'13 All things Heat thread

[Jace]

Thanks

[Jace]

OT: The Rockets are again doing to the Knicks what the Knicks have done to us, minus all of the 3's, this time at MSG, where it looks like NY will take it's first L of the season.

[Jace]

Any chance we could pry Jason Thompson from Sac? That team is such a mess, and they need to carve out more minutes for T-Rob. Not sure what player we'd attach to it, but is the Philly 1st tempting enough? That's a team that doesn't have to worry about making us better. Thompson would be sick for us at PF.

[Wade2Bosh]

Maybe if he had the contract he did last season.

[Jace]

He got extended?

[Wade2Bosh]

5yrs $34 million this past offseason

Not all that bad, but I dont think the Heat want to take on any money that goes past 13-14, just like they didnt the couple of years prior to the 2010 offseason.

[Jace]

Sucks. It was one thing to not bring in $ when all we had was Dwyane and...Dwyane, and we knew we wouldn't be contending, but we're in a limited championship window right now, before Wade breaks down and LeBosh *potentially* leave.

[Jace]

Speaking of the Philly 1st (which I will henceforth refer to as "the Phirst"), Philly continues to lose. Now 12-14. Get that 8th spot, 6ers. Or, at least, stay in the lower playoff picture. It may not matter where they finish since we might trade it before the deadline, though I'd like to keep it.

[Jace]

@DannyMartinez4 FWIW, the HEAT have the 4th best efficiency differential against the 4th toughest schedule.

Really good sign, especially amidst all of the terrible D we've played.

[Wade2Bosh]

The last few games of good D has placed the Heat in the top half of the league in PPG allowed (15th) and more importantly, FG% allowed (11th).

Wade credits what we all thought

Joseph Goodman ‏@MiamiHeraldHeat
DWYANE WADE: "We kind of got behind the eight ball because we were doing what worked for us in The Finals and late in the playoffs..."

Joseph Goodman ‏@MiamiHeraldHeat
WADE (cont.): "...but I think this is right what we need now—bigger lineup, as conventional as we can go.”

[tone wone]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story...i-heat-defense

What happened to Heat's title D?

Maybe the Miami Heat's defense thinks the season kicks off on Christmas Day again, as was the case last season because of the lockout.

After two seasons ranked in the top five in defensive efficiency, the Heat find themselves 14th on that end of the floor. The defending champs have the league's fifth-best record at 16-6 and the sixth-best point differential (5.3 points).

This defensive lapse doesn't make much sense on paper. The Heat's star trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are back in the fold. The rotation members from last season -- Shane Battier, Mario Chalmers, Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony, Mike Miller and Norris Cole -- are still with the Heat. Everybody from the front office to the coaching staff to Burnie the team mascot all returned for the quest to repeat as champions.

Actually, the roster continuity is almost unprecedented. Dig into the numbers and you'll see that the Heat have a staggering 96.7 percent retention rate of the total minutes played by last season's roster. In fact, it's the highest for any championship team in 15 years. (The 1997-98 Bulls reeled in 97.2 percent of the roster from the previous season's title-winning team for their last hurrah, and another crown.) It's also a stark contrast to the 2011 champion Dallas Mavericks, who brought back only 66.2 percent of their roster after letting Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea and DeShawn Stevenson head elsewhere.

Highest retention rate for champions, past 20 seasons
Title Team Pct. of Mins Repeat?
1996 Bulls 97.6 Yes
1997 Bulls 97.2 Yes
2012 Heat 96.7 ???
1999 Spurs 95.3 No
2007 Spurs 93.2 No
Average 79.7 pct

Yet despite having everyone back, Miami has seemingly lost its most prized possession: its defensive identity. Look no further than the fact that the Heat's defense has been worse than the 3-20 Washington Wizards. That, my friends, is not a typo -- the woeful Wizards are tied for 12th in defensive efficiency along with the Golden State Warriors, another team that previously had no business defending better than the champs.

So with everyone back, why have the Heat stumbled out of the gate? It has to be a case of post-championship complacency, right?

Big Three at fault?

On the surface, the theory that the Heat are simply resting on their laurels seems to check out. You could point to Wade's nonexistent transition defense or the fact that he hasn't blocked a shot in 12 of his past 14 games, a stunning development for a player who averaged 1.3 rejections per game last season. Bosh hasn't been sharp, either, and he sometimes functions as a stepladder for opposing teams to recover their misses. In Tuesday's win against the Timberwolves, he didn't collect a single defensive rebound.

And James? He isn't immune to the finger-pointing, as he's been caught napping on defense more than a few times this season.

But all of this screams confirmation bias, the nasty trick our mind plays on us when we really want to see something that may not be there. We know the Heat have struggled defensively this season, so the everyday mistakes by the Heat's stars seem like major issues. Because they are coming off a title and getting paid a gazillion dollars, it's tempting to assume that the star trio is just coasting in second gear and preserving defensive energy for April and beyond. The evidence, however, points to a far different conclusion. When it comes down to it, the Heat may have already found the cure for their championship hangover:

They exchanged Rashard Lewis for Joel Anthony in the rotation.

