Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer says a simple play will fix the Miami Heat’s fourth quarter problems.

Any person with basic basketball knowledge realizes Miami could fix its late-game misery with a simple play. Wade dribbles the ball at the top of the key — and James sets a pick. Then James rolls to the basket, which will cause any defense major problems. Wade either has an open jumper, or James can catch a pass for a layup.

But as Cavs fans know, James rarely set picks. He loathes the pick-and-roll unless he has the ball. Over the years, he often waived off a pick and preferred to play 1-on-1 with four teammates watching in clutch situations.

He does the same with the Heat.

Pluto’s play probably isn’t going to work on a regular basis. Ball screens are typically big/small situations where a post player comes to set a screen for the ball handler, who is generally a guard. It’s set up this way because it makes it difficult/impossible for the two defenders to switch. If Erik Spoelstra implemented Pluto’s play, LeBron’s defender would simply switch to Wade (and Wade’s defender would switch to LeBron), and no advantage would be gained. That’s why you don’t often see ball screens with two similarly-sized offensive players.

That’s not to say that the Heat don’t need to do something different as the clock winds down. They do. But a LeBron/Wade ball screen is not the solution.

As Pluto mentions in the piece, the Heat are relying too much on clearing out for LeBron in end-of-game situations. I’d try a pick-and-roll with LeBron and Bosh on the wing, with LeBron heading back towards the the top of the key, while the other two Heat players set a double screen for Wade on the opposite side of the floor. That way, LeBron has three or four moves he could make. If Bosh’s man double-teams him, (1) he hits Bosh on the pop for a wide open 16-footer. If his man is slow to get through the ball screen, (2) he can penetrate into the lane looking to score or possibly (3) kick it out to a shooter in the opposite corner. He could also (4) hit Wade on the other wing, who should have an advantage when he catches the ball because his defender has to fight through a double screen.

The Heat would have to start this play with 10 or 12 seconds on the clock to give themselves enough time to make a few passes, but such action would take the predictability out of the Heat’s offense in end-of-game situations. They would be taking what the defense gives them instead of trying to force a long jumper or bulling their way into the lane.

When I put together our NBA Preview, I predicted the Heat would win the East and lose to the Lakers in the Finals. When we published our Year End Sports Review, I predicted the Celtics would upend the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. Now I’m not even sure they’ll get past the Knicks in a potential first round matchup and a semifinal series against the Bulls isn’t looking too good, either. That doesn’t mean that the Heat experiment is a categorical failure. It just means that it might take a year or two to get this thing working.

After the Heat’s 87-86 loss to the Bulls on Sunday, which marks their fourth straight defeat, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported the following:

In case you’re thinking that Spoelstra was misquoted, here’s the video of his post game presser.

On the surface, it appears that Spoelstra revealed that a couple of players were crying to illustrate his point that “it’s not a matter of want,” but there is some speculation that he was trying to call out his team for not being tough enough mentally.

I doubt he’s that nefarious. I suspect that he was trying to relay that his team is emotionally engaged and went too far with his words. In the video, you can see him pause before he mentioned the crying, almost wondering whether or not he should reveal that little tidbit.

So did he go too far? I’d say he did. A coach should have the trust of his players and vice versa. The locker room should be like Las Vegas — whatever happens there, stays there. He didn’t name names, but that might just make matters worse as every player on that roster might be guilty.

Guilty of what? It’s human to cry, right? Well, not so much. I cried once during my college basketball career and that was after my final game as a senior when we (surprisingly) lost a tournament game at home. The weight of the moment — that my days of competitive basketball player were over — reduced me to a blubbering idiot. I stuffed my face in a towel until I could get a hold of my emotions. It was an end of an era, my era, not some regular season loss. The Heat players shouldn’t be crying right now. They should be angry, and they should channel that anger into making sure that this four-game losing streak ends on Tuesday.

Maybe that was Spoelstra’s point. Or maybe he just lost whatever trust was left in that locker room.

The Miami Heat are in the midst of an 11-game run against teams with winning records, and so far they’ve dropped the first four. On Sunday, they lost to the Bulls 87-86, even though LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh combined for 69 points on 53% shooting from the field.

Derrick Rose staked his claim to be the league’s MVP (once again) with a 27-point, five-assist performance, leading the Bulls to a 3-0 season sweep against the Heat. Carlos Boozer struggled to 12 points and 10 boards, but Luol Deng had a very nice game with 18 points.

I think Chicago has established itself as at least the second-best team in the East. The Bulls’ defense is outstanding thanks to the arrival of longtime Celtics’ assistant Tom Thibodeau, and offensively, everything runs through Rose. They look like they know what they’re doing while Miami sometimes look confused and out of sorts.

