Everything You Need to Know About the Miami Heat
Everything You Need to Know About the Miami Heat
The day has finally come. Learn what you need to about tonight's big showdown with Heat Culture through Dan Olinger's scouting report.
Dread it. Run from it. A Sixers playoff game with incredible potential for pain and suffering arrives all the same.
Tonight at 7:00 p.m., the Sixers host Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference 7-8 Play-In game. You know that. I know that. Everyone in the greater Philadelphia area not living under a rock knows that. No time to waste. It’s not win-or-go-home tonight at the Wells Fargo Center, but it is a win or face the Boston Celtics’ death star in the first round (or not even get that chance at all).
If this truly is The Year, then it needs to start with the Sixers knocking off the defending Eastern Conference champs in a pseudo-single elimination free-for-all. How do they do that, you may ask? By knowing everything possible about the Miami Heat, and cooking up a gameplan to squash those playoff pests.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Sixers’ opponent before tonight’s big game.
The Basics
The 2023-24 Miami Heat finished the regular season with a 46-36 record, the NBA’s fifth-best defense, 21st-ranked offense, and 18th overall in Net Rating at +1.7 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass.
That’s par for the course for a post-Heatles Erik Spoelstra-coached team. Miami has only finished with a top 10 ranked offense one single time since 2014, and for each of the past three seasons, they’ve failed to even crack the top 20. In contrast, the last time the Heat finished a season without a top 10 ranked defense was 2015. Somehow through all the chaos of the NBA, the Spoelstra Heat remain the same — the offense is putrid, the defense is outstanding, every game they play is a disgusting watch, and yet they’ve somehow made the Eastern Conference Finals three times in the past four years.
As far as the Heat’s rotation goes, it roughly consists of the following: Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Caleb Martin, Nikola Jovic, Haywood Highsmith, Kevin Love, Duncan Robinson, Jaime Jaquez and Delon Wright. Deep reserves like Patty Mills and Thomas Bryant lie in wait as “break in case of emergency” options.
Terry Rozier missed the last four games of the regular season with neck spasms and has already been ruled out for the game against the Sixers. It’s a huge blow to a Heat team that often needs Rozier’s scoring punch, and a huge relief to Sixers fans that remember Scary Terry sending them to the ether during the 2018 Playoffs, and hitting a combined nine threes against them in the last two Sixers-Heat matchups.
His Name is Literally Jimmy Butler
Every single team that has won the East in the past five seasons has one thing in common — Jimmy Butler. He’s either the reason you made it so far, or an obstacle you had to clear on the road to glory.
Even in seasons like this one, where he scores just 20.8 points per game and misses one-fourth of the season with injury, Jimmy always serves as a pivotal figure of the NBA Playoffs. The only time he really didn’t was in 2021, when the Bucks exorcised their demons against the Heat in hilariously dominant fashion, sweeping the team that upset them in the playoffs a year prior.
One thing you’re going to hear a lot about during the broadcast tonight: This is the best three-point shooting season of Butler’s entire career. Usually, Butler waits until the postseason begins to start making his threes again – through his first four regular season campaigns in Miami, Butler shot a combined 26.6% from three, yet somehow is a 34.3% three-point shooter in the playoffs over that same time period, as his frequency of threes attempted nearly doubles.
That’s changed this year. Butler shot a career-best 41.4% from three in 2023-24, and his 60 total makes is the most triples he’s made in a single season since 2019. So what gives? Did Jimmy go through his own Jerami Grant career arc in a single year?
Well, not really. While his accuracy is impressive, the manner in which Butler is making these threes matter. Of the 60 threes he made this season, only 15 came off the dribble. The other 45 were all either catch-and-shoot jumpers or face-up jumpers where Jimmy jabbed once or twice before letting it fly. These are not Tyrese Maxey 28-foot step-back “How do you stop that?” threes. These are “The defense is going to live with that shot” threes.
