Coups' Notebook Vol. 85: Miamis' Offensive Three Step, Tyler Herro Puts Himself In Rare Company, The Smiths Stabilize And The Heat Are Watching Their Corners
The Miami HEAT are 12-10, No. 5 in the Eastern Conference, with an Offensive Rating of 114.1, No. 9 in the league, and Defensive Rating of 111.5, No. 11. Currently sitting on a three-game winning streak, here’s what we’ve been noting and noticing.
THE ACTION IS THE JUICE
Over their last three games the HEAT have an Offensive Rating of 132.2, just the third time in franchise history that they’ve had such efficient offense over a three-game stretch. Perhaps even more noteworthy, it’s the first time in franchise history that they’ve had three consecutive games of such prolific offense outside of April, important because April games tend to be a little inflated by teams winding down at the end of the season, either because their year is about to end and they’re out of the playoff race or because their postseason seeding is secured and they start resting players as they gear up for a run.
Put simply, this might be the best offensive stretch in franchise history and it’s happening right after their worst offensive game of the season when they put up just 93.3 points per 100 possessions on the second night of a back-to-back in Boston.
The driver of all of this is clearly the three-point shooting with Miami shooting 45.7 percent on 38.7 attempts per game. They haven’t been doing anything abnormal as far as creating live-ball turnovers or fast-break points, their offensive rebounding has been good but within the general range of expectations and they aren’t getting to the line all that much. They’ve simply been lights out in the halfcourt scoring 113.9 points-per-100 plays outside of transition, not including second chances. For reference, the Celtics lead the league in halfcourt scoring at 107.4 per 100, while Miami is No. 13 at 99.5.
Is all this sustainable? Of course not. Outliers are outliers for a reason. Anytime you ask whether something is sustainable after learning that it’s one of the best stretches or streaks or spans in the history of a franchise, that thing is inherently unsustainable otherwise it wouldn’t be so impressive. Nobody will shoot this well forever, not 48 percent on dribble threes in particular, which is akin to saying no apple will continue rising if you toss it up into the air. That’s no slight on anyone, merely the facts of the sport. The most important thing is capitalizing on these best-of stretches as they come. With wins in all three games, that’s mission accomplished.
What you also like to see is that Miami has had the highest shot quality, as tracked by Second Spectrum, in the league with an expected effective field-goal percentage of 55.6. In that sense, overshooting that expected rate by 7.2 percent makes all the shooting a little less wild with four teams outshooting their shot quality by more just in the past week.
Where is that Shot Quality coming from? It’s not coming from the threes, where Miami’s expected is typically lower than many teams and has dipped a bit this week, but on two-pointers. The Atlanta Hawks have derived the most expected value out of two-pointers at 55.1 expected eFG this season. Over these past three games, Miami has had an expected eFG of 58.9 on their twos, only slightly undershooting that sky-high value by less than a full percentage point. They aren't making more than they should, as far as tracking data goes, they're generating shots that should be made more often.
That’s where you do have to take a quick look at the opponents they’ve played. The Lakers were a bit of mess on the defensive end, to put it kindly, the Suns were missing Kevin Durant and Jusuf Nurkic as it related to length on defense and once Evan Mobley was injured, missing the second half, the Cavaliers went to a smallball, Dean Wade-at-center lineup for long stretches. Again, all situations that you want to capitalize on and Miami did, to their credit, but these are the sort of indicators to look for when you see a spike in something like expected two-point value.
What is sustainable is the improved process behind it all, a process that puts you in position to be opportunistic. Last year the HEAT had the lowest combined rim and three-point rate in the league, 64.1 percent of their offense coming from those two ranges. This year that number has climbed all the way up to 72.1 percent, good for No. 13 in the league. If you’re looking for the same sort of shots each night, then you’ve put yourself in position to have a three-game stretch like the one Miami is on when those shots present themselves.
TYLER HERRO HASN’T STOPPED
It looked for a minute like Herro’s percentages were going to start coming down to earth a bit. Not a problem overall considering just how many gains Herro has made to his shot profile and general floor game, the process far more encouraging than the percentages, but then he goes and has a week like this one and earns himself Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the first time in his career. Herro averaged 27.3 points over the past three games, with a ridiculous true-shooting percentage of 75.4 on 28.1 percent usage.
We won’t dwell on Herro too much since he’s giving us plenty to talk about each week, but just a few things to note from the past three games. First, Herro was not shooting very well against the Lakers, sitting at just 2-of-8 from three in the first half, but he stayed true to his process and kept hunting the same shots as he went 7-of-8 in the third quarter alone. Then, against Phoenix, the Suns spent the entire game trying to chase Herro off the line, and Herro responded by taking the driving lanes presented to him as he shot 6-of-7 in the paint. When a similar opportunity presented itself against Cleveland and the smallball lineups they went to in an effort to find some scorning, Herro again drove the ball, making 5-of-7 in the paint – that’s 11 paint makes over the course of two games, a perfect compliment to a player shooting the cover off the ball at 52 percent from three over the past three.
It's always a little dangerous running historical comps after a hot streak – even if the cold(er) spells have felt more like the outliers for Herro this season than the weeks like this one – but just for fun here are the players who have posted the numbers Herro is sitting at this season, at least 28 percent usage, at least 63 percent true-shooting and at least a 24 percent assist rate:
Steph Curry (6x)
Kevin Durant (6x)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (5x)
Nikola Jokic (4x)
LeBron James (3x)
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (1x)
Damian Lillard (1x)
Not bad company to keep, to say the least.
THE SMITHS
One of the most important moves Erik Spoelstra has made this season, so far at least, is moving to a starting lineup of Herro, Robinson, Butler, Haywood Highsmith and Bam Adebayo. The previous starting lineup had been a -20.8 Net per 100 possession in eight games, and the new one has been +20.8 Net in 10 games.