The win is big for Chicago because neither team wants to play the Knicks in the first round. New York will likely finish in the #6 spot, which means whoever finishes #3 has to face the dangerous combination of Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Chauncey Billups. The Bulls are now two games ahead of the Heat in the loss column and hold the tiebraker, so they’re likely to face the Sixers in the first round, not the Knicks.

If the Heat have to face the Knicks in the first round and the Bulls in the semis, forget about making the Finals, they may have a tough time even winning a series or two.

The woes continue for the Miami Heat, who are having a tough time putting good teams away. The Magic came back from a 24-point deficit in the third quarter to upend the Heat in Miami, 99-96.

Down by 24 points in the third quarter, the Magic went on an unbelievable 40-9 run over the next 15 minutes and stunned the Heat 99-96, the second-largest comeback in Orlando franchise history and matching the second-biggest in the NBA this season.

Jason Richardson scored 24 points for Orlando, 11 of them to kick start the epic burst that turned a 73-49 deficit into an 89-82 lead.

It’s unbelievable that a team with three players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh would allow a run like that to occur. Not only are they three of the best offensive players in the league, the Heat are pretty damn good defensively as well.

Forget about the 22-7 run to close the third quarter. The Heat had time to digest that during the break between quarters and went into the fourth quarter with an 80-71 lead. A Chris Bosh jumper pushed the lead to 11.

Then the Magic went on an 18-0 run to take an 89-82 lead with 5:16 to play. Erik Spoelstra did his part, taking two timeouts (after Orlando’s 8-0 run and then again after the Magic rattled off another eight points), but it did no good. Miami’s three stars went 0-for-5 from the field during that run, and Wade even missed two free throws and turned the ball over once.

Miami is susceptible to runs like this because they lack an inside scorer. Bosh is more of a face up power forward and is far more comfortable shooting 18-footers than he is trying to score on the post, and we all know that LeBron rarely (if ever) ventures down to to the block. When those jumpers aren’t falling, it’s so valuable to have a player or two who can get you a bucket or a pair of free throws with his post up game. That player should be LeBron, but he has never developed a post game, and at this rate — I doubt he ever will.

It’s mind-boggling that LeBron and Wade combined to go 21-for-34 from the field for 57 points. That means the supporting cast shot just 14-of-41 (34%) for 39 points.

Chris Bosh missed 17 of his 18 shot attempts last night in the Heat’s 93-89 loss in Chicago. His shooting performance was so bad that it got me wondering — historically speaking, just how bad was it?

Basketball-Reference has a ‘play finder’ that allows users to look up individual games or seasons based on a series of criteria. It only goes back to the 1986-87 season, but for our purposes, that’s probably far enough. I asked the site to generate a list of players that attempted 15 or more shots but had two or fewer makes, and list those results in order of ascending field goal percentage. The resulting list shows the very worst shooting nights over the last 25 years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra noticed something about Chris Bosh’s post up game, and he has advanced stats to thank for it. (TrueHoop)

Data from Synergy tells us that Bosh did, in fact, perform better on the right side of the court last season with Toronto, especially in isolation situations. When Bosh attacked from the left in isolation, he scored 59 points on his 80 tries — and that includes free throws, not just field goal attempts. Synergy calculates his efficiency on left-side isolations to be .738 points per play, which ranked 43rd among 48 qualifiers last season. Not so good.

But on the right side, he was much more effective. He scored 86 points on 86 right-side isolations, nearly 25 percent better than on the left side. And on post-ups? Bosh was better from the right side as well, though the contrast is not quite as dramatic as it is for isolations.

“If you look at the numbers, he’s pretty consistent, he’s a little better on the right side, but not by a glaring amount,” Spoelstra said. “It just allowed us to be a little bit more consistent for everybody else to know where we are starting the offense.”

What does Bosh have to say?

“Stats are stats, man,” Bosh laughed. “I couldn’t say anything. I was like, ‘I can post up over there [on the left side].’ They said, ‘Well, this says you can, but it’s not the same [as the right side].’”

Bosh obliged.

“I didn’t fight it. I like getting the ball in the post, so to keep that going, I just said ‘Coach, that’s fine.’”

Teams use advanced stats to differing degrees. Houston’s GM Daryl Morey has long been known as one of the foremost users in advanced stats in the NBA. But this is the first time that I’ve heard of a specific example of a coach admitting that advanced stats have altered his game plan or approach.

It was only a matter of time, really. The NBA is a cutthroat league and if there’s an edge to be exploited, you better believe that coaches will catch on.

Kevin Durant had something to say about Chris Bosh after the Thunder’s 108-103 loss to the Heat yesterday. He was none too pleased about Bosh barking after fouling James Harden on a fast break early in the first quarter. There’s video over at DailyThunder, but it’s hard to see what the two are saying to each other.

