How Victor Wembanyama and Spurs picked apart the Heat's defense

Looking up at the scoreboard and you see 76 points on your head at halftime. Go head to the concessions at halftime to grab your popcorn and soda, sit back down early in the third quarter, and the Spurs have 91 points less than halfway through the quarter.

Moral of the story: the Heat weren't able to defend this San Antonio squad.

It was from all areas of the floor too: dominating the offensive rebounds with 9 to 1 in the opening half, 46% shooting from three on 22 total attempts by the midway mark, and the real topic of the night: a whole lot of attacking mismatches.

Although the Heat got some of their wing depth back as Andrew Wiggins and Jaime Jaquez Jr returned, there are still many areas to attack when good teams walk into this building.

Norman Powell, Tyler Herro, Kel'el Ware, and yes, Davion Mitchell were getting their number called often to attack downhill.

The Spurs have a plethora of offensive options when it comes to their half-court scoring, and their guard room was going to work. A hot start for De'Aaron Fox, bully ball from Dylan Harper, and downhill creation from Stephon Castle.

But the real reason the Heat were being torched on defense started and ended with the name Victor Wembanyama.

WEMBY GOOD GRIEF pic.twitter.com/BKqtqxji8S
— SleeperHoops (@Sleeper_Hoops) March 24, 2026

He puts an insane amount of stress on a defense with his face-up ability alone, and that's when Bam Adebayo is defending him one-on-one on the perimeter.

After the face-up interior shot making got rolling, he started making his impact as a roll man, which is Miami's true defensive weakness as any Spurs guard could send it up to space and Wemby would catch it before throwing it down.

Much like Miami did against Luka Doncic and the Lakers, they weren't sending *too* much help and doubles his way. In the non-zone minutes, Miami's trying to limit the help off the perimeter for open threes against these better squads, but the issue is that they aren't shutting the water off in that department either.

Funny enough, the Heat's zone did some of the better work in that first half, specifically in the non-Wemby minutes.

But that can be viewed as both a positive and negative thing. When fully healthy, Miami's man to man defense takes an obvious hit, and it's a real dilemma that Erik Spoelstra and the staff will have to sort through.

Spo and Bam got into it a bit ago after being subbed out

Appears he’s trying to mirror his minutes with Wemby

After playing 45 minutes last game, Bam doesn’t want to leave the floor again
— Brady Hawk (@BradyHawk305) March 24, 2026

The team tanks on that end of the floor when Adebayo exits, so much so that Spoelstra played him 45 minutes a game ago in Houston.

Fast forward to tonight, and Spo is getting into it with Adebayo as he was frustrated that he was being taken out in that second quarter after Wembanyama went to the bench.

This team isn't talented enough offensively to sacrifice the defense, so it needs to be addressed.