Defensive minded in offensive league
It not only is a familiar argument from the Miami Heat, at this stage it about is the only one they can make when it comes to their playoff fate: You win with defense.
And yet, in a season of explosive scoring displays across the league, standing fifth in the NBA in fewest points allowed per game might not mean as much as ranking 25th in scoring.
“I think it’s been a really interesting year to develop or attempt to develop game plans and a defensive system to combat the offensive firepower and skill level, shooting that you’re facing every single night,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with his team closing a two-series against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night at TD Garden.
“Defenses are all relative to how teams are scoring. For much of the season we had a top-five defensive rating, and if you would have compared that to year’s past, it would have been a horrible defensive year. I think it’s really forcing coaching staffs and teams to look at things a little differently and do what you have to do in those relative terms to try to make it tough.”
If there is a silver lining, it is that going Tuesday night, the Heat stood eighth in the league in scoring over their previous three games.
Ultimately, it well could take more of the same beyond Sunday’s end of the regular season.
Typical NBA thinking is that the pace slows and scoring drops in the postseason.
But, again, little has been typical about this season’s scoring totals.
“I don’t think there’s anything to suggest,” Spoelstra said, “that the offensive numbers will go down necessarily with the playoffs.”
So, for now, the hope is the recent trend can continue.
“I know our group in the locker room feels really good about the progress we’ve made and improvements we’ve made in the last six weeks,” Spoelstra said last week. “So there’s a confidence level
there. But you don’t want to get too comfortable. Everything is super competitive.”
As with defense, Spoelstra said playing the right way can go a long way on offense.
“I think committing to the process of getting better and getting on the same page, being intentional every single possession of trying to get to our strengths and doing things with purpose, all those hopefully are getting better from month to month,” he said.
“Then there’s just a flow or a karma to it when you’re doing things that are in your wheelhouse, that the basket and rhythm tends to be better.”
COVID reality
The Celtics and Heat entered the week as two of the teams most impacted by NBA health-and-safety protocols this season.
According to the tracking by Fansure through Sunday’s games, the Celtics led the league in player games lost to COVID-19 protocols, at 167, followed by the Dallas Mavericks at 118, and then the Heat and Toronto Raptors both at 116.
As far as time missed by individual players in NBA protocols, Heat forward KZ Okpala stood tied with Chicago Bulls guard Tomas Satoransky for the league lead, with 28 games missed apiece due the NBA’s health-and-safety protocols.
Measured from Jan. 10, when a Heat game in Boston was postponed due to the contact tracing of several Heat players, the Heat from that period forward stand second in the league in player games lost to health and safety protocols, at their 116, behind only the Celtics’ 141 over that span.
For the Heat, a reminder of the darkest such days will be Thursday’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers at AmericanAirlines Arena, their home finale.
It was after the Jan. 10 cancelled game in Boston, when nearly half the team was sent back to South Florida, that the Heat lost their following two games in Philadelphia while playing with the NBA-minimum eight players available.