Miami Heat Defense

Part 4 of the Celtics vs Heat Series Preview

May 16, 2023

This is a coaching mismatch, the Celtics undoubtedly have more depth of talent but the Heat have Spoelstra and Jimmy Butler leading the way. Nothing against Mazzulla, but Erik Spoelstra against virtually anyone outside of Pop or Kerr is going to be an advantage to Spoelstra. He is unafraid of the moment and pulling on strings to see what works and then when they find something that works they continue to tweak and focus on improving ways to continue that success. But the key difference between Erik Spoelstra and other coaches is he has a great sense of when something is going to stop working and going to something else before the other team can take advantage.

Part 1: Miami Heat Offense

Part 2: Boston Celtics Defense

Part 3: Boston Celtics Offense

All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

For the 2023 NBA Playoffs I will be doing game & series breakdowns throughout - the best way to support is to become a paid subscriber with the NBA Playoffs Sale!

Get 50% off for 1 year

Either way, I thank you for reading, supporting & sharing my work and I hope I have been able to help.

Miami Heat Defense

The Miami Heat’s defense has been designed to take away the paint and the drives of the other team no matter who is driving. One of the ways they do this is “Gap” help or help from the next closest defender.

This gap help can be a stunt, a quick jab at the ballhandler, or a full-on help to stop the drive depending on who that player is and who they are guarding.

If they are matched up with a shooter then it could be a quicker stunt, but if they are matched up with a non-threat then they can help off more.

Here Butler loads in the gap at the nail to Brunson’s drive which forces Brunson to pass it out.

The next player Strus here will then stunt at RJ to prevent the quick one more pass as Butler still clogs the lane and then close out to the 3-point shot as best as possible.

Funneling these drives into where their help is can force the driver to speed up and force quicker decisions than normal and allows opportunities for the Heat to take charges - which they definitely will.

This defensive design means that the Heat will be more willing to give up 3-point shots than other teams. Boston has taken 41% of their shots from 3, and the Heat have allowed opponents to take 40% of their shots from 3. Miami opponents have made 33% of their shots from 3, while Boston is shooting 40% from 3 in the playoffs. This is an interesting point I am keeping an eye on for this series to see how the Heat reacts to the Celtics’ shooting.

Zone Defense

The 3-point shooting of the Celtics might impact how often the Heat play zone, but I expect with a bench unit involving Duncan Robinson that they go to this look often to avoid the mismatch hunting from the Celtics. The most common way for teams - including the Celtics - is to set a ballscreen vs Zones in the NBA so this can take away the flow of the Celtics’ offense.

1-1-3 Alignment

Instead of always setting up in a normal 2-3 alignment the Heat will go to a 1-1-3 look at the top with the guards.

Here is an excerpt from a previous game in which the Cavs and the Heat had a mini-chess match and showcased the ability of the Heat’s zone to change alignment and form against whatever the offense tries to run.

Cleveland Cavaliers Double Ballsceen to Overload vs Zone

When teams face the Miami Heat you have to prepare for multiple defenses, coverages and schemes and have plays or concepts to attack them. The Cavs attacked the Heat’s 2-3 zone by setting a double ballscreen and then creating an overload. Here the play starts off with a guard screening the first player and a big screening the second.

After the first player rolls into space he fills toward the opposite corner that the ball is being driven toward. This creates a 2 on 1 against the wing defender and the big rolls into space in the high post.

Here Mobley finds space in the high post after rolling into space.

Miami Heat 1-1-3 Counter

After the next timeout, the Heat countered this action by starting off in a “1-1-3” setup instead of the 2 players at the top more flattened out. This took away the opportunity for the Cavs to create the overload and allowed the defense to keep the advantage.

The Heat used this setup against the Knicks whose preferred method of attack was to run a ballscreen against it. What they would do is have the guards get underneath and then switch the ballscreen up to prevent any advantage for the Knicks.

This takes away any direct advantage that can be created with a 2 on 1 overload after the kickout.

And again we see the Heat will leave open players they don’t consider to be threats from deep.

Adjusting to this, the Knicks made a tweak to their ballscreen to screen the second man in the zone, but the Heat were able to switch it here and recover back to the normal 2-3 setup.