The Heat Should Be Dominating on Defense—Instead, They’re Last

The team that I'm most disappointed in, that you probably aren't shocked about is the Miami Heat.

OK, give it to me.

I'm just I think one thing I always respected so much about the Miami Heat was their culture.

Like everybody else, you, you, you, you respected the culture, you kind of bank on the culture, even in the downtime.

I remember having conversations, you and I, and being like, nah, I, I, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.

I think Spo and them are gonna figure it out, but I believe when you bring over such a dominant, impactful player.

Uh You're gonna take on a lot of the characteristics, like, you know what I mean?

And I think sometimes when it comes down to it, The success or the, the presence of Giannis, I feel as though it has withdrawn from the Heat culture and what they hang their hat on, which is great ball movement and quote unquote just defense.

They've been terrible defensively this whole year.

They've given up so many, so many 100, yeah, 120 point games, and I don't really know how to add it up because at the very least, I'm like, uh, we talked, I'm like, man, this might be the first team that takes it back to the 90s, early 1000s, and every game is 90 to 90.

And now we're sitting there and it looks like Milwaukee Bucks 2.0 and they're starting to become questions that need to be answered in a sense of how do you make it work and how are you gonna flow up, not flow around Giannis, but make Giannis flow better into their system because Him going, doing him night in and night out has not been advantageous, and it hasn't been great for the rest of the team in my personal opinion.

And, and, and you, you have no, no sniff or no sign of the heat culture.

That is the biggest problem.

I think that's the first sign to You know, the, the end all be all.

They got eliminate the, they, they got eliminated either first round or uh playing game the past 3 years, and now they're trying to make their do their big one, and I just don't think it's going to translate.

You know, I was at the um.

Clippers Heat game or yeah Clippers Heat game, uh, the other night and they shouldn't have won that.

I'm sorry for cutting you off.

They shouldn't have won that neither.

Like how do you leave Klay Thompson open in a corner for a 3 and like that was just young mistake, like, you know what I mean?

But like when I'm watching the second half of that game, I'm like this is how Miami should be defensively.

Like they gave up 40 points total in the second half, um.

They have the horses to do that.

Um, I, I know I saw, uh, Tim McMahon over on ESPN made the point that Giannis has not been a great defensive player for a couple of years.

I don't know if I completely agree with that.

I think, I mean, when I talked to coaches, he's still a pretty intimidating presence in the paint.

Now maybe he's not as good an on-ball defender as he once was, but him and Bam are still a pretty formidable defensive duo.

Daveon Mitchell.

You know, he's in the league because of his defense.

Um, Wiggins is still, he won a championship a couple of years ago, a few years ago now, uh, with his defense.

They should not be, as I pull up these numbers again, they should not be.

Uh, what is it?

26th in the NBA in defensive rating.

Like that , that shouldn't be the case.

They're giving up 123 points per game.

That's 28th in the NBA.

Like, they're getting beat off the dribble, which I guess, I think Klay Thompson is kind of a, a mid-defensive player now.

Uh, opponents are shooting a lot of 3s against him.

Uh, They're just, they don't look like they should.

And I've been banging this drum for a while.

Now some of that, again, to go back to the drum of banging is the speed, the pace of play, which what they, they play with.

They've embraced this kind of, this fast offense again and this high possession offense and it hasn't led to real efficiencies, uh, necessarily.

They're 19th right now, I think in an offensive rating.

Um, and it's created more opportunities for other teams to score on the other end of the floor.

Like, if you increase the number of possessions, you're increasing the number of possessions on the other end too , and I think that's been a huge problem for them.

But like, man, what, what they did in the second half against the Clippers, locking in, like that's the kind of team I want to see .

I don't want to see them going up and down, giving the ball to Giannis and letting him just bulldoze his way to the rim.

And when it, when it, when it doesn't work and they get a 3 on the other end.

You can't win like that.

You, you, you can't win at a high level like that.

I've got enormous respect for Erik Spoelstra, who's still, you know, top 5 coach in the NBA, um, but I just disagree with the way this team is playing.

I think they're playing.

You know, counterintuitively to how they, they should with the roster they have.

No, and , and, and, as Tony vets for that to be occurring as well.

That's what, that's what makes it crazy.

It's just like.

It's time to get it together, like just defensively, how they're like.

It's, it's just, there's no reason for it, and, and they need to be able to try to win, make stops and get it, get it going, and it's just been ugly basketball to watch in my personal opinion, so I hope they turn it around.

Yeah, I mean, We're looking back at the stat.

What do you think of what Doc said about Giannis?

You know, I actually, you know, I'm sure a lot of people just read the quote didn't watch the clip.

I don't think Doc was saying it in a, I mean, it is a negative thing to say, but like he was trying, he was a part of a broader point about conversations he's had.

