Miami Heat vs Oklahoma City Thunder Game Breakdown #14

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

This was an ugly game. The Heat couldn’t buy a bucket and neither could the Oklahoma City Thunder.

It was honestly painful to watch the first half — both teams scoring 43 points in the first half seemed like this game was going to end in the low 80s.

Per Cleaning the Glass, the Heat had a 108.4 offensive rating, good for the 49th percentile, and a 90.5 defensive rating, good for the 92nd percentile (third-best this season).

But a win is a win. It doesn’t matter how they get the win, especially when they are without Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

And without the two players, you know that the Heat are going to go deep, deep off the bench. Surprisingly, that didn’t go as bad, though.

KZ Okpala played 15 minutes, Gabe Vincent played almost 20 minutes, and Max Strus played 22 minutes. All three players stepped up when needed and contributed something, which was a good thing to see.

Offensive Breakdown

The offense was certainly going to suffer without both Butler and Adebayo, especially getting points in the paint.

Aside from Kyle Lowry, who can get to the rim, and Tyler Herro, who has shown this season that he can drive and score, there wasn’t anyone else that could.

And because of that, there is a reason why 48.8% of their field goal attempts were 3s — this was the second-highest this season. It has been a pattern this season where if the Heat’s offense struggles or they can’t hit anything from the mid-range, then they hunt 3s.

This is their shot chart from the first half:

So, it wasn’t just the fact that they couldn’t take anyone off the dribble and penetrate, they also couldn’t finish when they did:

There were some open looks that were simply missed, but the Thunder did have 10 blocks and it did look like their length bothered some players attacking the rim.

They did, however, managed to improve on the finishing in the second half — getting to the rim three more times and finishing on much higher efficiency. And they did that by using screens to set up cuts and surprisingly, Duncan Robinson scored six points at the rim.

There were two reasons why the Heat were able to stay afloat despite struggling to score inside — only 27.2% of the points came in the paint (second-lowest this season) — their hot hand from deep and points off of turnovers.

Credit to Herro for going off for 26 points with 5–8 triples. That’s impressive on any day and it’s even more impressive when you’re pretty much the only guy who can create his shot consistently on the court.

The offense also benefited from Robinson being back again, finishing with 5–12 3s.

Things that Caught My Eye:

• 31 points off of turnovers are great when the offense looked bad — good way to create easier shots and have more opportunities
• Makes sense why the team only went to the line for 13 free throws — no one can consistently draw fouls without Butler and Adebayo
• Strus going for 3–5 triples helped
• Lowry with another double-double
• Herro is a damn tough shot maker and is showing he can do this even whilst being the number one scoring option on the court
• Need to brush up on the turnovers — they are slowly becoming a poor team when it comes to not turning the ball over

Defensive Breakdown

There were two things on defense I was impressed with — causing 20 turnovers (11 off of steals) and PJ Tucker’s defense on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Tucker did exactly what was needed from him — make life difficult for Shai and force him to take shots he doesn’t want to take.

Shai wants to drive. He drives 22 times per game on the season and scores 12 points while he’s at it. Tucker not only decreased his number of drives and forced him to take more jumpers from deep than inside the paint, but he also couldn’t finish when he did get to the rim.

The Heat also managed to cause 20 turnovers, which lead to a third of their total points.

The Heat were all over the passing lanes — six of their steals were as a result of a bad pass where they made a timely interception. They also did a good job with their active hands and shrinking the floor whenever someone drove.

And as per usual, the best team at drawing charges had caused a few turnovers because of that. That just screams Heat Culture.

Things that Caught My Eye:

• The Thunder did get to the rim 33 times but shot 45.5%
• Nice use of the zone at times and a press
• 11 steals!!
• The Thunder only had 10 free throw attempts‍

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