Part of that new group, of course, has been Highsmith. After not seeing playing time a few games earlier in the season, Highsmith is playing 27 minutes a night with Miami posting a Defensive Rating of 108.8, the equivalent of the No. 2 defense last season, and has been one of the main sources of defensive stabilization after a somewhat shaky opening few weeks for the team.
While Highsmith spent a week or so on the outside looking on in the rotation, Dru Smith had hardly played at all this season before the past week. When he did play, however, you could certainly feel Smith’s impact on the defensive end, always in someone’s airspace, his hands always making something happen. A strong individual stint against Boston earlier this in week in what was otherwise a forgettable team performance may have earned him more time, and during this three-game stretch Smith has averaged 22 minutes a game. For the season, Miami is defending at 98.3 points per 100 possessions with Smith on the court (140 minutes) which would have been a great number even a decade ago when league offensive wasn’t nearly at the current heights.
Want to get a little nutty with the numbers? In the 46 minutes that Smith and Highsmith have shared the court this season, Miami’s Defensive Rating is at 80.0.
Just as with the wildly efficient offense of this past week that number isn’t exactly close to sustainable but it is reflective of positive things happening underneath the surface. As reliable perimeter defenders on the ball and at the point of attack, Smith and Highsmith being steady means fewer situations where Adebayo has to call an audible and switch out or leave his station for extended help. The more Adebayo can stay home, the more Miami’s defense can keep its shape and Adebayo can be more targeted with his pitch mix. Against Phoenix on Sunday Devin Booker and Bradley Beal dealt with a variety of different coverages, some of which Adebayo calls on the fly, and it’s far easier to focus on disrupting the possession-to-possession rhythm of elite scorers – the same goes for Donovan Mitchell’s rough night on Sunday – when you’re on strong footing everywhere else. The Defensive Rating when Adebayo shares the court with Smith has been 97.6 in 79 minutes in part because Smith can play the second head of the hydra, working with Adebayo in two-man actions to disrupt and deter.
Neither Smith nor Highsmith is going to generate a ton of publicity outside of the local market. They’re both fairly quiet guys, off the court, and there’s nothing flashy about their games unless you’re the sort of person who finds beauty in solid, steady defense. Not exactly headline generators. Not even close. But those who care to follow the team closely should know just how valuable their contributions are. Adebayo may be the anchor, but The Smiths have plenty to do with the HEAT’s defense hovering just outside of the Top 10.
AIM FOR THE CORNERS
Last season the HEAT took the third-highest percentage of their total attempts from the corners at 11 percent.
There was, apparently, room for improvement.
Call them hammer screens. Call them pin-ins. Call them splashes. If you’ve watched any HEAT game this season you’ve probably noticed someone creating a shooting pocket in the corner with an off-ball screen. It’s not happening by accident. In fact, the HEAT started working on those exact actions early in training camp.
“It’s definitely been a high point of emphasis since training camp,” Haywood Highsmith said. “First day we were drilling it, we wanted to get more splashes, more stuff going on the weakside. Create more confusion.”
“It’s definitely something we’ve been trying to implement,” adds Duncan Robinson.
Only the Golden State Warriors – Steve Kerr spent time in San Antonio with the team that popularized hammer screens – have set more corner screens for a catch-and-shoot three this season. No team has taken more corner threes as a percent of their offense, that number having risen to 13 percent.
The HEAT came into the season wanting to optimize their shot profile in all the usual ways, doing what Tyler Herro has done in cutting down on mid-range attempts only on a macro scale, but they wanted to do it the right way. That meant not just taking more threes for the sake of taking more threes, but finding the right threes that fit their personnel.
“We want to try and leverage more attempts just in general without just coming past halfcourt and jacking up 30-foot threes,” Erik Spoelstra says. “If you can generate some of the corner threes . . . then that’s good for our team.”
Highsmith picked up an offensive foul the other night against the Lakers trying to seal off D’Angelo Russell from closing out on Robinson, and while Erik Spoelstra notes that as with any screening action the risk of a foul is the “cost of doing business” it also reflects that for as much volume as Miami is generating out of the corner, the timing of the screens is still a bit of a work in progress.
“Just trying to do too much,” Highsmith says.
“I don’t know that we have it fully figured out,” Robinson said. “We’re still working through that, it’s a work in progress. Just because we’re setting them that doesn’t mean they always the right timing or creating an opening, but we are setting them which is good.”
It might seem like a simple action, but as you watch the HEAT try to set the hammers enough times and you’ll quickly catch on to how many different variations there are. You could be the slot player dropping down to screen the low man, you could be in the corner and lifting up to screen the help defender at the elbow, like Highsmith was in the above clip, or you could be cutting in from the strong-side and you have to time it perfectly to stop the cut, turn and make contact as the drive-and-kick ball is delivered. A simple concept, maybe, but one which requires precise execution. Just keep an eye on the weakside corner next time Tyler Herro or Jimmy Butler or Terry Rozier drives. You just might see the shot coming before the defense even sees it coming.
TIDBITS
-Against Phoenix the Heat had a 104.4 Defensive Rating with Bam on the floor (34 minutes), a 142.9 Defensive Rating when he sat (14 minutes).
-On that note, Adebayo is currently tied for No. 10 in Defensive Estimate Plus/Minus at +2.2. Since his rookie year he’s never been below the 96th percentile in that metric among all players, landing in the 99th for all of the past three seasons.
-Tyler Herro, meanwhile, is in the 95th percentile for Offensive Estimated Plus/Minus, the highest mark of his career.
-The HEAT have drawn eight charges this season. Dru Smith, Kevin Love and Duncan Robinson have each taken two of them.