South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Fewer TOs a boon to defense
Improvement reflected in recent victories
The Miami Heat’s 101-90 win over the Chicago Bulls did more than give them their ninth win in their past 10 games.
It also helped showcased how the Heat’s turnover reversal has helped their defense reach new heights.
Friday’s matchup featured two teams that had the same struggle early in the season. The Heat and Bulls entered Friday with the second- and third-highest turnover rates (percentage of a team’s possessions that end in a turnover) in the league, respectively.
The Heat won the turnover battle Friday, recording 10 to the Bulls’ 16.
And while both teams have seen recent improvements with taking care of the ball, the Heat helped used their greater ball security to become one of the best defenses in the NBA over the past month-and-a -half.
Through their first 18 games of the season, the Heat were tied for the worst turnover rate in the league (17.1%) and had the 20th-worst defensive rating (111 points allowed per 100 possessions) in the association toward the end of January.
Even though it hasn’t been a complete reversal when it comes to the giveaways, simply getting closer to the league average has helped bolster the Heat’s defense.
Over the past 20 games, they have the best defensive rating in the league (106.8) and have jumped to fifth-best (108.8) overall this season.
During that same stretch of 20 games, they have the 21st-worst turnover rate (14.2%) in the league. Nothing too spectacular, but it’s a
significant improvement from the historically bad stretch of giving the ball away the Heat were coming out of and in line with their turnover rate from last season (14.9%).
“That’s a big part of it,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, with his team having Saturday off before turning its attention to the Orlando Magic on Sunday to close out this two-game road trip.
“We mentioned it before that it seemed like it would be counterintuitive. Three months ago we were talking about if we could take care of the ball on the offensive side, our defense would probably be 10 notches in the ranking better on that alone. It settles us mentally to get our defense set.”
And the defense has benefited greatly from not having to match up on fast breaks as much.
The Heat are only allowing their opponents to get out in transition on
12.3% of their possessions (secondbest mark in the league since Jan.
30) over the past 20 games, according to Cleaning The Glass, after 16% of their opponent’s possessions were in transition over the team’s first 18 games (26th-worst mark during that stretch).
“It’s also something we had to significantly commit to,” Spoelstra said. “This is the identity of this team and this organization — it always will be. We have to be able to defend night in, night out against a league’s that’s extremely challenging.”
And the Heat are winning the turnover battle on defense too. They were already one of the better teams at forcing turnovers, but they’ve been even better during the past 20 games.
The Heat have forced opponents to turn the ball over on 16% of possessions over the past monthand-a-half, which is the best mark in the league.
Jimmy Butler, who’s tied for the best mark in steals per game (two), playing in 18 of the Heat’s last 20 games after missing 12 of their first 18 games, has helped. And so has players being more active and disrupting passing lanes in defensive rotations.
“It’s all about activity for us, and multiple efforts,” Spoelstra said. “It’s not necessarily that we’re trying to be top three in the league at forcing turnovers, but we also don’t want to be passive. There is a sweet spot for us. It’s more about our activity numbers that we chart, which have been better the last several weeks.”
Added Goran Dragic: “Spo is doing a great [ job] switching from man-to-man to zone. Sometimes we blitz somebody and we rotate. We have a lot of different coverages we use in a game and I think that really helps our team.”
Being one of the stingiest defensive teams in the league has helped the Heat win 14 of their past 20 games despite their offense still not being where they want it — 19th in offensive rating over the past month-and-a-half.
“If we want to be competitive, we [needed] to improve that, and we did,” Dragic said. “That helps a lot. It takes pressure off the offense.”