Two Observations From Last Night's Heat Game

[fairweatherfan]

BTW, who called this in the game thread:

"Sorry if everyone thought we were going to go 82-0. It just ain't happening."

-- Guard Dwyane Wade after Miami's season-opening defeat

Step up and get your TP.

[the_Bird]

I figured something out.

Bosh = Antoine Jamison. 

A 20/10 guy on a bad team when SOMEONE has to score and SOMEONE has to grab rebounds, but but him on a good team and he withers into the background.  On a good team, a 14/7 guy.  Jump-shooter who doesn't play much D or do anything to really help his team win when his shot isn't falling.

[mmbaby]

2. The Pat Riley watch officially began with last night's Heat loss.  My over/under for when he takes over as head coach of the Heat is December 15.  Eric S does not have the presence to coach those egos. In over his head.

Did you hear when they had audio from each team's timeout huddle?  I think it was in the second quarter.  Doc had a real presence and you could tell the guys were listening to him.  Spoelstra sounded like he was nervous and intimidated, and had no idea what to say to his guys.  "uhh....the opening jitters are out of the way.....um.....let's go get em now...." followed by silence.

You're absolutely right, he seems way over his head with the superstars on that team.  Doc may not be the greatest Xs and Os coach in the world, but he's definitely a great motivator.  Spoelstra...not so much.

Funny, I heard that too...opening jitters out of the way...it sounded kind of desperate to me. It just didn't sound right.

LeBron: Maybe he has to take over, which he did, when no one's making a bucket. He had, I think, 29 points. If not for him, Heat would have had an even more embarrassing loss.

[Evantime34]

My observations...

1.  The Cs played pretty well.  The only real thing I noticed was that when Miami went with Bosh and Haslem in the 4th quarter, I would have liked to have seen a real effort by Boston to get Shaq or JO in the game and get them the ball in the post.  I think that would have helped the team get some buckets or foul shots when the Heat were scrambling back.

2.  I think I may have been completely wrong about the way Miami is going to play.  I thought they'd run a fairly traditional offense with Arroyo (who's a mediocre PG at worst) doing the dirty work while Wade, Bron and Bosh spaced out the floor so defenses couldn't focus on any one of them.  Instead, it looked like they really are going to try and play with either Wade or Bron acting as the point guard, probably with Mike Miller along with them most of the time.  And I think the result is going to be what we saw last night - a stagnant offense where no one gets easy shots and the team relys on Bron and Wade making incredible plays to win.

3.  The Heat are going to be better than what they were last night and I can imagine a way they could win a playoff series against Boston.  I don't think they will, but I could imagine it happening.  I don't see ANY way the Heat get past the Magic with Howard or LA with Gasol and an even marginally healthy Bynum.  Bosh is soft, Haslem is undersized and the rest of the Heat bigs stink on ice.

Mike

1. I agree that Shaq should have played more against that lineup to start the 4th. Doc made this comment which leads me to believe in the future you will get your wish about Shaq playing more. Quote is about Baby.
"Right now, he's the fifth guy because he knows a lot of our stuff. JO [Jermaine O'Neal] and Shaq will get theirs [minutes], but we've got to make sure we milk Baby until then."

2. If Miami runs that same iso offense with their 3 taking turns they will not be effective. Rondo is the key to the real big 3 and the Heat don't have anyone to play that role.

3. Agreed, Shaq was killing Anthony and Z. Dwight Howard is going to do the same only 10x worse.

[Fafnir]

3. Rebounding. Although they could have done better this team is clearly a better rebounding team than last years addition.

They rebounded almost exactly their average last year. (by percentage of OReb and DReb)

I was encouraged by KG and Pierce's rebounding with my eyes but the stats weren't as impressive as I thought.

I am surprised by those stats. I feel like it might have seemed more impressive because of the high turnover numbers for both teams. Meaning that most possessions in which the ball weren't scored were turnovers not missed shots, which decreases the rebounding numbers.

Not looking at the numbers, Shaq looks like a better rebounder than Perk. Pierce, KG, Shaq, BBD and JO all looked good rebounding the basketball.

Okay looking at things again I was off in the above quote.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats

We did rebound better than I thought, I did the stats off the boxscore but that's a rough estimate due to turnovers like you mention.

Our rebound rate last year was 49.1 (25th) and last night it was 51.9 (which would have been top 5 in the league)

My math had us defensive rebounding at a 72% clip, which would have been the same as last year. Hollinger has 75%....

I need to refresh on how to calculate rebound rate accurately.

[papa shuttlesworth]

I figured something out.

Bosh = Antoine Jamison. 

A 20/10 guy on a bad team when SOMEONE has to score and SOMEONE has to grab rebounds, but but him on a good team and he withers into the background.  On a good team, a 14/7 guy.  Jump-shooter who doesn't play much D or do anything to really help his team win when his shot isn't falling.

I agree.  I think it will become very apparent very quickly that Bosh is nowhere in the same league as Lebron and Wade. 

[Fafnir]

I figured something out.

Bosh = Antoine Jamison. 

A 20/10 guy on a bad team when SOMEONE has to score and SOMEONE has to grab rebounds, but but him on a good team and he withers into the background.  On a good team, a 14/7 guy.  Jump-shooter who doesn't play much D or do anything to really help his team win when his shot isn't falling.

I don't think Bosh is a poor defender, he didn't look to be a poor defender last night to me.

If he really keeps hitting the offensive glass hard like he was all year it will go a long way towards making that team work.

[footey]

I figured something out.

Bosh = Antoine Jamison. 

