Heat Drop Defensive Battle with West’s No. 1 Seed
The Oklahoma City Thunder are the No. 1 team in the Western Conference. Even if you had never watched them play before, it doesn’t take many minutes to figure that much out for yourself.
The visitors came into tonight in an interesting situation, not only playing with just one healthy center – a few ago they had zero healthy centers – but on their third game in four nights after playing in the NBA Cup Final in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and yet you wouldn’t have guessed it from the start of this one beyond a handful of sloppy turnovers. The Thunder are putting up historically good defensive numbers through the first few months of the season and they pushed Miami’s offense well off kilter with their aggressiveness early on.
Even if they didn’t have many obvious weak spot to pick at in the Thunder’s defense and lost Jimmy Butler to an illness midway through the first quarter, Miami found just enough offense despite a cold start from three. Call it random offense if you want, but random is just another way of looking at opportunistic, and the HEAT did well to find the seams where they were, a few Tyler Herro drives here, a couple Jaime Jaquez Jr. cuts there. A nice seven-point burst from Nikola Jovic, including an and-one post-up on Isaiah Joe, closed a gap that was threatening to push into double-digits.
It was Miami’s defense, though, that was well and truly keeping things close. For the most part, even with Oklahoma City hitting a fair number of threes (8-of-20 in the first half) it was the zone, sealing off driving lanes while the Thunder’s probes came up empty. Keeping a good scoring group to a 106.4 Offensive Rating is more than enough for a win, Miami just had to keep finding the offense where they could against an opponent yielding very little.
Things weren’t exactly looking good early in the third, Oklahoma City jumping ahead by nine as Bam Adebayo went back to the locker room after sustaining a blow to the head, but then it was Herro’s turn. A mid-range jumper, a drive – with the Thunder playing small, there was little, if any, shotblocking in the game – and consecutive assists for corner threes in front of Miami’s bench all combined for a 10-0 run and a rather sudden lead.
And yet, the Thunder took the lead right back, a quick run of their own to go back up seven capped off by a transition three from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Adebayo returned soon after that, seven stiches later, as Herro answered back with a three. For as much as Miami was playing for the paint with force, their offense struggled for traction when the layup wasn’t there, the Gilgeous-Alexander doing just enough to push the lead into double digits headed into the fourth.
Duncan Robinson and Jalen Williams traded a series of jumpers early in the final period, Miami hanging around but unable to eat too much into the deficit even as they continued to find scores at the rim. Still, a little here and a little there and Miami was slowly within six. A clutch game, eventually, the Thunder still answering most makes with makes of their own.
Even as they were down nine with just over a minute to play, the result of a corner three from Williams, a Herro three and an Bam Adebayo free-throw kept the window open. Temporarily, at least, before an offensive rebound by Alex Caruso shrunk the clock dramatically. Oklahoma City takes it, 104-97, as the HEAT head to Orlando for a back-to-back.
2. With Butler leaving the game in the first quarter this one felt a bit like Miami’s series against Boston last year, Herro having to take on the bulk of the offensive load, both in a scoring and creation sense, against an elite defense. To his credit, Herro played like he did in that revelatory Game 2 in Boston, scoring 28 on 24 shots to go with 12 rebounds, five assists, three steals and, crucially, zero turnovers, all while getting into the paint a ton and taking just one mid-range jumpers while guarded by every elite defender the Thunder could throw at him.
There just wasn’t enough, particularly from a creation sense, beyond him unless the threes were falling, particularly with Adebayo missing time to get stitches to his head. On the Thunder’s side, meanwhile, they didn’t get their best game from Gilgeous-Alexander (25 points on 25 shots) but he was able to lean on Williams (33 on 25) for long stretches as Williams balanced catch-and-shoot threes with mid-range creation, his soft jumpers answering every bit of momentum the HEAT were able to gather.
Each side had reasons to feel they weren’t at full strength tonight. Each side made the other look disjointed and sloppy at times. The Thunder just had two guys able tag-team the offensive burden, and made their threes – in fairness, they were generating more open threes for most of the night outside of some nice set pieces from the HEAT – which was just enough in what was effectively a possession game down the stretch.
3. Erik Spoelstra made an interesting comment before the game saying that the Thunder do much of what Miami wants to do on the defensive end – being disruptive and aggressive – only they do it a bit better right now. That designation was palpable on both ends tonight, the HEAT doing everything they could do get the Thunder out of rhythm, often successfully with the zone – when Oklahoma City went small, they didn’t have any big targets to work in the middle of the scheme – while the Thunder made their presence felt just about anywhere and everywhere.
The teams wound up being fairly even when it came to steals, but their defenses were effective in different ways. In zone you inherently don’t play up on your opponents as you maintain the shape of the defense around the paint, allowing you to play aggressively in the passing lanes. The Thunder, meanwhile, were as forward and physical as any defense Miami has played this season, their nine steals perhaps underplaying just how many deflections and tipped dribbles and loose balls they collected, how many shoulders and elbows and hands were present all over the floor except for right in front of the rim. Historically the HEAT have limited opponent attempts at the rim but have yielded high-ish percentages in the paint because when the ball penetrated their defensive shape, there often wasn’t a third defender, schematically, coming over to help. That’s what it looked like for Miami on offense tonight, doing well in attacking the rim (8-of-12) and the upper paint (15-of-29) but every inch the ball moved forward was hard won and harder fought.
These two teams want to defend similarly, there’s no doubt about that, but in holding Miami to a 100.0 Offensive Rating the Thunder beat the HEAT with a familiar game.