Things could be going a lot better for the Miami Heat right now. The team is in an unenviable 2-0 hole in the 2020 NBA Finals, losing each of the first two games in their series against LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers. They’re bruised and battered, with Bam Adebayo missing Game 2 due to a shoulder injury (he’s optimistic for a return on Sunday) and Goran Dragic an unknown because of a torn plantar fascia.
It’s not great! Their most recent loss, a 124-114 defeat on Friday night, saw them fix one major problem that existed during Game 1. Their offense was tremendous, with Jimmy Butler taking on the role of playmaker, Tyler Herro having a solid performance, and Kelly Olynyk giving them a major offensive punch off the bench. They got to the free throw line a ton and had plenty of success there, hitting 31 of their 34 attempts from the charity stripe, and connected on 40.7 percent of their threes, although they didn’t shoot quite as many as they needed (11-for-27).
Their offensive rating was 125.1, which is very, very good. Their issue, however, has been on the defensive end of the floor. In Game 1, the Lakers had an offensive rating of 120.3. In Game 2, that number kicked up to 136(!), which is so good that the Golden State Warriors never hit that in any of the nine full NBA Finals games they played with Kevin Durant in the lineup. (Funny enough, the Cleveland Cavaliers managed to do that against them one time in those nine games.)
The numbers, in general, are incredibly not kind to the Heat on the defensive end of the floor. The Lakers are carving up their defense, with an effective field goal percentage of 56.6 percent and a true shooting percentage of 59.9 percent. An incredible 44.2 percent of their shots during the Finals have been threes considered “open” or “wide open,” per NBA.com. Those shots made up 32.1 percent of their shots during the regular season and 32.7 percent of their shots in the playoffs before the Finals. And of course, while that’s happening, Davis and James are getting basically whatever they want.
Getting Adebayo back and healthy should help solidify Miami’s defense a little more, if only because it means Olynyk — a very good offensive player who competes on defense but isn’t exactly Rudy Gobert — will play less. But even then, the Heat have just had zero answer for so much of what the Lakers can do. Even their vaunted zone, which has flummoxed opponents for lengthy spells throughout this postseason, just hasn’t been able to put the clamps on L.A.
Things really can’t get all that much worse and, because of this, I would like to suggest a possible solution: The Heat, which pride themselves more than any other team in basketball on their ability to out-work their opponents, should play defense like one of those overactive mid-major teams that makes the NCAA Tournament, raises hell, and goes on a run.
Consider, for a moment, the kinds of things you have come to expect out of those sorts of squads, like, say, VCU under Shaka Smart when they went all-in on Havoc, or West Virginia in those years when they have their best teams due to a high-intensity brand of basketball. These squads defend 94 feet, trap like crazy, do everything they can to force turnovers, and just generally try to throw opposing teams out of their rhythm. Even if they can’t generate a ton of turnovers or anything like that, the main goal is to do that last thing: rattle the opponent and make them uncomfortable.
Does this mean playing man-to-man for 94 feet? Sure! What about a full-court zone, either a 2-2-1 or a 1-2-1-1 or something like that? Why not! Miami’s defense, right now, could not be struggling any more against the team that was 11th in offensive rating in the NBA during the regular season. While the Lakers have two absolutely brilliant offensive players in Davis and James, they are not the offensive juggernaut that we’ve seen through two Finals games — their ORtg during the regular season was 112, it was 115.6 through the first three rounds of the playoffs, and in the Finals thus far, it’s been 126.3.
It is entirely plausible that this is just the Lakers playing really, really well, and as the series continues, they come back to earth a little bit. Even if their two stars do not slow down, the Heat banking on stuff like “Alex Caruso, Markieff Morris, and Rajon Rondo won’t continue to combine to hit 48.3 percent of their threes” probably isn’t the worst idea in the world. If I may briefly counter: It’s the NBA Finals, they have to win four of the next six games, and if the Lakers win twice, it’s over. They need to throw the farm at L.A., and why not try to do something extremely weird, like “play defense like an overly caffeinated 12-seed that wins by double-digits”?
The funny thing is the Heat have players to be able to pull off this kind of chaotic style, even for stretches. Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, and Andre Iguodala are all very good, very versatile, and very competitive defenders. Adebayo coming back gives them an anchor to whatever they’d what to do, and would, in theory, give the guys in front of him the freedom to fly around and do whatever they want to hunt turnovers. A lot would be asked of, say, Tyler Herro or Duncan Robinson, who would need to stay on the floor so their offense does not completely crater, but while they are hardly stout defenders, “go stand there and trap the ball-handler in the backcourt” is something they can probably do.
There is a pretty obvious achilles heel here: rebounding. But the thing is the Heat are going to get absolutely shredded on the glass no matter what happens. The Lakers have absolutely owned the glass in this series, which is not particularly stunning, because they have more big and long and physical guys than the Heat do. It is impossible to punt on something when you can’t, and unless they decide to throw out a Butler-Olynyk-Adebayo-Udonis Haslem-Meyers Leonard lineup (please do this, Erik Spoelstra), they’re gonna continue getting hammered on the glass. It will be tough, but they can, instead, sell out on trying to turn the Lakers over a ton — L.A. was 23rd in the league in turnover percentage this year.
Listen, Miami’s in a tough spot right now, and even if they can get healthy between now and Game 3, they have a major, uphill battle ahead of them. It’s worth trying out everything to fix what has been an especially porous defense, which means it is worth trying to make games as weird as humanly possible by playing defense like a hyper-aggressive mid-major college basketball team.