Jimmy has altered his shot mechanics this season to my eye. At this point, he nearly shoots flat-footed from behind the arc, similar to how Embiid launches threes. Also like another Sixer in Tobias Harris, Butler is hugging that three-point line on each of his attempts. One wrong shuffle of the foot and he’s firing a two-pointer that’s the worst shot in basketball. TL;DR — Jimmy will make wide open threes and hit semi-contested ones if he can shoot from a standstill and get to his set release point easily. He hasn’t shown any new ability to dance and shimmy into step back triples.
The solution would seem obvious — if Jimmy only takes and makes threes when he has time and doesn’t have to dribble, get up on him and take away his space. However, that unfortunately invites Jimmy to drive, which invites Jimmy to grift for free throws, which Jimmy is very, very good at. He’s finished top five in free throws attempted per 100 possessions for five straight seasons, and unlike Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo, he isn’t a hulking 7-footer who forces referees to blow the whistle by imposing his will at the rim every play.
He uses great strength and flexibility to force himself into defenders' air-spaces at opportune moments, and admittedly, he’s just an incredible actor. He screams. He flails the legs in opposite directions. He jolts up in a sudden burst and turns to a referee acting as if he’s been harmed. He just knows the proper acting routine required to draw fouls (a dance we all know that Embiid has mastered as well).
I could compare the way Jimmy Butler’s foul grifting gets talked about in contrast to how Joel Embiid’s foul grifting gets talked about ages. It’s always been the best example of the flirting vs harassment meme. And I already wrote all about it months ago — Embiid’s teams lose in the playoffs, so they get mad at his foul grifting, while Jimmy’s teams win in the playoffs, so people are fine with him foul grifting. That’s it. That’s the entire thing. There’s no use in getting preemptively mad at Jimmy BS-ing his way into 14 free throw attempts on Wednesday. It’s just probably going to happen.
The best way to prevent it, though, is with Nico Batum. He’s been the Sixers’ best perimeter defender this season (yes, even better than the hurt-again De’Antony Melton), and has the exact physical profile you’d want in a Jimmy stopper. Though he’s also proven effective at taking away Miami’s shooters like Robinson, preventing a Jimmy heater has to be priority number one for the Sixers. Getting bombarded by movement threes is less likely against this version of the Heat, which no longer employ Max Strus and Gabe Vincent, and didn’t exactly replace those two with more movement shooters.
Sprinkle in some minutes with Kelly Oubre and Tobias Harris matched up on Jimmy (Tobias is at least strong enough to hold up in the post), and some others where Kyle Lowry tries to annoy him into getting ejected from a postseason game, and you have a recipe for slowing down Miami’s best player.
The Heat’s Wacky Defense(s)
The Heat like to play zone defense. Specifically, a 2-3 zone defense. Well actually they also play a 3-2 zone defense, too. And a 1-3-1 zone defense that can amorphously shift into a 2-3 zone. And a mix between their 2-3 and 3-2 where they constantly shift between the two zone defenses based on where the ball is and where Kevin Love is standing in the paint.
You get the idea. The Miami Heat are the knuckleballers of NBA defenses. Offenses strike out against them left and right because they have no clue what they’re looking at.
Simply calling whatever the Heat do a matchup zone would be a disservice. It’s much more than that. Matchup zones simply mean that defenders are sitting in specific areas playing man defense, and trading off their man-to-man assignments as they switch between zones.
In Miami’s defense, the defenders themselves switch between which area of the zone they’re defending within each possession. They even switch the style of zone defense they’re playing second-by-second. Here are some examples:
Watch out for whenever Caleb Martin and Haywood Highsmith sub into the game. They have length, quickness, and are absolute terrors pressuring the ball, and when they’re out there, it’s a good sign that a funky Miami zone is coming.
