Seeing the Heat in person isn’t only about seeing LeBron James and Dwyane Wade up close and personal. From where I was in the upper reaches of the AmericanAirlines Arena, the real show wasn’t the individual excellence, but the incredible activity and organization of the Heat’s defensive rotations as a team.
When we speak about how well a team rotates on defense there are two areas for evaluation: how quickly do the rotating players get to their spots, and do the defenders rotate to the threat. The first part takes effort, the second intelligence. Today, the Heat exhibited a high degree of both, holding the Clippers to just 32.5 percent shooting.
From the tip, the Heat’s players were more energetic than efficient, but their aggressive and prompt rotations put them in front when only Wade looked sharp offensively. Without Clippers’ leading scorer Eric Gordon on the court, the Heat seemed well-prepared for a continuous stream of pick-and-rolls between Baron Davis and Blake Griffin.
As the roll man, the havoc that Griffin creates by attacking the rim and finishing or kicking out to open shooters can dismantle team defenses. The Heat know that once Griffin establishes any momentum, his agility, speed and power make him a nearly unstoppable force. Today, the Heat ran help (usually a guard) from the weakside baseline the get in Griffin’s chest on the catch and to prevent lobs while Griffin’s recovering defender hustled back to form an instant double-team on the explosive rookie.
A second-half Clipper possession was instructive as to the strong defensive effort the Heat put in all afternoon. Off a high Davis-Griffin pick-and-roll, Eddie House and Joel Anthony sandwiched Griffin on the left baseline. Griffin kicked the ball cross-court without really presenting a threat to any of the Heat’s weakside defenders, who rotated rapidly to the spot-up threat, Ryan Gomes. Gomes, covered and without a clean pass to the other shooting threat, slung it to DeAndre Jordan, uncovered in the short, right corner.
But let's go back to the initial Griffin pass: As the soon as the ball left Griffin’s hands, House sprinted to Jordan and met him on the catch. This prevented him from putting the ball on the deck and backing down the much smaller guard. Jordan instead threw the ball out to Baron Davis, who now only had four seconds left on the shot clock and Dwyane Wade in his mug. Davis drove to his left hand but, as the Heat defenders were aware of the shot clock, he was swarmed and ended up desperately heaving up an airball.
So, not only did the rotation to Griffin out of the pick-and-roll come quickly, but the Heat defenders rotated correctly. They didn’t just rotate to the guy near the basket, they rotated to the threat that Griffin presents, namely annihilation by thermo-nuclear dunk. Then they contained the shooting threats (without addressing Jordan), prioritizing rotations by threat level. The ball ended up in the Clippers’ least skilled offensive player, who had no choice but to reset things. Unfortunately for Baron, there was precious little time to create, and Wade’s awareness of the clock only made Davis’s task more difficult.
Result: turnover.
Contrast that aggressive rotation with an instance in the fourth quarter, when DeAndre Jordan inexplicably popped instead of rolled off a high pick-and-roll, again with Baron Davis. In this case, the Heat defenders rotated hard to the basket to protect against the lob, but not one player moved a muscle towards the 7-footer stranded at the 3-point line. On the perimeter, Jordan represents threat level “nil”, so no rotation came, even though a player was wide open.
It’s that accurate triage that distinguishes good defenses from the best. Bad teams don’t rotate, good teams rotate quickly, and the best rotate fluently. From my lofty vantage point, I observed exactly why the Heat allow the second lowest opponent field goal percentage in the league.
