[Erik Spoelstra]'s one of the greatest in-series adjusters in the history of the sport. Sometimes the scheme changes are subtle. In Game 2, they rang loud. From the opening tip, franchise fulcrum Bam Adebayo picked up the assignment on Jayson Tatum.
I DIDN'T KNOW THAT. That will fuck with Joe Mazz' Bean head!
“They make us think. They do this on one possession, then they do another thing on another possession, then they switch, then they don’t,” Kristaps Porzingis told reporters on Thursday. “So that can freeze you a little bit, because you start to think a little bit, then you rush.”
That WILL make you think. And it hurts Joe Mazz' head to think.
Placing Adebayo on Tatum kept the Celtics from getting to their preferred areas of the court expediently, as one doesn’t just bump Bam into submission. The lack of doubles meant fewer clear release valves on the weak side to swing to. Adebayo was almost omnipresent—trained on Tatum, which allowed him to remain engaged both on ball and as an active helper on switches. ...
It's brilliant! Imperfect analogy here: I once saw...what was that fucking big lug from Pitt's name?...Damn...guarding, successfully too, Steph Curry. The principle of verticality. ...Stephen Adams!
He [Bam] was the wellspring of a Heat defense that, by sheer force of will, junked up the Celtics’ best-laid plans. ...
...the Celtics,... managed only 32 attempts from deep.
I can understand that. Having a Big on the perimeter makes you think twice about launching. I don't understand what comes right after that:
Miami successfully goaded Boston into a game that was not its own.
...the Celtics all noted the issue of having to close out better on the Heat shooters, who were wide open on a majority of their long-range attempts.
Not ALL the "Celtics". Not the HEAD "Celtic".
...their [The "Heat's"] sudden departure from expectation is all part of the adaptation game.
Upon the foundation of Miami’s top-five defense, the Heat have been emboldened to ramp up the variance against a team that knows intimately what a procession of 3s does to an opponent. ...
Joe Mazz said post-game that the solution was for the "Celtics" OFFENSE to be more "efficient", that good Defense feeds off good Offense. It is just one more example that if a bird had Joe Mazz' brain it'd fly backwards.
...The percentages won’t always be there for the Heat the way they were in Game 2, but something tells me that the attempts are only half the fun. ...It’s the psychology of...[the thing].
Maybe the Celtics will actually bother to contest the likes of Haywood Highsmith from here on out, but Miami will relish in creating punishing obstacle courses all the same.
Guys like this, this guy's name is Danny Chau, can often write about basketball the way Jacques Derrida wrote about philosophy, in confusing, nonsensical gibberish, muddying the waters to make them look deep. Think Zach Lowe or, when he was with the Miami Herald, Ethan Skolnick. But I think Chau nails this. Spoelstra is so good because his strategies are so good and because they're sometimes so outside-the-box that the opposing coach (especially those named Joe Mazzulla) never thinks about it. As Porzingis said, Spo "makes you think". It's X's and O's + psychology.
Chau then posts this video clip sequence. The "Celtics" are totally helter-skelter on that play, a successful D-Ro trey. They have no idea what they're doing, no idea even what the "Heat" is showing them. Coaching.
[Derrick White] starts off attached to Tyler Herro, and by the time the ball gets to Duncan Robinson’s itchy trigger fingers, he’s out of the play entirely. It’s not just the 3s, it’s the work that Miami will put Boston through in defending them.
