'13 All things Heat thread

[Wade2Bosh]

4 games is a really small sample size, but the offensive numbers our top 6 are putting up is pretty insane. Too insane to not post about before it might be too late..



Bosh is off to a phenominal start. And Lebron is putting up big numbers even though he hasnt had that big, eyeball catching game yet. Just shows how amazing he is



Our 2 SG are combining to average 35.5 ppg on around 55% shooting, 7 rebounds and 8 assists. That is crazy



Two of the bigger surprises right here. Mario with his playmaking ability and Rashard with his efficiency, even though was a bit off against the Suns.

[Jace]

Good stuff. Ray's been a surprise in a few areas. The 60% from 3, and all the top 4's overall FG% (and LBJ's matching his 3pt %), is awesome. Hopefully they stay committed to the ball movement all year, because then its feasible for all 4 to stay north of 50%.

Rashard is still obviously getting his shit straight, and Rio is also working into his rhythm. I expect MC to get those %'s way up soon, but hopefully he can keep the assist average around 6+. That would be awesome. If our pace keeps up, guys are going to be able to have some pretty high production all around.

With the way Bosh is playing right now, it really feels like he and LeBron are our two big horses. Dwyane and Ray partially platooning at SG is heavy support, especially if both can still have their occasional signature games, which is looking like a good bet.

Ira's take RE: K-Mart:

Q: Ira, Kenyon Martin has said he will come and try out for any team that calls now. Would the Heat be willing to buy out Joel Anthony's contract and bring in K-Mart, who is a good big, a great rebounder and shot blocker, and has an offensive game? -- Smitty, Tampa.
A: They tried to bring him in last season, but the deal fell apart. If they do bring him in, it wouldn't be by eating Joel's money, but more likely by cutting Terrel Harris or Josh Harrellson, both of whom are non-guaranteed. The gut feeling here is they want to see how much more they can get out of Udonis Haslem before looking in any other directions.

Makes sense to me. I don't remember us trying to acquire him last season, does anyone? I'm assuming they'd cut Harris (or maybe even Pitt?). UD would definitely feel hurt if we brought Kenyon in to take his role, but he's the only one who can make it unnecessary. Hopefully Martin isn't in that much of a hurry to get signed, because I think Spo will want to give it about 20 games before giving up on U.

[Dee-Zy]

agreed and what kind of question is that to cut Joel?

pfffff.

I think Harris would get the boot before, even if he is groomed to be our 3rd pg in case of injuries. With Wade, Bron and Allen who can all handle the ball for spurts and make plays, a 3rd PG might be less important. I don't see Kenyon getting Jorts spot because Jorts spreads the floor, unless Lewis starts rebounding and playing D like a madman, that is the only way I see Jort would be expandable in the end of the bench rotation.

[Adam]

Kenyon Martin sucks. There's a reason he isn't even in the league.

[Dee-Zy]

I think he is not in the league because of the price tag that he wants.

He can definitely play in the NBA today I think.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Dee-Zy

I think he is not in the league because of the price tag that he wants.

He can definitely play in the NBA today I think.

He's not in the league because he sucks.

He can't get a single offer. Not even an unguaranteed deal. And on top of being bad, he's a thug and a moron. People don't need their 15th man on the roster sending goons into the stands to beat people up.

[Jace]

DZ, Lewis can't play C, so it still wouldn't work.



Uh oh. Wario game coming.

@DannyMartinez4 Of Mario Chalmers' 28 assists on the season, 19 of have resulted in layups, dunks or threes. That's impressive.

Guessing the other 9 were Bosh jumpers...

Imagine if he learned how to throw a lob.

[doctordrizzay]

Originally Posted by Jace

DZ, Lewis can't play C, so it still wouldn't work.



Uh oh. Wario game coming.



Guessing the other 9 were Bosh jumpers...

Imagine if he learned how to throw a lob.

yeah hes gonna injured lebron or wade one of these days

[Luke]

Originally Posted by Jace

So, I know he got minutes tonight, but any hope at all that we could send Philly's 1st (and maybe a pot sweetener) to SA for Blair? Most teams don't want to trade with us, but SA is pragmatic and has the same approach as Riles: Don't worry about anyone else, as long as you're getting better. On top of that, RC Buford and his cabinet are draft wizards. Would have to be later on in the season, preferably with Philly struggling just enough to look like a lower seed. Pipedreaming?