The rise of 'Avatar'

We've acted as if the 2012-13 Heat are a carbon copy of the title team from last season, but that's not exactly true. While the Heat have almost all their players returning, that doesn't mean coach Erik Spoelstra had been playing them. Like many coaches, Spoelstra has spent the opening months of the season in a lineup laboratory experimenting how to use his newcomers, in this case Ray Allen and Lewis.

After several weeks of hemorrhaging points to the opponent, Spoelstra put a stop to the bleeding recently. He simply removed Lewis from the rotation and inserted Anthony, who makes a living by detonating opposing pick-and-rolls. Anthony used to be called "Avatar" by his Heat teammates for his sweeping length and mobility. It's no secret that Spoelstra, who once helped build the Heat's advanced statistic database for former Heat coach Stan Van Gundy, is a fan of plus/minus data -- and the latest trend has certainly reflected his close attention to the hard numbers.

And the numbers are indeed alarming. According to NBA.com's advanced stats tool, the Heat have allowed a disastrous 111.2 points per 100 possessions with Lewis on the floor, a rate that would easily put the team dead last in defensive efficiency. Remember the Heat's infamous near loss to the junior varsity Spurs and the embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Wizards? It's no coincidence that Lewis started those games.

Heat efficiency rankings
Off Eff Rk Def Eff Rk
Through Dec. 6 109.3 3rd 104.0 23rd
Since Dec. 6 109.7 3rd 95.3 5th
Source: NBA.com stats

The Heat received a hair-raising wake-up call with back-to-back losses against the Wizards and the Carmelo-less Knicks, dropping Miami to a 23rd ranking in defensive efficiency. But since then, Spoelstra has handed Lewis' minutes to Joel Anthony and the swap may have kick-started the Heat's season. In the five games since that loss to the Knicks, in which Miami went 4-1, Anthony played more minutes (75) than in the previous 17 games combined (73) while Lewis has received three DNPs.

The Heat's defensive ranking since the Knicks game two weeks ago? Fifth. How about on offense? Still third. Now that's more like it.

Room to grow

Two weeks does not make a season, but it's clear that the Heat have rediscovered the formula that helped them attain a top-five defense the past two seasons: a heavy dose of Anthony. Though Lewis has been lights-out from downtown, that alone hasn't been nearly enough to make up for his defensive deficiencies that sometimes make him look like the Tin Man searching for oil.

Nowadays, Anthony has been handcuffed to Allen in the second unit, and the balance has paid off in a big way. Allen and Lewis used to be a fixture off the bench, but among the Heat's 27 player pairs that have played together for at least 150 minutes, the Allen-Lewis tandem was by far the worst in on-court defensive efficiency (109.6 points allowed per 100 possessions). Spoelstra has since bagged it. The Allen-Anthony tandem, however? They've allowed 97.3 points per 100 possessions together in the early going.

Anthony's ascension and Battier's demotion from the starting lineup doesn't mean that small ball is dead in Miami. When Spoelstra promoted Haslem to the starting five, he insisted that it's probably a temporary move to improve a second unit that was as airtight as a fishing net. It's not hard to see that getting minutes for Anthony was a big part of that. And the Heat are back to smothering opponents with their rabid athleticism, causing the Wizards and Timberwolves to cough up the ball 21 and 19 times, respectively, over the past week.

This is a potentially frightening development for the rest of the league. The Heat's defensive woes may indeed be fixed with a simple tweak in the rotation, and there are signs that they aren't yet playing at full tilt on the offensive end. James' free throw attempts per game are down from 10.2 per game in his last season in Cleveland to 8.1 last season to a career-low 6.0 this season. Wade has dealt with a series of flat tires in the early going that have curbed his at-rim attempts, but he's getting back into shape. And after looking like Rajon Rondo to start the season, Chalmers has more turnovers than assists in his past six games.

But the so-called championship hangover looks to be healed ahead of Thursday's matchup against the Mavericks. And as the Christmas Day rematch of the 2012 Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder draws nearer, it appears the Heat's "defending" champs label may no longer be a misnomer.

[Jace]

OT: Jason Terry went 1-15 tonight. Remember when Boston fans, and even more head-scratchingly non-partisan NBA followers, were saying how much of an improvement he was over Ray? Not sure it's worked out that way. I'm sure they're still on course for world domination when Bradley's healthy, though.

[Wade2Bosh]

I wonder if Doc still brings up Miami everyday to his team?

[Jace]

Probably just Milwaukee now, since they're looking up at them in the conference and can't seem to beat them.

So, DET beat WAS by 32 tonight. HOW THE **** DID WE LOSE TO WASHINGTON?

[Wade2Bosh]

The Wizards are bad to begin with. Now look at all the injuries they have. No Wall, Beal, Nene, Price, Ariza, and Booker.

Like I said in the last Wizards game thread, Nene seems to be in Rashard Lewis Wizards mode. Any small ailment and he aint playing.