The "Heat" are 7-6 in their last 13; 6-4 in the last 10, 4-4 last 8, 1-1 last two. MIDDLESBROUGH! Although I tracked the last two games very closely I didn't recognize until today the common forest to both stands of trees. This is it:
On January 22, Washington went on a 19-3 run in the first 4:54 of the 3Q. Coach Erik Spoelstra was so disgusted he pulled the entire starting five at once.
On January 24, LAC went on a 15-0 run in the last 3:08 of the 3Q. Spo was so desperate he played Dion Waiters all but one minute of the 4Q.
On January 22 Bradley Beal had 11 points in the 1H. He finished with 38 on 16/24, including 5' of OT.
On January 24 Kawhi Leonard was 2/11 shooting in the 1H. He finished with 33 points and the first 3W of his career. He shot 7/11 in the 2H.
Two teams, with nearly mirror image records, completely erasing significant-to-overwhelming half time deficits in under 5' of the 3Q. Both games in Miami. Both close games, one a three-point OT win, the other a five-point loss.
Small sample size, yeah. But primacy--the last two games. And in the context of the larger sample size of 8, 10, 13 games. Are opposing coaches figuring the "Heat" out? A complete reversal in the 3Q signals one thing in sport: one coach made adjustments at halftime, the other did not. Scott Brooks and Doc Rivers are damn good coaches. So is Erik Spoelstra. All three have been to the NBA Finals, Doc and Spo winning titles, Brooks losing to the "Heat". You can't say Brooks and Rivers are better coaches than Spoelstra. You can't say D.C.'s players are better than Miami's. Maybe you can say LAC has better players just with Kawhi Leonard, even without Paul George. You can't say all three teams have about the same record. So what can you say? Can you say what Doc said after the "Clippers" win?
Rivers lauded Leonard for patiently waiting out Miami's trapping schemes.
"It's like he was a boxer," Rivers said. "He just kind of took his time until he could throw punches."
Waited out Miami's trapping schemes: That's a 2H coaching adjustment. A "trapping scheme" in basketball is a close-to-the-basket "help" defense where weak (opposite to the ball) side defender moves to the strong side to "help," like the classic double-team. Any help defense (i.e. every defense except man-to-man) is going to leave an offensive player open. The trap is designed to force the offense away from the basket.
Miami's trap worked to perfection in the first half of both games. The "Heat" led by 19 over D.C. and by 7 over LAC. The trap limited Kawhi to 2/11 shooting and the open "Clippers" didn't make the "Heat" pay by hitting their shots. Then Kawhi went full Kawhi in the 3Q, 16 points. Something happened, but you cannot say Kawhi "waited out" Miami. He took the same number of shots in both halves, made only two in the first, seven in the second.
A deep dive into the play-by-play shows that what set Kawhi free were LAC's wings making treys, therefore breaking the "Heat" trap. The "Clips" made ten threes in the quarter, seven before the 15-0 run. Landry-Fucking Shamet, a season 9.7 per game scorer, had four treys before the run! "Patrick" "Patterson," 5 ppg, had ten points--before the run--including two treys. That'll set you free.
In the third quarters of both games however, literally more often than not the guy left open by the trap was beyond the arc and drained the shot. And it wasn't the shooting stars, Kawhi and Bradley Beal, who killed the "Heat" in those quarters it was the dopes like Landry Shamet, Patrick Patterson, some guy named Green, another somebody named Williams, for the "Clippers"; little, battered, washed up Isaiah Thomas (two treys) and some guy named "Bonga" (1) for D.C. (Beal had one trey, also). Scott Brooks certainly didn't "wait out" a -19, like a boxer fighting rope-a-dope. No. But Brooks did make the same adjustment to key D.C.'s run that Doc Rivers did: shoot threes. During D.C.'s 19-3, 12 of those 19 points came on four made treys. During LAC's 15-0 run to close the 3Q, 9 came on treys.
Maybe in a sense both D.C.and LAC did "wait out" the trap, that is, maybe the "Heat" players got physically tired in the third quarters from trapping and the opposing team wittingly or not was playing rope-a-dope with them. Or maybe the opposing long-distance bombers got their bearings straight in the 3Q of both games. In either case the operation was successful but the patient died. You can say in these last two games anyway the "Heat" trapped themselves to death.
