Miami Heat vs Detroit Pistons Game Breakdown #18

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.

Quick Thoughts

Erm, I guess a win’s a win, right?

It was certainly not the way I would have wanted them to win, but you can’t be picky — you got to take those wins, even the ugly ones.

It’s just when I checked the scores and read that the Heat rallied past the Detroit Pistons behind Tyler Herro’s 30, my immediate thought was, oh, they must have rested Bam Adebayo, Duncan Robinson, and PJ Tucker, as it was reported.

Maybe someone else sat out if Herro was taking that many shots.

Nope.

The Heat had everyone healthy, and it was actually the Pistons that were missing guys.

It was an ugly game from the start.

The effort wasn’t there. The energy wasn’t there. The team didn’t come out to play.

Regardless, we still got to watch Herro get buckets and, of course, still got to see them win.

Offensive Breakdown

Before we get to Herro’s scoring, let’s touch on what the offense was about before Herro bailed them out.

In the first quarter, after the first couple of minutes, the offense died out. They were 0–4 from deep and couldn’t finish at the rim and some of that was simply missing good shots, but they were 4–9 at the rim.

They did have a few great possessions at the beginning of the game.

In the first possession of the game, the defense was all over Duncan Robinson. And because of that he correctly adjusted to the defense overplaying him and countered that with a back cut and a curl — these cuts also work when you have Adebayo finding the cutters.

Another solid offensive possession. A simple empty-side pick-and-roll with Jimmy Butler and Adebayo. I was hoping to see more of this action to get Adebayo going — get him more touches at the rim and draw more fouls.

After these possessions, from 8:33 to 4:19 were without a made field goal. They were missing shots at the rim, taking early shots, and settling for jumpers.

Then Herro came in.

Herro dropping 30 doesn’t seem like news anymore. This is something the team can expect him to do when everything else on offense isn’t working. He was scoring from every on the court and that’s freaking impressive.

He is a tough shot-maker and he loves that mid-range — went 4–5 from the long mid-range.

Not only that, he got hot when the team needed a push. He had 14 points in the quarter and went 3–4 from deep. It amazes me how much confidence he has already — he has that irrational confidence.

He also showcased more than just his scoring.

He only finished the game with three assists, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. He just doesn’t seem to get fazed as much when drawing extra defensive attention. Instead, he recognizes that and is able to find the open man.

Finally, the Heat got almost a quarter of their points off of turnovers — plus 13 points in transition. When the offense isn’t there in the half-court, you got to get the offense from somewhere else.

Things that Caught My Eye:

• The Heat got to the line 29 times, but only made 21 free throws
• Please, please, pleaseee! Stop passing off shots when you’re at the rim
• Good to see 15 points off of second-chance points
• Not counting Herro, the Heat were 5–21 from deep — that needs to change

Defensive Breakdown

The stats say they had a decent defense — per Cleaning the Glass, they had a 100.0 defensive rating (74th percentile) and were in the 68th percentile or higher in the rest of the four factors.

But was that because of the defense or was it simply that the Pistons are bad?

Out of the Pistons’ 38 3s, 32 of them were open or wide open and they’ve only made eight. Just like it has been common throughout the season, the Heat allow quite a decent amount of open 3s.

The defensive energy wasn’t there last night.

But it was more than just energy — it was also scheme and people still have issues with switches sometimes.

I’m genuinely curious why the scheme for Dewayne Dedmon is to play higher up and to blitz the ball-handler — especially when it’s against these ball-handlers.

Is that extra pressure “ that” necessary and effective? It seems to only cause more rotations, which makes it susceptible to some error that can lead to open 3s like in that tweet.

I make these clips pretty much every game — there are so many possessions each game where there is someone that’s confused about switching and that’s where the late switch happens, which eventually leads to an open 3.

Luckily, the Pistons are bad.

However, it wasn’t all bad especially when they had the bench line-up and ran the zone.

The level of intensity that Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin, and Dewayne Dedmon brought was a key reason the Heat were able to pull away from this game. They had 10 points off to turnovers and was key to making a run late.

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