Sporting two of the top five players in the league along with a top-15 big to clean up their sloppy seconds, the Heat are really a team of three. They have a couple guys who play their roles relatively well, but the big two-plus-Bosh are the engine behind a team that's capable of beating anyone when they play as a team, but more likely to get caught up in their individual greatness than team success. The question is how do the Sixers get the Heat superstars into a one-on-one game?
Before we get into how to slow the Heat in their half-court offense, we need to identify the overall top goal of the game: Make the Heat operate in the half court. Limiting turnovers and keeping proper floor balance on the offensive end are imperatives against this team. Wade and LeBron will leave early and beat you down the floor if you aren't vigilant. You have to limit those easy opportunities which fuel the Heat offense. Basically, keep doing what you've been doing.
Now, when the Heat get in the half court, the goal is to make Wade and LeBron (more LeBron really) operate as if it's a one-on-one game. They're both excellent players, excellent one-on-one players, but they can also both get into a mode where they shoot their team out of the game for long stretches, and more importantly, Miami's offense isn't as good when those guys just take turns isolating. They're much more efficient when LeBron and Wade are setting teammates up for easy looks in addition to getting their own. The best way to accomplish this is to leave them on islands. LeBron recognizes the difficulty in facing Iguodala, and he'll typically sort of shy away from trying to iso on him. If he does, he typically settles for jumpers. The more you can get him to do that, the better. Resist the urge to double LeBron, that's when he'll really make you pay. Iguodala's main job is going to be to stop LeBron's momentum in isolation situations. Don't let him catch the ball with a head of steam where he can just barrel into the lane.
Handling Wade is more difficult in terms of limiting his scoring. He runs the pick-and-roll, but mainly he runs it to score. He's great at reading the defense, he'll split the double if the big doesn't close the gap. If the small tries to cheat to get over the screen, he'll completely ignore the screen and go right by the small. There are two things you can do with those plays, either go under the screens and encourage Wade to take the open jumper, or double Wade hard every time. Really smother him out on the floor. I'd prefer the first strategy unless Wade gets really hot, in which case there isn't a whole lot you can do about it.
How you handle Wade and LeBron is less about slowing them down and more about limiting the easy opportunities for Bosh. I don't want to see Bosh left alone at the foul line. I don't want to see him catching the ball with a clear lane to the hoop. He's killed the Sixers in the past, and if your bigs are overly focused on the two wings, he's going to do it again.
On the offensive end, Miami has a ton of long athletes who are constantly overplaying the passing lanes and going for the defensive home run that turns into a dunk on the other end. Be patient, try to exploit that aggression by moving the ball and moving without the ball. Look for back doors, look for give-and-goes, and if they trap, make quick passes to press the advantages elsewhere on the floor.
Here are a couple of key matchups/indicators:
- Miami is seventh-worst in the league with a 15.1% turnover rate. Exploit that and make the most out of your transition opportunities
- Joel Anthony was Thad's kryptonite last season. It'll be interesting to see if Thad can pull Anthony away from the hoop with his improved jumper. If he can force Anthony to close the distance, or rush out to contest a jumper, he might just be able to get by him. They need Thad to have some kind of impact.
- Every field goal attempt by Norris Cole is a win for the Sixers defense (excepting wide-open layups, obviously). The guy is pretty terrible, and he's still playing 20+ minutes/game. When he's in there, I'm fine with leaving him to double.
- Chalmers, James Jones and Mike Miller have all been great from three this season. Battier has not. I still wouldn't advise leaving Battier alone in the corner, but I'd focus on the other three guys when they're on the perimeter.
- Weather the storm. Miami will go on at least one monster run tonight. Stay within yourselves, get good looks, don't turn the ball over and don't let the game get away from you. They'll have cold runs as well, just stay collected out there.
The tip is at 7pm. Game thread lands at 5.
Looks like Kenyon Martin is going to the Clips.
Hah, I had no idea Norris Cole was doing that poorly. I'll take your word for it though. I know his numbers have gone down but figured it was a minutes thing not efficiency.
