The Miami Heat's Offense Disappearing in the Fourth

A discussion & a quick breakdown looking at why the Heat have scored under 10 points in three separate fourth quarters

The Miami Heat had not one, not two, but three fourth-quarter collapses, in which they scored under 10 points and had long periods of not scoring period.

It happened against the Orlando Magic on the 21st of December when they scored eight points. Then it happened against the Brooklyn Nets on February 7th when they did a slightly better job by scoring nine points. And then a few days later against the Oklahoma City Thunder on February 12th, they scored eight points.

Now, just to give you how bad that is, there have been four instances this year where a team has scored under 10 points in a quarter and I think you know where this is going already. The Heat have three of them! The only other instance was the Thunder where they blew out the Bucks and Adam Fagler shot 1/11. Even if we include the previous two seasons, the rest of the NBA combined has three!

What makes matters worse is the context of each of those games. The Heat were up and they were in control of the game throughout. So, not only was this just going scoreless, it was allowing the opponent to make a comeback in the fourth that won the game.

All of that has sparked a lot of conversations but one thing that has immediately stood out on social media is shifting the blame on Erik Spoelstra and his rotations. I see a whole bunch of tweets keeping track of blown leads and attributing that to him as if he is the one blowing leads.

This isn’t even a series kind of lead where a coach doesn’t make adjustments from game to game. This is just 12 minutes of basketball that shouldn’t depend on rotation changes or set plays if you do have actual talent on the floor. A lot of this wasn’t because Spoelstra had Keshad Johnson and Josh Christopher running the show as either Adebayo or Herro are on the bench.

What also makes emphasizing these issues coming from Spoelstra or the rotations he had is that in each of those games, it was different. A lot of these poor fourth-quarter collapses had different circumstances, different situations, different opponents, and different players on the court. It still didn’t matter.

The Thunder game was a really good example of Spoelstra making changes that did hurt them in previous games.

There was criticism for playing any minutes without both Adebayo and Herro. So, he played one of them at all times.

There was criticism for playing Rozier. I’m not giving him the credit because he’d probably play him if he was available, but Rozier was seen as the issue for playing down the stretch. He played zero minutes because of an injury.

Against the Celtics, there was criticism that the Heat got cooked by Tatum whilst Highsmith received a DNP. Highsmith played and was tasked with guarding Shai. It didn’t matter because he got cooked on poor defense.

Against the Celtics, the Heat blew the lead with Anderson at the five and everyone was going at it for that rotation. So, guess what happened against the Thunder, he played zero minutes.

Throughout the season, there was also criticism that they lost because of lack of size. Both Ware and Jovic played together.

Lastly, there was also criticism that Spoelstra takes forever to sub in the best players at the end. Both Adebayo and Herro, plus the rest of the starters come in around seven minutes. Against the Thunder, it took five possessions and 2:29 minutes.

So, how can each of the bad losses, not just the fourth quarter collapses, have so many complaints and issues with the rotations but then they get addressed or resolved, and the issues still happen? Maybe that’s a sign that it doesn’t matter a significant part that one of your bench players plays over another.

I’ve also seen an argument that against the best team, you need to just play your best players period. If the only rotation that makes sense is playing all your best players right from the start where they can’t survive two and a half minutes, rotations aren’t saving you.

And again, it’s not as if the lineups he rolls out with are some garbage time lineups. Is it too much to ask for four of your top seven players on the court to not give up a 13-0 run?

This is not being a Spoelstra apologist. This isn’t excusing for his faults and mistakes. There are fair arguments for his reluctance to call earlier timeouts and sticking with certain lineups a bit longer than necessary.

This is more of a general view of how there seems to be more of an emphasis on assigning blame to the coach than the players. I didn’t see many tweets criticizing that your two best players scored three points in ~8 minutes or that your All-Star guard had three bad turnovers. I didn’t see tweets criticizing your top two-wing defender giving up three baskets from the poor defense.

I will have a hard time caring about a timeout not being called or a substitution not being called for a couple of minutes here and there when your most important players are still underperforming.

Because even when the starters finally checked in, in none of the games, they didn’t do anything to calm things down. In most cases, once they checked in, they also gave up a run.

