Pistons roll past Heat 128-111, adding to Miami's season-opening woes on defensive end
"...the Pistons, who led wire-to-wire..."
"Miami, which has allowed a franchise-worst 259 points through the season's first two games and been outscored by a combined 42 points in those contests."
"The Heat are 0-2 for only the eighth time in their 39-year history. It's also the first time Antetokounmpo played in the season's first two games and his team went 0-2;"
"Detroit opened on a 17-2 run and led 65-53 at the break, with Miami's Bam Adebayo finishing the half with no points, one shot and three fouls in seven minutes and Klay Thompson missing all five of his shots, all from 3-point range. Adebayo finished with four points and Thompson had six on 2-for-11 shooting."
[Bam, the 83-point man, scored FOUR points!]
The stats:
AP focuses on the "Heat's" no-look defense, and look, I didn't watch the game, I never do, and AP is the gold standard in reporting generally. But the stats tell, perhaps mis-tell, a different story.
Miami had THIRTEEN more shots! They only connected on 38%. Detroit, 53%. Allowing Fifty-three percent shooting is atrocious, especially for a Miami team. But the "Heat" shot only THIRTY-EIGHT PERCENT!
Detroit shot 20 free throws, making 80%; Miami took 28, but only made 64%. En passant, the "Pistons" had THREE technicals! Miami one.
Detroit turned the ball over TWENTY times! Miami only twelve. The "Heat" got TWENTY-THREE points off Det.'s t.o.'s while they got only 12 off our 12.
Detroit had an edge in rebounding, but only slight, four. However, Detroit dominated the "Heat" on the defensive boards 41-31, meaning Miami was only getting one shot.
To me, who didn't watch and only followed about half the game, another telling stat is assists, Det. 34-24. The players mentioned this after the Ice game. They weren't communicating, they weren't passing, and that means their offense was dysfunctional.
They had more fast-break points, 22-16, we had more points in the paint (Giannis had 35), 46-42. That means to me that the ball was sticking to Giannis. Giannis took 26 shots tonight; our next high guy took 14. That means the ball is sticking. Against Ice he took 19, the next high was Bam with 12. That means the ball is sticking. Miami's offense going into the season was explained like this: Giannis is like a black hole. He sucks in everything around him, collapsing defenders around him, peeling defenders off our shooters to whom Giannis will then pass. Giannis had ONE assist in the Ice game, five tonight. And when he does pass out of the post our shooters can't connect.
It was clear to me with my 20/400 vision that Ice head coach Chris Finch had the "Heat" all figured out. "Men, Giannis is all they got. Until they show me they have somebody else who can make baskets, let Giannis feed. Just don't let anybody else beat us. They won't because they can't."
The Ice game turned on Minn.'s control of the glass, and turnovers. Minn. dominated rebounding: 52-34 overall, 17-4 (!) offensive, 35-30 defensive. That means they got more, lots more second-chance points. We gave them 31 points off 19 turnovers; we got only 17 from their 16. We actually shot better than Ice in that game, 48%-47%, but because of Ice's second-chance points and turnovers, they took 17 more shots.
J.B. Bickerstaff took the same approach toward Giannis. We didn't win because we couldn't shoot. We can't win if we can't shoot. For all the focus in sports on defense, "defense wins games", etc., the scoreboard shows POINTS SCORED. It doesn't show defensive stops. The winner is WHOEVER SCORES THE MOST POINTS. That is not theoretical or philosophical it is FACT and it is so fucking simple to understand that it's the reason sports are looked upon by those who look down on sports.
When Eric Spoelstra called his first timeout at 8:45 1Q, the score was 17-2. Seventeen points in 3' 15" that's terrible defense, terrible! Det. had made six shots and had one blocked. Disgraceful. AP focuses on the 17. There's another number in that score, 2. We scored tyoo points. We missed seven shots and made one. Which is worse? Well they're both awful! You can't just focus on one. If Det. had shot our percentage (12.5) they would have had two points. If we had shot Det.'s percentage (86) we would have had 19 points. Five of our eight shots at 8:45 1Q were threes. We didn't make fucking one.
This is how we got to 17-2:
-Opening tip controlled by Miami.
-Klay missed 3.
-Giannis O-reb.
-Bam missed 3.
-John Collins made 3 (0-3)
-Davion turnover
-Swish Family Robinson made 3 (0-6)
-Giannis missed layup.
-Andrew O-reb.
-Davion missed 3.
-Det. D-reb
-Davion blocked Collins
-Collins O-reb.
-Davion foul
-Swish made 3 (0-9)\
-Davion missed 3.
-Andrew O-reb.
-Andrew missed tip-in.
-Det. D-reb.
-Det. dunk (0-11)
-Giannis made layup (2-11)
-Cade Cunningham made 3 (2-14)
-Andrew missed 3.
-Det. D-reb.
-Collins made 3 (2-17)
The number of threes that we took suggests that we were open (because you force up threes as a rule). In turn that suggests Det. either wasn't able to prevent us from getting good looks, or didn't care. I didn't note how much time we took from gaining possession to shot, but Eric Spoelstra has always wanted to play at pace and it sure seemed to me reading the play-by-play that we were moving.
My beef with a fast-paced O for this team is that the team is a natural two-big offense. Park their asses in the post and slow, slow things down. Pass it in, dump it out, pass-dump, set screens. No, it's not pretty, yes it is ancient basketball wisdom, YES! I would love us to run and fun-and-gun, it's thrilling. But we have two bigs Spo. And our gunners are no fun. When you had Jimmy Butler, you played slow--and we won! Wasn't that fun? More fun than this?Why can't you fucking temper your desires and fit the system to your players rather than pretend you have Splash Bros Klay when you have Ningbo Rockets Klay? Why did you have Bam taking the second shot of the game from behind the arc?
Once more, to me, with the offensive scheme explained, with the stats from two games, with the comments by the players, with the player shooting percentages, the team shooting, the disappearance of Bam Adebayo's scoring, the "Heat" Horror before Halloween, getting blown out in two games at home, all of it is more an offensive problem than a defensive. We can't score enough points.