They're silly. Throughout last year they were teetering on it, but came just short of flat out saying "we can't fully embrace him until he wins the title." Now its OK. To me, that's foolish.

Foolish? Sure. But it's a definite trend that's been well documented forever. Every great player starts out as the media darling, gets crucified for a few years (Kobe after Colorado, Tragic Johnson, Mike not winning initially, and LeBron since the LeBacle) and then regains their status at the top of the totem pole. It's going to happen to Durant to within the next three years if he doesn't win a ring.

[Jace]

True. I do wonder, though, if Durant will need his "Decision" moment to serve as a catalyst or for false blame to be placed on for the disdain to begin. I don't mean him literally switching teams, just any event to paint him as less likeable. A lot of the criticism toward Jordan was based on the then conventional wisdom that scoring champs don't win titles, and he had already previously had a reputation as a ball-hog. KD, along with Rose, is the golden child of the league at the moment. The only criticism I heard of him post-Finals was that he was too unselfish and non-aggressive, and as long as Westbrook is on his team, particularly taking more FGA per game, a lot of the blame will still go that way.

[Dee-Zy]

Originally Posted by Jace

DZ, Lewis can't play C, so it still wouldn't work.

Good point

[Wade2Bosh]

From pace and space to positionless to now the hockey assist. The new buzz words this week apparently.

Watch Miami play for a few possessions and it's impossible to ignore the rapid ball movement. The team's "pace and space" brand of basketball is predicated on spreading the floor and quickly whipping the ball around the court. As a result, the Heat are piling up assists like never before. Their current average of 25.4 assists per game would break a franchise record.

The Heat pay attention to hockey assists internally, and that's good news for LeBron James because he was spared from public shaming for tallying only one assist in Monday's game against Phoenix. Believe it or not, it was just the eighth time in James' career that he failed to record more than one assist in a game.

But close observers probably noticed that James was setting up plenty of shots Monday; the key is that it took an extra pass to get there. After reviewing the tape, James tallied three hockey assists in Tuesday's game, including two that resulted in made 3-pointers.

In Wednesday's blowout win against the Nets, much was made of the fact that James was two assists shy of a triple-double. But James tallied two of the team's six hockey assists in the game, which would have given him the requisite assists needed to tally a triple-double.

"Very few players have an understanding what a hockey assist is," coach Erik Spoelstra said. "[LeBron] is able to read the situation and make the hockey assist knowing that it's going to take one or two passes for a wide-open shot. He can make those calculations as fast as any player I've been around."

In fact, a review of the game tape reveals that James has nine hockey assists in five games, which gives him more hockey assists than Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade and Ray Allen combined. James' average of 1.8 hockey assists per game would tie Derrick Rose's league lead last season, according to games tracked by 3-D camera tracking by Stats LLC. This season's data was not made available by Stats LLC, but more and more teams are tracking it, by hand or by state-of-the-art technology.

Also interesting is that hockey assists tend to be more rewarding than regular assists. The 26 hockey assists the Heat have tallied this season have led to 16 3-pointers, with an average yield of 2.6 points. A regular assist? Just 2.2 points.

More Here

From another article talking about Heat hockey assists

"I'm all-in,'' Chalmers said. "I like it, since I'm usually the one that gets the hockey assist. As long as we're winning, everybody's happy.''

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz2Bg2wLJpv

Heat must have their own way of tallying them up

[Jace]

Heat.com: Mario Chalmers, Plus Playmaker

On my Rio's early season improvement as a playmaker. Lots of pictures and video.

This is a different excerpt from Tom's

It's taught at the early levels to make a pass to get a better shot. But how do you know if it's a better shot? That's the tricky part. If you ask Battier, you must channel, yes, "the Force."

"When the ball’s swinging, you have to have a Jedi sense to feel that next defender," Battier said. "Is he going to rush out at me? Is that passing lane open? It’s not something you’re taught; it’s a feel thing. There is a balance. You can overpass, but it’s a much better problem than underpassing."

Oh Shane, I hope you never leave this organization. Surely he'll want to do something outside of basketball post-career, though. I see him opening up a winery.

@tomhaberstroh Battier went on an assist rant last night: "The assist in the NBA is ... they should get rid of it, let's be honest."

Battier: "It's a very subjective stat... Let's just say there are a lot of liberties in defining what an assist is."

I asked Battier how PGs would make money if they stopped tracking assists. His response? "How do guys who take charges make money?"

Can't agree with Batts here. While I do agree that its highly subjective, and statisticians take liberties with them, its still vital for evaluating play.

