1. The first half of this game won’t win any blue ribbons at the state fair, that’s for sure, but the ending was one of the HEAT’s best.
It may have been a rematch of the 2020 NBA Finals, sans Jimmy Butler, but what a game looks like on paper doesn’t matter once the clock starts and from that point on, it t was as much a regular season routine as any other we have. seen this year. Miami wasn’t playing their best basketball, and certainly not their best shooting, but they were the more active, more energetic, sharper group where the Los Angeles Lakers were dull. After six minutes, the Lakers recorded six turnovers – a combination of Miami’s disruptive defensive philosophy and remarkably poor passing – and it didn’t get much better from there as they finished the first quarter with 10 gifts while shooting 0 out of 7 out of three. . Miami’s offense wasn’t there in the half court, but they picked up those steals and did what they needed to do, eventually pushing the lead to double digits and forcing the Lakers to play from behind as ‘they were blocked by the area.
Behind the positive minutes of Nikola Jovic (2 of 4 from three in the first half, with a few breaks) and a late surge from Tyler Herro (13 points on 12 shots in the first half), Miami led 53-45 at the break. despite only making 41 percent of their shots. You don’t have to play your best basketball every night to win, you just have to play better basketball than everyone else. LeBron James (12 points on 18 shooting) was just 2 of 9, with the zone loading the paint against him as his shooters failed to convert.
Proceedings didn’t exactly improve in their execution in the second half, with the Lakers reaching 19 turnovers midway through the third, while Miami remained ahead by nine – a margin that could have been twice as large if more than three were fallen or if they had capitalized more on their execution. plenty of opportunities for a quick break. The zone remained productive with the Lakers absent from the outside, but just like against the Clippers on Monday night, the opposition slowly began to find a rhythm against the coverage, this time Anthony Davis (29 points on 17 shots) putting himself comfortable on the nail, enough to have Los Angeles in five hours after three.
A good start to the fourth, a few dropped threes and some rewarding offensive boards to allow Miami to go back up to 10 after the Lakers closed it to two. Both teams just needed a guy to warm up to get them through the night, and Duncan Robinson (11 points in the fourth) was more than happy to oblige in this one, turning what had been one of his worst shooting performance of the season in one game. -win one. Some nights you win lousy, and two weeks later, no one remembers it as a victory, tonight with a score of 110-96 in favor of Miami as all eight players in the regular rotation reached the double figures, capped by Jaime Jaquez Jr. who had a tough turnaround. on James in the neighborhood.
2. For three quarters, the story was one of Los Angeles battling both itself and Miami’s defensive positioning, several feet in the paint at all times when an attacker had the ball, while the turnovers increased. Perhaps most importantly, more than half of them involved live balloons. Miami averages 7.5 steals per game, tonight that figure almost doubled with 14. If the HEAT’s transition efficiency had been better – they missed a number of open threes on advantage breaks – it would not have been as close as at the start of the last period. .
But as happened so often, those turnovers dried up in the fourth quarter, which was partly the case for the HEAT’s fourth quarter struggles, as they faced more field goal attempts then that the match was slowing down. Tonight, the past didn’t matter as Miami outscored the Lakers 38-29 in that final period, one of their best of the season as the threes started to fall and the energy continued, the Miami’s offense shifted and shook as the Lakers spent precious seconds watching. down defensive formations, forcing few movements and fewer rotations. The HEAT played the better game for much of the evening without the results that usually come from that designation, but as they continued to play the better game, the tide turned. Robinson got things started with these splashes early in Game 4 and Jaquez Jr. (16 points on 14 shots) perhaps followed up at just the right time with some makes of his own, including this score on James that you’ll see all over the media social. media on Thursday, but it was the way Miami played, precise and error-free, that allowed the success (38.1 percent from three at the close) to extend the lead.
3. Basketball analysts have debated for years how much control a defense has over opposing shooting percentages, and the only thing everyone can really agree on is that it’s at least more control than they have on opposing free throw percentages.
So what do we think of Los Angeles’ futility from deep — 4 of 30 for 13.3 percent — tonight? Should we give credit to the HEAT for its activity, competitions and closings? Should we blame the Lakers for missing a variety of good open looks? The answer is always a bit of both. The Lakers are not a particularly good three-point shooting team and did not have one of their best shooters in D’Angelo Russell. So it made perfect sense for Miami to return to its zone (a season-high 47 possessions, allowing 0.78 ppp) to force the Lakers to take a closer look rather than deal with James’ descent. Davis finally forced Miami out of that zone with his catches from the middle, at least for a short time, but by then the Lakers were underwater from the perimeter and they continued to miss, regardless, against man to man. Did Miami force James to go 0 of 6 from three? Probably not. James took the same three slow pull-ups he usually takes and missed them. But with Taurean Prince going 0 for 5 and Max Christie going 2 for 9, the HEAT defense was much more attentive, and that’s the kind of thing you control no matter what your plan is.
No defense can completely control which threes it gives to whom, and one of the worst shooting nights — only two teams have shot worse on 30 attempts this year — is an outlier for any group, but you consider success or failure as it happens — for about six weeks, Miami has given up much higher percentages than its defensive shooting quality would have projected — and remains consistent elsewhere. Tonight, Miami won in large part because they were +36 points from the arc, and credit ultimately doesn’t matter.