With Giannis, and you know he claims he's had the exact same conversation with Giannis before, particularly when it comes to execution, um, you know, understanding the value of it like Giannis, and I, and I agree with him.

Giannis throughout his career, uh, from start to finish just been like, go, go, go, like just I'm gonna get to the rim.

I'm gonna overpower you.

I'm gonna overwhelm you, and he has not really evolved, um, you know, you look at some of these 3-point numbers, uh, not including this season, but they have progressively declined.

Year after year, usually in today's modern NBA, excuse me, today's modern NBA.

You know, if you're a big, those numbers are going up.

Even if you're not efficient at it, you're still shooting more 3s than, um, you did early in your career.

Giannis is not doing that.

He is an inside the rim player.

I was watching the, the Golden State game.

I think he made an early 3, I wanna say, and like then he took a couple more.

It's like, it's a gift.

It's like a gift to the Warriors.

Like every time you're pulling up for any kind of semi-contested 3.

That's a gift to the other team.

So, yeah, I mean, I get what Doc was saying.

Obviously gonna get killed for it for calling Giannis a low IQ guy, but I get what he said about the execution part that Giannis probably needs to have, uh, take more, uh, pride ownership, whatever you wanna call it, in executing late in games.

What did you think?

Yeah.

I'm a big Giannis fan, so uh even though it don't sound like it, but when you're a basketball purist, or you're like, you have to compare them to some of the other players, it's like, hey man.

It'll always make you scratch your head because you can't really scream, you know, his skill set killed you more than, more so in his presence and his physicality and its natural sheer determination.

I remember Dame saying like, hey man, one thing about Giannis, say what you want, but man, he's a dog and he, he goes hard every single play, and I wouldn't want to go to war with anybody else.

But he's just like, to, to try to adapt to play with him, it's a unique situation.

And, and I feel as though you have to have Very high skilled players around to make him look just as better.

I go back to that championship that he won in what, 21?

Was it 21, 202?

Yeah, look at all those shots that occurred, like Drew, Pat Connington, Chris Middleton.

They were shooting 2 or 3 ft behind the three-point line.

You kind of played 4 men around a guy just driving and penetrating, and when he couldn't find it, he was driving and kicking and throwing a, throwing a pass at your knees.

And I'm not saying that wasn't a negative thing, it was just like we, we forced this playmaking situation and skill set that he had, and, and he was basically has been hooping like an evolved Jalen Duran.

Like he's , he's hooped like a fine man with, with, with opportunity, and I feel as though when it comes down to IQ.

You, you Is what he wants to do as a ball handler or point forward , you have to label it that way.

You know what I mean?

Even when you watch the Dallas Mavericks , some of the stuff where you can set, set a defense to get Giannis to travel.

Like they were setting a box on one side loaded up and Giannis was still trying to go 100 MPH and I'm like, man, he had 7 or 8 turnovers.

So I'm like, for a two-time MVP Defensive Player of the Year, a guy that played so for, for so many years and seen so much, how are you getting forced into travels or into these mundane mistakes?

Am, am I wrong for saying that sometimes?

Like, no, like, like, yeah, I mean, he, he is like you watch him sometimes and it's like, wow, it's awesome.

But sometimes he is just driving straight to traffic, um.

And is, is inefficiently, inefficiently for them.

So like, I just got real concerns overall about Miami.

I don't, I don't.

I don't see this turning around unless they radically change their style of play.

I think they're gonna have nights where they do lock in like they did in the second half against the Clippers, but the Clippers are terrible.

The Clippers are one of the worst teams in the NBA.

Yeah, they're, they're literally like trying to just develop like, hey, I wanna make sure everybody gets going, but But, but do you try to get Darius Garland going out there?

That's not going well, yeah, or Kobe Sanders and all those guys.

But, but what I'm saying is with Giannis, is there any way to Like to tone down his presence though.

Like he, he plays hard, he can, like, is there any, you have to cut his minutes.

Like, do you know what I mean?

Like because no matter what, I just feel as though His presence is gonna take on an identity.

It before it used to feel like a, an undertone of bam, and Bam could kind of lead the way in, in certain ways.

Now that is, is gone, and it's just a Miami Bucks team in my personal opinion.

I don't, I don't know how you, how you fix.

I've heard that comparison to, you know, that they're kind of playing like Milwaukee.

Bam has looked lost for most of the season on the offensive end of the floor.

Mitchell's been really good, um, yeah, he used to been balling.

He's been good on both ends, um, but I just, I'll die on this hill, man.

They just slow the game down, try to win 90s style basketball, be physical, grind out possessions on offense, get to the free throw line, make it ugly.

Pat Riley basketball, make it ugly out there because playing high possession.

Chicago a lot of 2 3s.

Yeah, Chicago Chicago cross screens just post up like cause you don't have Tyler Hero anymore, that guy to give the dribble handoffs to or or or literally nothing.

It has to be a what, a 60 possession game maybe like ugly.