Miami consistently has their wings who usually would be low and to the corners jump out to pressure the ball instead, denying corner passes and forcing the ball back to the middle. That’s a jargon-heavy way of saying that they dare opposing players to make skip passes, to find the open man on the opposite side before the pressure caves in. They want to make the offense think and pass around with hesitation for far too long before they realize where the opening actually is.
Also of note — the Heat love to send a random full court press at a moment’s notice. Sometimes they’re just trying to slow down a Maxey-esque individual and slow the pace of the opposing offense. Other times, they’re out there to pounce, with players like Martin and Highsmith flying around like maniacs and creating turnovers in the backcourt. The Sixers already committed three turnovers against the Miami press in their last two meetings, with each giveaway more infuriating than the last.
As someone who both hates careless, sloppy basketball and someone who wants the Sixers to win tonight, I beg of them — please don’t commit a turnover like those shown above ever again, and especially not against the Heat.
The Heat offense is already a struggle bus that needs a lot of Jimmy Butler free throws to keep pace with a good team. Do not give them free points they don’t have to earn in a halfcourt setting.
The Sixers Will Lose If …
They don’t make the passes that are required to break Miami’s zone defenses, and they let the Heat dictate the style of the game.
The Heat thrive off the indecisiveness of opponents come playoff time. The Heat’s zone defense takes away all their drives, they miss a few open threes they usually make, Jimmy gets a few jumpers to fall that extend the lead, and suddenly Miami is up 12 in the fourth quarter while the other team is nervously panicking left and right.
In all honesty, it’s certainly possible that could happen to the Sixers. If Embiid’s mid-range jumper is off, or if Maxey’s step-backs aren’t falling, it could spell trouble. Given how great both of the star duo have been this season, it’s certainly unlikely, but it’s far from impossible that two good shooters have bad shooting games. Hence the chaos of a single-elimination style event.
The Sixers can’t let the Heat jump out to an early lead and dictate the pace and rhythm of the game. That lets the Heat and their middling offense off the hook. It’s easier for them to win when they don’t have to worry about creating great shots possession-after-possession.
The Sixers Win If …
They play smart and break through the Heat’s zone defense, then let their talent do the rest of the work.
Go down each roster player-by-player, and it’s clear the Sixers have the better team. Their offense works much better than Miami’s stagnant half-court slog, and as good as the Heat defense is, no one on their team can completely wipe out shots and attempts at the rim like Joel Embiid. If the Sixers hit their open threes and don’t get caught up in the frustration of Jimmy’s foul grifting and Miami’s physical, chaotic defense, the Heat won’t be able to keep pace barring a the three-point shooting explosion to end all three-point shooting explosions.
As for the zone defense, there are plenty of principles to follow — put one player in each corner to scale down the aggressive pressure from the Heat’s low-wing defenders, set ball screens in ways that take advantage of the way the zone works, and so on. Nick Nurse is a good coach, and he too loves himself a wacky zone. He knows ways to counter it.
But ultimately, this is really just about the Sixers going out and being the 31-8 team they were this season in games with Embiid on the court. Even a team as zone-happy as the Heat like to start first quarters in man-to-man defense. Embiid and Maxey need to immediately toss that stuff in the garbage. Run dribble hand-offs and ball screens to death and prove that no two defenders on the Heat have any chance of hanging with them.
And when the Heat inevitably switch to zone defense, the mindset has to shift for the Sixers’ two stars as well. The Heat will be playing that defense to specifically take Embiid’s jumpers at the nail and Maxey’s drives. The two all-stars need to trust the supporting cast, find them for wide open threes, and trust that the players around them are good enough to force the Heat out of that zone in due time. The Sixers are the more talented team. The Heat are hoping to win with a scheme that traps opponents in a haze they can’t escape from. If the Sixers don’t freak out once the knuckleball is thrown, they’re going to knock ’em out of the park.
This is The Year. It has to be. Go out and send a message, and beat a team that the rest of the Eastern Conference is afraid of.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.