It was so depressing seeing Anthony just squash everything Thad tried last year. I'm in Florida for this game. Hoping to rub in a non-existent Heat fans face down here.
I sort of think the Sixers can play the heat better in a playoff series than an isolated regular season matchup. They still will have issues in a series, but it is worse in the season because they have to change their style of play to win. That is hard to
do mid season.
The Sixers normally want to challenge a team athleticaly, but against the Heat they lose every athletic matchup. You play a different style when you need to win as the. Less adrkc team.
Does this make any sense?
Sorry for typos, on a Phone.
The have the athletic advantage at PG, that's it, but if Jrue starts going off he'll wind up with LeBron or Wade on him, again, and then that disappears. I'm hoping we'll see a ton of JTI tonight.
They do lose or are even at every match up from an athletic stand point except for pg. Jrue is much better in every facet of the game than any miami pg (except chalmers has a better 3pt% this season). There should be a lot of JTI tonight so at least one of those 3 will have a favorable match up even when wade and lebron on on the court at the same time.
I was matching wade on Jrue.
yes that would be a different story but their listed pg's aren't close to being as good as jrue.
http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/02/03/five-things-to-watch-in-heat-sixers/
http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/02/02/the-sixers-lou-for-one/
Two more from ZL.
I'm guessing to start the game jrue will be on wade not jodie. Although, I hope doug goes to turner early on and sticks with him because I'd like jrue to be the offensive focus for this game and not have him spend a lot of time guarding wade. Turner's and iggy's foucs should be trying to do everything they can to slow down lebron and wade and what ever offense comes for them is just gravy.
I'm curious to see how lavoy does if and when he defends bosh.
He had Jrue go on the attack the few minutes he was not on Rose.
I hope he does the same when jrue's not on wade tonight. Which means I also hope doug limits the amount of time jrue is on wade just so jrue can attack most of the time he's in the game.
I'd prefer Jrue's energy be focused on guarding Wade. He's the best we have for that matchup. He actually did a great job on LeBron in the playoffs as well.
If that turns out to be the case we'd probably end up seeing a lot of lou chucking which is hit or miss. Unless turner gets the green light which I'd be happy to see.
also I feel like turner is more prepared to defend wade this year than last, he's shown some serious improvement on that end of the floor in my eyes.
David Thorpe on Turner, who he grouped with Tiago Splitter and Paul George amongst 2nd year guys (Those guys were 5-7 in his rankings):
If the NBA handed out its Most Improved Player award now, Turner would be a finalist. He has been much closer this season to what Philly expected of him in his rookie campaign; he is doing lots of little things to help his team win.
Can he score 20-plus points in a game? Yes. Can he grab 10-plus rebounds in a game? Yes. Can he control the ball for long stretches and help run the team as an off guard? Yes.
He has also shown much better shot selection this season and is now one of the two biggest bench producers for perhaps the league's best second unit. His herky-jerky style of a dribble attack is roasting defenders, and he's making more rim shots this season than he attempted last season.
One thing I want to ask( maybe complain a bit about). Has Nikola not played the last two games because he is behind Battie/Allen on the depth chart or because things he is coming back from an injury and we didn't want to play him unless necessary? I don't Mind Allen eating into his minutes, but it would bother me to know that he got two DNPs because of Tony Battie.
Tom Moore, if your out there, can you shed some light on this?
I think it was more that Battie and Allen were playing well so Collins didn't want to rush him back too quickly. He was probably well enough to play but still not 100%.
That's just my guess though, from what I've heard.
I'm not saying this is what's going on, but I'm pretty sure we've moved beyond the point of player development being anywhere near the top priority. 16-6, right there in the running for the #2 (or even #1) seed. Winning games is really all that matters until they prove w/ their play they don't really have a shot at home court advantage. Battie and Allen have been playing really great basketball, I think it probably isn't more complicated than that. If they aren't getting what they need from those guys, the Voose will get his shot to get the job done. If it ain't broke, don't fix it (especially not when they're winning games).
