Miami Heat Offense

Part 1 of the Celtics vs Heat Series Preview

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.

All stats from Cleaning The Glass unless otherwise noted.

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The Miami Heat Offense is based around flow actions with Bam handling and players cutting, screening, and off-ball movement. Then when they need a bucket they get the ball to Jimmy Butler and use different players to get the matchup they like to attack and go after it over and over again.

A big shift in the series for the Celtics against the 76ers was adding Rob Williams back into the lineup and ignoring PJ Tucker and other non-threats on the floor. I actually think this series is a 1 big system series against the starters of the Heat since if you put Al Horford on Bam, then Rob would have to roam against Kevin Love, Gabe Vincent or Max Strus. You could make the argument that Kevin Love (33% on 3s) is not a 3-point threat and his numbers are down from previous seasons but I am not sure he is enough of a weak spot for the Celtics to ignore like PJ Tucker (35% on 3s). While Tucker took literally all of his shots from the corner, Love takes a majority of his shots and an overwhelming amount of above-the-break 3s and shoots 35% on those.

Either way, it will be interesting to see the lineup pieces against the starters or when the bench units for the Heat come in since they will include players like Martin who the Celtics will likely make them beat them shooting 3’s.

They will let Bam handle the ball in the half-court to make reads, another benefit if the defense is sagging off him is allowing him to be comfortable passing, and if they don’t then it pulls the rim protector out.