ESPN’s John Hollinger put together a list of five adjustments [Insider subscription required] he thinks we’ll see in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
More Miami moves to the basket. Here’s one of the untold stories from Game 1: All the attention on Miami’s inaccuracy at the free-throw line caused us to lose sight of how rarely the Heat got there at all. Miami took only 19 free throws, and only two players earned free-throw tries.
Antoine Walker didn’t go to the hoop strong in Game 1 and wasn’t rewarded with any free throw attempts. Jason Williams settled for his streaky jump shots. Look for both guys to attack the hole a little more.
More touches for Shaq. OK, this one isn’t rocket science. Based on their comments afterward, the Heat players knew one problem with their Game 1 approach without even looking at any film.
Shaq was effective on his shot attempts, going 8-11 from the field. The problem was when the double teams came quickly, he was forced to give it up. He tallied five assists, so he’s still passing the ball well.
Less Gary Payton in crunch time. One thing that Pat Riley is probably trying to get his head around today is the fact that he’s no longer playing the Pistons. Against this Dallas team, 80 points simply isn’t going to cut the mustard, so having a player like Payton play 18 minutes and take home a bagel is a major liability.
Payton looked really slow and ineffective in Game 1, though I don’t think that Jason Williams is a much better option in crunch time. Williams is a better shooter, but Payton makes better decisions with the ball.
More pick-and-pop plays for Dirk. Remember, Dallas has to adjust too. The Mavs know how lucky they were to win Game 1, or at least they ought to know. The biggest concern for Dallas is Nowitzki’s poor night against Udonis Haslem. This was supposed to be a huge mismatch, but Haslem did a great job of pushing Nowitzki away from the basket and using his 6-9 frame to contest the 7-footer’s jumpers. For the game, he shot an un-Dirk-like 4-for-14 and took a modest six free throws.
Dallas discovered that it is tough to use Nowitzki’s free throw line post game against a guy the size of Haslem. So look for the Mavs to move Nowitzki around more and the pick-and-roll (or pick-and-pop, depending on what Nowitzki does after the screen) would be an effective countermeasure to Haslem’s size.
More of Devin Harris. As expected, Dallas changed its starting lineup for this series by replacing Devin Harris with Adrian Griffin. Griffin did a good job, too, scoring eight points in 13 minutes, while Harris scored only one point in 18 minutes.
Dallas was worried about Harris’ lack of size when covering Wade, but he did a nice job on Wade in the fourth quarter. They should be more concerned about Wade’s speed when covered by Josh Howard or Adrian Griffin. Expect to see Harris covering Wade more often.
Game 2 is tonight at 9 PM ET on ABC.