What you can say beyond that is that in the last thirteen games, a meaningful sample size, the "Heat" have been residing on 8th Street in the middle of Middlesbrough, as they did the three full seasons prior.
On January 22, Washington went on a 19-3 run in the first 4:54 of the 3Q. Coach Erik Spoelstra was so disgusted he pulled the entire starting five at once.
On January 24, LAC went on a 15-0 run in the last 3:08 of the 3Q. Spo was so desperate he played Dion Waiters all but one minute of the 4Q.
On January 22 Bradley Beal had 11 points in the 1H. He finished with 38 on 16/24, including 5' of OT.
On January 24 Kawhi Leonard was 2/11 shooting in the 1H. He finished with 33 points and the first 3W of his career. He shot 7/11 in the 2H.
Two teams, with nearly mirror image records, completely erasing significant-to-overwhelming half time deficits in under 5' of the 3Q. Both games in Miami. Both close games, one a three-point OT win, the other a five-point loss.
Small sample size, yeah. But primacy--the last two games. And in the context of the larger sample size of 8, 10, 13 games. Are opposing coaches figuring the "Heat" out? A complete reversal in the 3Q signals one thing in sport: one coach made adjustments at halftime, the other did not. Scott Brooks and Doc Rivers are damn good coaches. So is Erik Spoelstra. All three have been to the NBA Finals, Doc and Spo winning titles, Brooks losing to the "Heat". You can't say Brooks and Rivers are better coaches than Spoelstra. You can't say D.C.'s players are better than Miami's. Maybe you can say LAC has better players just with Kawhi Leonard, even without Paul George. You can't say all three teams have about the same record. So what can you say? Can you say what Doc said after the "Clippers" win?
Rivers lauded Leonard for patiently waiting out Miami's trapping schemes.
"It's like he was a boxer," Rivers said. "He just kind of took his time until he could throw punches."
Waited out Miami's trapping schemes: That's a 2H coaching adjustment. A "trapping scheme" in basketball is a close-to-the-basket "help" defense where weak (opposite to the ball) side defender moves to the strong side to "help," like the classic double-team. Any help defense (i.e. every defense except man-to-man) is going to leave an offensive player open. The trap is designed to force the offense away from the basket.
Miami's trap worked to perfection in the first half of both games. The "Heat" led by 19 over D.C. and by 7 over LAC. The trap limited Kawhi to 2/11 shooting and the open "Clippers" didn't make the "Heat" pay by hitting their shots. Then Kawhi went full Kawhi in the 3Q, 16 points. Something happened, but you cannot say Kawhi "waited out" Miami. He took the same number of shots in both halves, made only two in the first, seven in the second.
A deep dive into the play-by-play shows that what set Kawhi free were LAC's wings making treys, therefore breaking the "Heat" trap. The "Clips" made ten threes in the quarter, seven before the 15-0 run. Landry-Fucking Shamet, a season 9.7 per game scorer, had four treys before the run! "Patrick" "Patterson," 5 ppg, had ten points--before the run--including two treys. That'll set you free.
In the third quarters of both games however, literally more often than not the guy left open by the trap was beyond the arc and drained the shot. And it wasn't the shooting stars, Kawhi and Bradley Beal, who killed the "Heat" in those quarters it was the dopes like Landry Shamet, Patrick Patterson, some guy named Green, another somebody named Williams, for the "Clippers"; little, battered, washed up Isaiah Thomas (two treys) and some guy named "Bonga" (1) for D.C. (Beal had one trey, also). Scott Brooks certainly didn't "wait out" a -19, like a boxer fighting rope-a-dope. No. But Brooks did make the same adjustment to key D.C.'s run that Doc Rivers did: shoot threes. During D.C.'s 19-3, 12 of those 19 points came on four made treys. During LAC's 15-0 run to close the 3Q, 9 came on treys.
Maybe in a sense both D.C.and LAC did "wait out" the trap, that is, maybe the "Heat" players got physically tired in the third quarters from trapping and the opposing team wittingly or not was playing rope-a-dope with them. Or maybe the opposing long-distance bombers got their bearings straight in the 3Q of both games. In either case the operation was successful but the patient died. You can say in these last two games anyway the "Heat" trapped themselves to death.
What you can say beyond that is that in the last thirteen games, a meaningful sample size, the "Heat" have been residing on 8th Street in the middle of Middlesbrough, as they did the three full seasons prior.
