Miami Heat: Diagnosing the recent struggles of the team

Diagnosing the recent struggles of the Miami Heat: Miami has opened the doors to the paint

Rim defense is comprised of two parts – deterrence and prevention. All teams want to deter shots from ever taking place at the rim and then prevent those shots that are attempted from going in.

It may come as a surprise to some, but Miami’s defense has never been great at the second part. Since November 3, opposing teams have been shooting a blistering 71 percent at the hoop, but even before that, they were shooting 67 percent; both very poor numbers.

What’s changed is that Miami went from allowing the second-fewest rim attempts to a league-average number of attempts, and it’s killed their defensive rating. As mentioned above, the Heat ideally would limit rim attempts and force teams to beat them shooting jumpers, but that hasn’t been the case as of late. A team can’t be bad at both deterring and preventing layups and expect to field a strong defense.

Bam Adebayo is an All-World defender, who is incredible on the perimeter and in space, but he’s weakest right under the basket. Despite holding players to significantly lower shooting percentages when they are at least six feet from the basket, opponents are shooting exactly what is expected at the rim against him.

Adebayo’s been better than this in the past, but he is slightly undersized for a center. Some of the NBA’s giant brutes, like Jokic, can bully him. He doesn’t get as many blocks as you might expect.

Duncan Robinson tries hard, but he is targeted every time he checks into the game. Opponents are attempting as many dunks and layups against Robinson as against Bam and hitting them an absurd 73 percent of the time. He’s committing the most fouls of his career. It’s a similar story with Herro, too.

However, that is all expected. One thing that was not expected coming into this season was Kyle Lowry’s defensive struggles. A strong positive on that end for his career, Lowry has been gambling a little too often (as seen in the clip above) and has been getting torched by opponents, who are shooting 10 percent better than average against Lowry overall. He’s strong and intelligent but doesn’t have the length to bother jump shooters or make plays in the post.

The eye test for Lowry isn’t as bad as the numbers would suggest, but it’s clear there is room for improvement on that end. I suspect the shooting numbers against him will settle down over a larger sample and as Lowry adjusts. He’s too smart of a player to keep making the same mistakes.

The Miami Heat also need to re-emphasize protecting the paint and allowing more jump shots to protect players like Herro and Robinson that will never be Mutombo. That is more about effort than anything else, and the Heat defense should rebound with a little more rest.