Innovation often happens by accident. YInMn blue. “Heat” coach Erik Spoelstra was talking hoops with LeBron James when he came up with the idea of positionless basketball. I don’t know if there was a voila! moment for Johan Cruyff in the development of tiki-taka, but it took soccer 100 years before coming up with it. I’ve opined that the way to defend tiki-taka is to press “high”, at midfield. Erik Spoelstra’s “positionless” basketball is similar to tiki taka, five guys who can play all positions and all requirements (e.g. passing, three-point shooting, above all defending). Pep Guardiola, who “perfected” tiki-taka at Barcelona, wants even his goalkeeper to “play with his feet,” to be able to pass, in other words. Both Spoelstra and Guardiola are "tinkerers," to their detriment. Last night the Heat won in Portland against a good team with two excellent guards. Spo shut them down. How did he do that? Ah, of course, by practicing at Portland State University's gym on Saturday. 

1. Going deep: The Heat prioritized their defense against McCollum and Lillard to the degree that they picked up their halfcourt defense practically at midcourt.

“We practiced at Portland State. They didn’t have a 3-point line, so we had to practice our pick-up points a step over halfcourt. That was our only point of comparison. So your defense ends up being eight, 10 feet out further than it normally is. If you’re not willing to make big-time multiple efforts and have activity, you have no chance when your defense is that stretched out.”