That matters when you’re looking to fix that. I think it’s the wrong thing to focus on if you’re coming away from the game just blaming the coach. Unless the decision-making from a coach is that egregious, the issues and the mistakes start with the players, especially if they are your best players. There are clear instances where some situations are on the coach. I remember once Butler stood at the scorers’ table for minutes without Spoelstra calling a timeout to bring him in — that is egregious.

But in most cases, it’s the players on the court that need to be looked at and what they did first rather than worrying about if x player checked in at this time or x player didn’t start the fourth. That is how you look to fix that.

When I look at the fourth-quarter stats, especially in this recent stretch, it’s really tough to point fingers elsewhere. It’s also not something that I saw that could easily be fixed with a certain sub either.

In February, here are some stats:

• Herro: 20 points on 5/13 2pt, 1/16 3pt, 7/8 ft with 5 assists & 7 turnovers. He’s -51 in 44 minutes

• Adebayo: 28 points on 11/19 2pt, 1/8 3pt, 3/5 ft with 2 assists & 3 turnovers. He’s -34 in 50 minutes

• Ware: 14 points on 6/10 2pt, 0/4 3pt, 2/2 ft with 1 assist & 2 turnovers. He’s -50 in 43 minutes

• Jovic: 14 points on 5/10 2pt, 0/5 3pt, 4/6 ft with 6 assists & 7 turnovers. He’s -42 in 71 minutes

That’s four players shooting a total of 2/28 from 3pt and each having more turnovers than assists. As a team, they’re at 29 assists to 29 turnovers. The team has a 17.9% TOV and a 29.1% opponent ORB — that would rank 30th and 21st.

The Heat, even with both Herro and Adebayo on the court are -26 in 33 minutes. They have scored 42 points on 65 possessions. They have combined for 30 points on 11/39. They have seven turnovers to five assists.

How can I begin to think that’s a coaching issue because of rotations? Or that it’s because Adebayo plays 9:30 minutes in the fourth rather than 12? He hasn’t exactly been performing well.

A lot of the general issues with the Heat in the fourth comes down to simply the best players need to play like the best players.

If you want to check out the full possessions of the entire offense, here are the games:

Against the Magic:

Against the Nets:

Against the Thunder:

Let’s go through some of the themes and key actions that showed up in each of those quarters.

The first thing is the turnovers. That has hurt them the most out of anything scoring-related. The decision-making on some of the passes or drives or simple carelessness has been a significant issue. In these three quarters, they had TOV% of 26.1, 25.0%, 20.8%. At least a fifth of your possessions ending as the worst possible outcome for the offense is going to be tough to crawl out of. This already puts the offense at such a disadvantage:

Looking at some of the turnovers, it’s a bunch from your young players in Ware, Jovic, and Jaquez. That is just the reality of having a young, inexperienced team. There are going to be mistakes made. They are going to make a bad pass or miss a read here and there, which will likely result in a turnover. That can be simply put as growing pains. That does have to be cleaned up but the experience is still needed.

Then the rest of the turnovers are just dumb and careless. Stepping out of bounds, poor pass when the receiver isn’t looking, or making a pass when the defense is right there. Mistakes that can easily be avoided. The defense isn’t making Herro drive with no plan and then making a jump pass. The defense isn’t making someone pass the ball when the defender clearly can get it. Whether it’s fatigue, pressure, or any other reason, this can be cleaned up.

Moving to their scoring, one of the things that showed up is there were only so few possessions in transition, though they also didn’t capitalize on them either. Granted, their defense also hasn’t been great in the fourth and it’s a lot harder to get out in transition if you’re constantly attacking a set defense:

But they also haven’t been getting shots late in the clock either. That also hasn’t happened. Here is their shot distribution in these three quarters. In total, they went 7/57, but sorted by a different shot clock:

• 0-4s: 0/6(10%)

• 4-7: 1/5(9%)

• 7-15: 3/29(51%)

• 15-18: 1/11(19%)

• 18-22: 2/6(10%)

They got just as many late-clock shots as they had very early into the possession. They have more attempts in the first nine seconds than in the last seven.

One of the more common ways of them getting into an offense has been through Adebayo as the hub:

But that also hasn’t gotten them anywhere, particularly against defenses that can switch or are more aggressive.

Take that first clip with Adebayo looking for either Wiggins or Burks to get open and the defense drains the clock by switching the screen. He does eventually get into the handoff, but against Dort, there wasn’t much space to gain an advantage. He attacks, but there’s also Mitchell one pass away, which makes the help easier on the drive. It’s now a late clock, and Mitchell has to make something work.

