Spoelstra the Map Maker

This is "Heat Culture" in answer to one question, from Ira Winderman.

"Different package offensively", meaning the lineup of Jovic, Adebayo, Mills, Rozier, Jaquez, Jr.--a package pretty empty of offensive potential. No Butler, no Duncan, no Tyler.

                                                             Did you have "enough", Coach? Enough offense against the Splash Brothers?

                                                  Oh, "Yeah, definitely enough".

                                                                  

                                                        The "Heat's" identity is defense. Defense creates offense. It all starts on defense.

                                                  "We weren't able to do those things consistently enough", that is, make shots.

                                                      

                                                     This is the beginning of a revealing answer.

                                                                    For "Heat Culture" teams the most gratifying wins are those without much offense, that are "ugly" physical and mental grapples "in the mud" Pause: Why is “ugly” more gratifying than beauty? Unpause. …

                                                 ...that start with "inspiring defensive plays".

                                                      It has always flummoxed me, this preeminent focus on defense. I know that the adage in all sports is "Defense wins games." The problem with the adage is that it is not true. In every sport the winner is the one who scores the most points. If you play perfect defense and no offense, you don't win, the final score is 0-0. In basketball the other team is going to score points, an average of 115 in the NBA this season. Spoelstra likes his teams to play great scoring defense, which to him is holding an opponent to under 100 ppg. Fine, let's say the "Heat" played great scoring defense last night and held THE GOLDEN STATE "WARRIORS" to 95 points. They would have lost the game 95-92. You have to score more points than your opponent. You have to have players who can score more points than their opponents.

 He had it all "mapped out" in his head.

                                                       And the "Heat" have won games, hugely consequential games, that he has mapped out like that, games where they hang around, hang around, not letting the opponent get too far ahead, he says in another segment of this answer keeping it to 4-6 points, and then seizing the thing in "pivotal skirmishes". Spoelstra acknowledges that they could never get it to 4-6 points but if you listened to this press conference without knowing the final score you would never think that this was a 21-point blowout loss; you'd think maybe 10, maybe 12; you wouldn't think 21. Nor would you think that they never got close to keeping it a 4-6 point game in the second half. 

This is the "map" of the entire game. Look at it! That was not the map in Spo's head.

The “Heat” ended the 1H +2. At 10:09 3Q, less than 2’ in, they were already -5--still on Spoelstra’s mental map but having drifted listlessly seven points. They then got it to -3; GSW got it back to -5; then -7; -5 at 8:51; -7, -5, -7, -5. The game map now was -5 to -7. Then Curry made a three at 7:18, the biggest deficit, -8, so far and getting farther off the map. -6, -4 at 6:46, back on the map; -6, -5, and then at 4:05 Curry pushed it off the map again to -7. -4 to -6 became -5 to -7 and now -7 to -13. The game was over less than 8’ into the 3Q.

There was an unreality to the mapping that was going on in Spoelstra's head. The map in his mind did not correspond to the reality that his surveyors, Niko and Patty and Caleb and Jaime were navigating on terra firma. Not once does Spoelstra mention the deficiencies of his surveyors, they were good "enough", "definitely", for him. Not once does he mention the absent, Duncan and Tyler, above all Jimmy. Yet, they are why the real map diverged so sharply from Spo's mental map.

With inspirational defense as the spur, the players just "will find a way to make shots".

 

Pause, for this is key. The talent that this org demands in players is for defense, not offense. You have to be able to play defense. They want great playmakers on defense. The shots that these offensively challenged, defensive savants take will then just miraculously begin to go in. They "find a way to make shots"--not with shot-making talent (as with, e.g., Steph Curry and Klay Thompson) but through "inspiring defensive plays" that please the basketball gods and lead to divine intervention via earthly instruments named Patty and Haywood and Caleb. Faith in an almighty can be beautiful to gaze upon. An earthly boxscore that reveals reality to be 40.2% shooting with 24.2% from distance is "ugly", and destructive to Faith.

                                          "The moments of truth", i.e. "the pivotal skirmishes".

                                                   This is curious to me. It is a repeat of what he said after another one of the brutal recent home losses, either to Washington or New Orleans.

 Maybe the home fans booed? Maybe the write-ups leveled the "don't care" charge? I don't know for sure but this is the second time he has said that. I think they care, I think they laid it all out there, I don't think they have the talent.