The two were hit with double-technical fouls in the first quarter after Bosh fouled Harden on a fast break. KD said something to Harden and Bosh jumped in. The two had words and it was over. Until Durant was asked about it in the locker room.

Durant said, “I was talking to my teammate and [Bosh] decided he wanted to put his two cents into it. I am quiet guy, laid back guy, but I’m not going to let nobody talk trash to me. He’s on a good team now so he thinks he can talk a little bit. There are a lot of fake tough guys in this league and he’s one of them.”

And more: “I’m no punk. I wasn’t even talking to him first off. He decided to butt in and I’m not going to just let that slide. Especially in our house. Like I said, he’s not one of those guys I look at and say he has a rap for talking back to guys or getting into it. He’s a nice guy. I’m not going to let that type of person say something to me like that.”

It’s not like Durant to get into a war of words with anyone. He’s one of the most affable players in the league. In fact, in another three or four years, if Durant doesn’t break through and win a championship, people are going to start to say that he’s “too nice,” a la David Robinson.

I don’t know why Bosh is picking fights with Durant and Harden. He clearly doesn’t have much of a rep around the league for being a tough guy, so maybe he should be quiet and let his game to the talking.

Per the Miami Herald…

A simple reward system has contributed to the Heat’s current run of eight consecutive blowout victories.

If Dwyane Wade grabs a defensive rebound, he has the green light to do whatever he wants offensively. If LeBron James makes a defensive stop, he controls his own game on the other end of the court.

These are the parameters set by coach Erik Spoelstra, and the chance for offensive freedom has helped spark the most dominant winning streak in franchise history.

While this may be working during the regular season, I don’t know that grabbing a defensive rebound is worthy of being able to do whatever you want on the other end of the court, at least not against the best teams in the league. But if freelance by Dwyane Wade or LeBron James is better than the plays that Erik Spoelstra calls, then maybe it is the right way to do things. But that says more about the offensive game plan than it does the value of any reward system that may be in place.

The more I think about this team, given the injuries, I don’t see them getting past the Celtics in the playoffs…but we will see.

At the beginning of the season, when the Heat went 5-4 and then 9-8, it was funny to listen to everyone saying “I told you so” with regard to how the Dwyane Wade/LeBron James dynamic just wasn’t going to work in Miami. Truth be told, I thought that it would take some time to work out the kinks, but I didn’t think that the Heat would be just one game over .500 that far into the season.

But after a pair of home wins against the Wizards and Pistons, the Heat went on the road in a tough environment in Cleveland and pulled out an emotional win. Since then, they beat a decent Atlanta team at home, and went on the road to beat the playoff-caliber Bucks and last night the Jazz, who are currently the #4 team in the West.

Some of the growing pains stemmed from the fact that Wade missed much of the preseason due to injury. And let’s not forget that the Heat lost its fourth- and fifth-best players (Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem) to injury. Those injuries are serious blows to the team’s championship hopes, but both players expect/hope to be back before the postseason.

The Heat are sitting at 15-8 in the #3 spot in the East, just three games back of the conference-leading Celtics. They are #3 in the league in defensive efficiency and #5 in offensive efficiency.

Miami faces Golden State and Sacramento on the road (both winnable), before coming home to play New Orleans and Cleveland. They then face the Knicks and Wizards on the road, so they could potentially push this winning streak to 12 before facing the surging Mavs in Miami on December 20.

First, we had Saturday’s possibly intentional bump, and now there’s a report that the Heat players are quietly grumbling about their head coach.

The Miami Heat’s players are frustrated with Erik Spoelstra and some are questioning whether he is the right coach for their team, according to people close to the situation.

In contrast to the popular view that Spoelstra has been hesitant to jump on superstars LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, sources say the Heat coach has shown no fear in criticizing them.

Exhibit A was a recent shootaround in which Spoelstra told James that he had to get more serious. The source said Spoelstra called James out in front of the entire team, telling him, “I can’t tell when you’re serious.”

“He’s jumping on them,” one source said. “If anything, he’s been too tough on them. Everybody knows LeBron is playful and likes to joke around, but Spoelstra told him in front of the whole team that he has to get more serious. The players couldn’t believe it. They feel like Spoelstra’s not letting them be themselves.”

He’s not letting them be themselves. That’s classic. So if a coach is irritated by the lack of seriousness of one of his players, he’s just supposed to let it go? I suspect that Spoelstra would be a lot more lenient if the Heat were meeting expectations, but when you have this much talent and are hovering one or two games above .500, it’s understandable that the HEAD FREAKING COACH might want a certain level of seriousness from one of his team’s leaders.