Even in the following play, Adebayo brings up the ball looking for the handoffs but then everyone else is static and Rozier is getting denied well. That’s already going down to the 12s on the clock.

Or the next play where it takes eight damn seconds to get the ball to Adebayo in the first place. They are making their life harder for no reason. Even if the set is to have Adebayo as the hub, why are you struggling that much to get him the ball?

The issues also come with what happens after. As we already saw some of the driving lanes can be taken away against better defenses and that will leave you to create something out of nothing. Or it’s Herro taking the very first look he could get off the handoff, even if the defender is right behind him.

Continuing with Adebayo with the ball, there have been also a handful of possessions with him in the post:

That also hasn’t been a great source of offense either. It’s just a static, stagnant offense with Adebayo looking to back his defender down. If that doesn’t get anywhere, it’s going back to the hub, which goes back to the issues with that, which once again results in poor shots or quick 3s.

Going away from Adebayo, next up is Herro-led actions:

They have tried a number of different ways to get him going. It has been with him on the ball and going straight into PNRs or it’s coming off screen into handoffs. None of which has generated anything good.

The level of defense comes into play again. The pressure, the aggressiveness, and good defenders drain the clock, take away the space, don’t give up drives, or get caught on screens to give him any daylight. Look at the defense against Dort at 0:46 where he can’t create any space, so the only choice is to swing the ball.

There have also been quite questionable, early shot selections from Herro, too. Some of that is probably due to knowing that this open look might be the best shot available in a given possession. A leaning-forward pull-up 3pt is likely better than having to drain the whole possession for a late-clock chuck.

But then there is awful decision making like at the 0:38 mark where he has an isolation drive and looks to multiple defenders with an underhand scoop layup. Is that really what we’re doing?

This is similar to what’s been going on with Rozier. Now, this is also why I have no argument against the criticism of Spoelstra playing Rozier.

I tracked eight on-ball actions for Rozier and I don’t see many actions that have led to much good offense. Even without some of the questionable shot selection, if the defense switches or shows, it just drains the clock and does nothing.

Finally, there have also been many on-ball actions for either Jaquez or Jovic:

This isn’t an area that I would criticize a lot. There are mistakes. It hasn’t been great entirely. There have also been shots that were forced. But they are one of the youngest on the team and expectations for them are going to be a lot different than for a six-year veteran or a gold medalist.

With those two, I just want to see more of these reps and some progress in reading the game better in these situations. It doesn’t have to lead to great things, but I’d just want to see fewer mistakes and errors period, such as don’t travel or make two bad passes in a couple of minutes.

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So, looking at how they’ve been struggling, I just can’t agree that this was anything on Spoelstra(outside of the Rozier minutes). None of the lineups were that bad to put any player in such a bad spot. And that definitely doesn’t excuse anyone performing when the top players were on the court.

Was the decision-making on some of the shots on the rotations? Was the careless turnovers on the coaching staff making those mistakes? Everyone was making mistakes, so you can’t just pinpoint one player. You can’t sub out Herro, Jovic, Jaquez, Rozier, and Adebayo out.

With the scoring, the Heat are one of the worst offenses in the last few months for a reason. They have been bad for a reason. They also went up against good defenses or teams like the Nets that have the tools and scheme to make their life harder.

The Heat didn’t underperform to a big extent based on their reasonable expectations. Yes, it’s tough not scoring in double digits three times. It’s also tough going on such big droughts. That is compounded by dumb mistakes that could’ve easily been prevented. They’ve gone on these droughts plenty of times at different points in many other games.

This isn’t exactly an even clear average offense getting shut down, but merely poor play from an offense that already has zero room for error. That’s the main thing about the Heat. They have no margin of error with anything, so if the defense does step up and force them into the mud, and if it’s not anyone’s night, then good luck.

But this starts with your best player needing to perform much better. It always starts with that.

Hopefully, after the All-Star break, there is more tinkering to be done to counter some of the aggressive or switching defense. Maybe it’s also expanding on what actions they can run rather than have Adebayo in the post or as the hub. Maybe it’s something we haven’t seen. The easiest thing is also to make sure that they all clean up the turnovers. You will not win any quarter, regardless of how you do well elsewhere.

I still trust this team to be a lot better than this.