A 20/10 guy on a bad team when SOMEONE has to score and SOMEONE has to grab rebounds, but but him on a good team and he withers into the background.  On a good team, a 14/7 guy.  Jump-shooter who doesn't play much D or do anything to really help his team win when his shot isn't falling.

I agree.  I think it will become very apparent very quickly that Bosh is nowhere in the same league as Lebron and Wade. 

He is no super star, but Bosh is much better than Jamison. Younger, bigger, faster, and more efficient.

[wdleehi]

I saw a team that has not spend any court time together that are far from mid season form run into a top defensive team (that also showed some rust out there, but better chemistry)



We also saw Lebron ready to share with his teammates, but since they were no ready, he took over and put his team back into this game. 


For all the talk of Lebron taking a back seat, he is still the best player on that team. 


Wade is out of sync.  He will get better as he knocks off the rust. 


Bosh is much better then he showed, but can he adjust to being the 3rd option?  And will Miami run enough plays for him to be worth what they are paying him?


Celtics did show who the team to beat in the East in the playoffs are, but it is still way to soon to just look past Miami as the new Cleveland. 

[Evantime34]

3. Rebounding. Although they could have done better this team is clearly a better rebounding team than last years addition.

They rebounded almost exactly their average last year. (by percentage of OReb and DReb)

I was encouraged by KG and Pierce's rebounding with my eyes but the stats weren't as impressive as I thought.

I am surprised by those stats. I feel like it might have seemed more impressive because of the high turnover numbers for both teams. Meaning that most possessions in which the ball weren't scored were turnovers not missed shots, which decreases the rebounding numbers.

Not looking at the numbers, Shaq looks like a better rebounder than Perk. Pierce, KG, Shaq, BBD and JO all looked good rebounding the basketball.

Okay looking at things again I was off in the above quote.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats

We did rebound better than I thought, I did the stats off the boxscore but that's a rough estimate due to turnovers like you mention.

Our rebound rate last year was 49.1 (25th) and last night it was 51.9 (which would have been top 5 in the league)

My math had us defensive rebounding at a 72% clip, which would have been the same as last year. Hollinger has 75%....

I need to refresh on how to calculate rebound rate accurately.

If it makes you feel better I have never tried to calculate that and don't know what the equation is to do so.

On a bright note both our eyes were correct in our initial opinion about the rebounding.

[Fan from VT]

I thought Bosh looked bored. Which was awesome. If the Heat are going to play alternating one-on-one isos with Wade and Lebron, Bosh is useless; he's not a defender/dirty man like KG and not the same passer either. KG's personality is one reason Pierce/Allen/KG worked so well. Bosh is used to (and most effective as) being a go-to guy on offense; with Wade and Lebron, at least playing the way they did last night (we'll see if that continues or it was due to Celtics' defense), Bosh's best talents are rendered ineffective. Love it. If this is the way they are going to play, it looks like they would have been better off paying 14.5 million spread around 2-3 solid players to surround Wade/Lebron than adding Bosh, whose talents (High scoring via very good ball-dominating one-on-one play) overlap Wade's and Lebron's too much.

[Fafnir]

If it makes you feel better I have never tried to calculate that and don't know what the equation is to do so.

On a bright note both our eyes were correct in our initial opinion about the rebounding.

It probably has to due with free throw rebounds as well as team rebounds.

What always surprises me is how a simple 3 percent increase in defensive rebounding takes the team up to the top of the league rebounding. That's only a couple a game....

[moiso]

I figured something out.

Bosh = Antoine Jamison. 

A 20/10 guy on a bad team when SOMEONE has to score and SOMEONE has to grab rebounds, but but him on a good team and he withers into the background.  On a good team, a 14/7 guy.  Jump-shooter who doesn't play much D or do anything to really help his team win when his shot isn't falling.

It was one game for Bosh, against perhaps the best defender at his position in the league.  Bosh may be a little on the soft side, but no way he is a 14/7 guy.  He'll be fine.  Especially against defenders other than KG.

[Drucci]

My observations...

1.  The Cs played pretty well.  The only real thing I noticed was that when Miami went with Bosh and Haslem in the 4th quarter, I would have liked to have seen a real effort by Boston to get Shaq or JO in the game and get them the ball in the post.  I think that would have helped the team get some buckets or foul shots when the Heat were scrambling back.

I thought the same thing and would have liked to see Shaq back in the game but I think it's obvious Doc didn't want to put him on the court to avoid Hack a Shaq.

Like Fafnir I had the impression we did a much better job on the boards than last year but the numbers were the same. Weird, although I'm pretty sure Pierce and KG got way more rebounds than their average last year in that area.

[the_Bird]

I thought Bosh looked bored. Which was awesome. If the Heat are going to play alternating one-on-one isos with Wade and Lebron, Bosh is useless; he's not a defender/dirty man like KG and not the same passer either. KG's personality is one reason Pierce/Allen/KG worked so well. Bosh is used to (and most effective as) being a go-to guy on offense; with Wade and Lebron, at least playing the way they did last night (we'll see if that continues or it was due to Celtics' defense), Bosh's best talents are rendered ineffective. Love it. If this is the way they are going to play, it looks like they would have been better off paying 14.5 million spread around 2-3 solid players to surround Wade/Lebron than adding Bosh, whose talents (High scoring via very good ball-dominating one-on-one play) overlap Wade's and Lebron's too much.

I think they should have gone after Boozer instead of Bosh.  He's had more injuries and he's older, but he's a legit low-post player (a department they are very much lacking in), he's a hard-nosed rebounder, he's a better defender.  

Plus, THEN how much would Cleveland hate those guys!