Miami Heat vs Boston Celtics Game Breakdown #8

Welcome to Simply Ballin’s game breakdown of the Miami Heat. After each game, you will see my thoughts on the game, film breakdown, and other interesting bits that stood out to me.

The Heat were bound to have a bad performance at some point during this stretch. As good as this team is, this team was never going to be a “blow most teams out by double digits” good. And I didn’t expect that bad performance to come against the Boston Celtics.

This was a rough game from the very beginning — both teams shot around 33% from the floor and 27% from deep in the first quarter.

There will be games where you simply can’t buy a bucket and will suck on the offensive side because of missed open looks. But I feel like this poor offensive performance was a mixture of simply missing good looks, the Celtics playing good defense, bad adjustments on offense, and a lot of passiveness.

From Scoring 46 in a Quarter to 7

It’s strange how a team can take a 180-degree turn in just one game. It’s shocking how the Heat went from having a 135 offensive rating against Dallas to having an 81 offensive rating yesterday.

But one reason for that is simple luck. There will be nights when a team can’t make 3s and last night was a good example of that.

For the first time this season, the Heat had taken more 3s than 2s, which was clearly not part of the strategy. Those 41 attempts, however, were good open looks. Those were the looks that you want your team to take.

Per NBA.com, out of those 41 attempts, 35 were either open or wide open. 85% of the 3s were good looks, yet they only shot 18% on them. For the season as a whole, 76% out of 262 3pt attempts are considered open or wide-open looks and they make 36% (72–200) of them. That is highly unlikely that it will happen; therefore, I’m sorry if I’m not going to overreact to the bad shooting slump.

Although they are open good looks, sometimes you still have to adjust and try something else to get into a rhythm.

Just take a look at how the third quarter started. It was all about getting some points in the paint — it started with Bam Adebayo getting three buckets and a pair of free throws. Butler also got three buckets in the paint and the lead was cut to eight points.

The offense started to click as the players started to get more points at the rim or getting to the line.

Per PBP Stats, Heat’s rim frequency for the season is 26.1% and they shoot 66.7% at the rim. They have only had two games where the rim frequency is below 20% — against Indiana and yesterday.

Prior to the game, the Heat averaged 24 attempts at the rim, and yesterday it was 14 despite shooting 78.6% at the rim. So far this season, it has been obvious, get to the rim and good things will happen.

Not getting to the rim wasn’t the only issue, though. The Celtics did one hell of a job of preventing the shots the Heat would want. The Heat have loved the mid-range area, but yesterday, they either couldn’t even get the shot off or were shooting poorly.

And this affected one player in particular. Tyler Herro has been a sniper for the mid-range.

Got to give props to the Celtics’ defense on Herro. He couldn’t get to his spots and even when he did, the help was there to contest it.

This total offensive breakdown in this game was a combination of good scheming, forcing the Heat into tough shots, and simple luck, but there were other issues on that end too.

Poor Decisions, Shot Selections, Scheme

The Heat had 18 turnovers and was so unlike the Heat.

It’s legit as if the players forgot how to make a pass and played sloppy basketball. Just watch some of these turnovers off of bad passes.

It didn’t seem like there was any effort whenever someone made a pass — they weren’t snappy, quick, accurate, or forced. It was a lazy effort from everyone on the team.

Sadly, it wasn’t just their turnover. It was their poor shot selections and poor scheming.

There were way too many isolations when it was clear the shots were going in. The Celtics’ defense made it hell for anyone to get their shots, so what they did do? They carried on doing the same thing. So far this season, Butler’s best offensive game came from him being a scorer off the ball and getting easy points at the rim or drawing fouls.

Going to the line four times will not do it. There was no aggression from Butler to attack the rim and instead, settling for those jumpers — especially when those jumpers are 3s. I don’t want to see Butler take those 3s.

Speaking of 3s. Robinson had 17 of them and only made 5 — yay.

I’m not going to get into Robinson in this article, so I’ll keep this short. He has to make those shots — most of his looks were open and shots everyone wants him to make.

My issue is the fact the plan was for him to take 17 3s. During the first quarter, I was all for it. Two plays for him that ended well, so let’s try to set him up more, and maybe this is going to be his great game.

But then the Heat just turned back to their last year’s offense. Force feed Robinson and pray it works. Unless he is scorching hot, forcing feeding him shouldn’t be your plan.

I think it was Tiffany Meeks on Hangover Time that said the Heat should get Adebayo going from the inside then resort to the outside game — that should be the plan.

But at the end of the day, it all comes down to hitting shots.‍

Originally published at https://www.simplyballin.com.