[Jace]

This was written before the Brooklyn game, but its still a great read. ESPN's Tom Haberstroh on The New Ray Allen.

Late in the first quarter during the Heat's win over the Denver Nuggets on Saturday, Ray Allen flared off an off-ball screen from Udonis Haslem and darted toward the top of the key. LeBron James, who controlled the ball from the right block, hit Allen with a lob pass. Allen squared up, elevated and drained a 3-pointer.

Just like old times.

That's how Allen scored the majority of his points in Boston, constantly running off screens away from the ball. But what's remarkable about this particular play against Denver is that it represents the only Allen jumper this season that was made off an off-ball screen.

Think about that: 13 made jumpers so far from Allen and only one via an off-ball screen.

It's astounding to see Allen's transformation so early in the season. No longer is Allen routinely curling off pindowns and rubbing shoulders with his teammates in an effort to create space between him and his defender.

Allen is averaging 15.5 points so far off the bench and currently holds the league's best effective field goal percentage (field goal percentage that is weighted for 3-pointers) among perimeter players. But the way he's getting those efficient opportunities is foreign to what we're used to seeing from Allen. According to Synergy Sports tracking, 36 percent of Allen's offense last season was created off screens, his most frequent scoring play type. This season, that percentage here in the early going has been sliced to just 9.5 percent.

"I’m not going back and forth running off screens and trying to get the defense moving," Allen said. "Typically, I was the trigger in [Boston’s] offense. Here, everybody has an opportunity to make a trigger."

The talent part of the equation
With defenses collapsing on James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, Allen can now sit back, relax and wait for the open shot. Seeing all the talent on the roster, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has infused a mentality this season that emphasizes rapid ball movement to create space. Space that Allen doesn't have to burn 1,000 calories to find.

"I love it, I love it," Allen said of Miami's pass-happy offense. "I’m the recipient a lot, but at the same time, I try to make plays and not be one of those guys who is a ball-stopper.”

When asked to compare Miami's offense and the one he played for in Boston, Allen pointed out that Miami's triggers weren't "predetermined" by elaborate X's and O's. Instead, the Heat find offense early in the shot clock by playing off each other and not making it overly complicated to find an open shot.

"We had great talent and positions," Allen said of his time in Boston. "But we weren’t as great utilizing each other, making sure we got to the spots and made the simple plays."

Included in the article is a look at Allen's shot chart this season, prior to the BRO game, including preseason.

We can see an emphasis on corner shots, but Spoelstra and Doc Rivers are using different means to an end. Allen gets the same looks, but he gets them just by spotting up rather than running off screens. In Miami, an astounding 50 percent of Allen's offense has been generated off of spot-ups. In Boston last season, that figure stood at just 19 percent.

For a 37-year-old with about 50,000 minutes on his NBA odometer, the preservation of energy is increasingly important, even for a conditioning freak like Allen. It allows him to expend energy elsewhere -- on the defensive end, on the boards and making plays for others.

More here.

Looks like he hasn't missed from that left corner, and I don't remember him missing there against the Nets.

Reinforces what Bosh and co. have been saying for awhile: Our offense isn't based around set plays/movement, for the most part, making it that much harder to scout. On top of that, its great to see we're generating open looks for Ray while running him around so much less than in Boston. Needless to say, the less wear on his ankles/body, the better. With that said, Spo had indicated during training camp that as the season progressed, more sets designed for Ray would be implemented. Definitely a dynamic we want in our offense against certain defensive looks and for certain situations, but its great to see we shouldn't have to rely on it to get him loose.

[Jace]

Another good one, this by Ethan Skolnick on the bench developing chemistry. Cole/Allen & Lewis/Haslem.

When the film He Got Game hit theaters in 1998, Ray Allen wasn’t as young as the high-school prodigy he portrayed: already 23, already an emerging NBA star. But to many kids around the country, like 10-year-old Norris Cole in Dayton, Ohio, that character connected more deeply than Allen was connecting at the time for the Milwaukee Bucks.

So when Allen joined the Heat this summer, that’s how Cole greeted him:

“Jesus Shuttlesworth!”

Now Allen and Cole, 13 years apart, are often sharing your television screen as the Heat’s backup backcourt. They are one of two odd couples that Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has been bringing off the bench as part of his early-season rotation. The other duo is the frontcourt pair of Udonis Haslem and Rashard Lewis, two veterans who play opposite styles but are learning how to play off each other.

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