Yeah, there should be minutes for Voose to get his legs back under him once they are back to playing the weak teams.
But my guess is that if he was 100% they would have given him some minutes at the end of the last 2 games.
The problem is Vucevic played better before he got injured than Battie and Allen are playing now. He is a legit C and is a far more complete player than Battie and Allen. Battie is a good post defender but not much more than that. And i am worried with Allen on the P&R defense. He has been good because he has kept things simple thus far, but he still is fairly limited in my opinion. Not to mention Vucevic is a much better rebounder on both ends of the floor than Allen and Battie.
quick comparison:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=allenla01&y1=2012&p2=battito01&y2=2012&p3=vucevni01&y3=2012
The real problem i think is the fact that Collins in general does not trust rookies and unless they have recently proved they can play he is afraid to out them in. Right now Battie and Allen have produced recently and he doesn't know if Vucevic will produce the same numbers after getting back from injury. The problem is he won't if he is not given the chance even if there is some rust for a game or two.
Hopefully it will be a familiar sight for Vucevic getting back against the same team that he got injured against tonight.
Yeah, that was part of my point, although I didn't explain it as well as you did. I didn't think Battie was really playing that great. Servicable, yes, but not well enough to knock Voose from the rotation.
Tonight's defensive match ups are interesting. Even though Miami is a brutal team to defend with the wings, we should be matching Jrue and Wade to start, with Jodie on Chalmers. If people are a fan of hiding Jodie for 15-20 minutes, this is a team that you can do that against.
The goal should be to make LeBron and Wade take jumpers, and to not let Bosh take wide-open jumpers.
And keep Jrue out of foul trouble.
Yep. Remember how big of a problem that was early last season?
Big Baby suspended two games for "conduct detrimental to the team." That isn't the only thing that's detrimental to the team.
Did he pull down his shorts again? Otis Smith suspending Dwight's buddy, awesome.
That Bass trade is such a sneaky awful move by Smith.
I'm not crazy about Bass, either, but yeah. Davis is really bad.
Brian, I'm listening to the podcast and you're discussing Jrue's potential to be an elite defensive pg. I don't believe he is all that close to his ceiling on the defensive end right now but relative to the level of defensive play from all the pg's in the league right now would you consider him elite in that light? Also who do you consider the elite defensive pg's right now? I'm guessing it starts with rondo.
I actually don't think Rondo's at the top in terms of one-on-one defense, he's actually the second best on his team. I'd say Westbrook's up there. Kidd is actually still up there, though he has holes. Devin Harris is up there according to the numbers. You can make a legit case that Jrue is the best in the league right now.
Gotcha. I do consider jrue as an elite, not necessarily the best, defender at his position. I think it helps jrue's case that there aren't that many quality defenders at pg that consistently bring a high level of effort on a nightly basis. Where as jrue has not taken a night off on that end of the court at all this season as far as I can tell.
Can someone tell me the max Howard can make if he resigns with Orlando or gets traded somewhere and resigns with them compared to the max he can get on the FA market. What are the numbers?
I just saw an article on this earlier in the week, and I can't find it now.
If he becomes a free agent, then re-signs with ORL the most they can give him is $110M over five years. If he does not become a free agent, but extends with ORL, the most they can give him is $113M (4 years tacked on to the final year of his current contract).
If he signs as a free agent, it gets murky. I'm not sure what the max another team could offer him is. If it's $16.4M, then the most he can sign for is 4 years, about $70M. If teams can go up to, say, $17.5M for the first year, then the total of the contract goes up to $74M/4 years.
If he gets traded before the trade deadline this season, the acquiring team can then let him become a free agent, use their bird right to give him the five-year $110M contract. If he is not traded, then he can't make much more than the four-year, $74M in a sign-and-trade.
Basically, if he isn't traded, he's going to have to take maybe $40M less, total, for his next contract to leave Orlando as a free agent ($10M+ less over his first four years, plus the fifth year @ $25M).