent with it enough.
He seems much more comfortable in attacking and in this game, his quick first step is something I don't think I've seen. Good things happen when people attack the rim.
Now, the bad. Unless the the team is shooting lights out, the team needs more than just one creator on offense. Unfortunately, Herro had an off night.
So far this season, Herro has been the best 3-level scorer on this team. He is the only one that can comfortably get a shot in the mid-range, drive, pull-up for 3, and play off-ball. Though his foul drawing still needs improvements, he has been a consistent scorer for the team.
Without Adebayo and Jimmy, the team needs him to get a bucket — or they will struggle generating offense.
Defensive Breakdown
There were both many positives and negatives on defense.
The defense inside the arc was good for the most part — the Cavaliers were 13-23 from inside 5ft, which is significantly below league average. They were also 4-12 and 3-10 from the short and long-midrange.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470864327045525511
There were a bunch of possessions where everyone was doing the right thing on defense — they tagged early, had solid rotations, were in the right position, and had solid one-on-one defense from certain players.
One of the key things was sagging off Isaac Okoro. The defense didn't respect his shot at all and that meant extra help onto the bigs.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470864589298585602
Look at the early help from Robinson here. That's an easy lob to Jarrett Allen if he's not there.
Another positive was the overall defense from Tucker.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470858188098613258
But there were many bad possessions later on, which allowed the Cavaliers to make a run and put this game away.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470887357490647052
It was a combination of poor rotations and decision making — cough cough KZ — and it was also great coaching from the Cavaliers.
https://twitter.com/JohnJablonka_/status/1470887603721453569
A plays like this took advantage of the blitz and having that single tag, which allowed an open shot in the corner.