Miami Heat vs Washington Wizards Game Breakdown #16

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 another Jimmy Butler game — his fifth 30 or more points in the game this season and for the first time, in almost three years, he scored 30 or more in two consecutive games. It’s also worth pointing out that he already has the same amount of 30 plus games this season, as he did last season.

After the Washington Wizards got their seven-point lead, the game wasn’t close — especially in the second half.

Yes, the Wizards were without some key players like Spencer Dinwiddie and Daniel Gafford, but they still took care of business. I don’t think I could have said this last season, especially as they were coming off of a back-to-back.

The Heat were without Tyler Herro but didn’t matter, as the bench still somehow scored 31 points — lead by Gabe Vincent’s 18 points.

Per Cleaning the Glass, the Heat had a 122.2 offensive rating and a 104.4 defensive rating. The thing that stood out to me the most was taking care of the ball. They already have eight games with a 38th percentile or lower turnover percentage, so that has been an issue. In this game, however, they had a 6.7 turnover percentage, good enough for the 99th percentile.

On the defensive side, they’ve managed to cause turnovers, not allow many free throw attempts, and out-rebound the Wizards.

Offensive Breakdown

Let’s start with the game’s leading scorer. Per PBP Stats, the Heat had a 123.8 offensive rating with him on the floor and the main reason for that is Butler’s ability to either get to the rim at will or take advantage of mismatches in the post.

Butler has scored 7–10 at the rim and 4–8 from either the short or long mid-range.

This type of play will get rewarded. He doesn’t look to get fouled, but instead attacks his man and gets to the rim, and if he gets fouled, then he’s going to earn it at the free-throw line — he finished with 10–10 from the line, the same amount of attempts as the whole Wizards team.

What’s also been impressive is the contribution from PJ Tucker on the offensive end — he finished with 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists while going 3–3 from deep.

The impressive side of his contribution isn’t his corner 3pt making — it’s how we kind of diversified his offensive game with his cuts, rolls, and floaters.

Finally, we have Vincent going off too. There haven’t been many games where he scores double-digit points, so it’s always pleasant to see when he does. He made the defensive pay by knocking down three 3s, but he also managed to get to the rim and either finish or by going to the line twice.

Things that Caught My Eye:

• Only six turnovers
• Getting to the line for 24 attempts
• The shooting is still off
• Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson combining for 3–13 from deep is still not good

Defensive Breakdown

The Heat were on point at causing turnovers. The Wizards had 17 turnovers, 10 of which were off of steals — and Butler had four of them.

Let’s start there. Butler’s ability to steal the ball in whatever way is underrated — he has had six games with three or more steals and has recorded a steal in all but three games.

He’s all over the place and simply finds himself in the right place every time. There are times when he does end up gambling either by going for double teams from behind or trying to intercept a pass, but those gambles have been worth it.

The Heat have scored 20 points off of turnovers and most of the time, those points off of steals result in easy fast-break points.

It wasn’t just Butler with the steals though, the rest of the team also found themselves in the right place to pick a pass.

They also did a great job at preventing the Wizards from getting to the line, but the Wizards shot 41.7% from deep and went 7–14 from the corners.

In the first clip, that’s just bad transition defense — the Heat allow 61.2% effective field in transition. It’s a four-on-five action and a simple cut by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to the opposite corner resulted in two guys defending three guys — easy swing leads to an open 3.

I want to touch on the third clip.

• Starts off with Montrezl Harrell posting up Lowry — a problem with the team’s constant switching
• Vincent goes to help, leaving his man open
• Harrell kicks it out, this meant a rotation from Bam Adebayo
• At the same time, Kyle Kuzma cuts and Caleb Martin reacted slowly to the cut, and this meant Max Strus had to help tag him
• Now, both Strus and Martin are out of position on their man — they are both far in the paint
• Martin forgot about the open man on the wing, this resulted in an X-out, so Strus closed out on that shooter
• Martin, still in the paint, was too slow to close out on the guy in the corner

Firstly, that’s what happens when there are these constant switches. A smart team will give it to the big man with hopes they can exploit that mis-match. This results in help from the top.

But what this means for the rest of the team is that the rotations have to be on point. And what I’ve noticed with Martin is he has been slow on them or forgetting completely about them.

This was poor and a lazy effort and resulted in an open corner 3.‍

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