The Miami Heat’s offense turned in its most efficient performance of the season in terms of offensive rating in Wednesday’s home win against the Toronto Raptors. But it’s the Heat’s defense that deserves most of the credit for its longest stretch of sustained success so far this season.
After opening with a 7-14 record, the Heat has won four in a row and eight of its past 11 games. Miami has recorded the NBA’s second-best defensive rating, allowing 106.7 points per 100 possessions, during that 11-game stretch.
The only team in the league that has been better than the Heat (15-17) on that end of the court during that span is the one it faces Friday at AmericanAirlines Arena (8 p.m., Fox Sports Suns), the NBA-leading Utah Jazz (26-6).
“We have some elite individual defenders, which obviously helps,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said of the team’s recent defensive surge. “Really the ability from Bam [Adebayo] to switch pick-and-rolls does a lot for us in flattening teams out. But I just think we’ve been more connected on that end, understanding that we gotta cover for each other and be in spots and help people out. Just because we gotta move as a team on that end of the floor.”
In Wednesday’s win against Toronto, the Heat’s zone defense helped limit the Raptors to 73 points during the final three quarters. But for the most part, it has been the Heat’s man-to-man scheme that’s responsible for its defensive uptick in the past three weeks.
“We’re just making it more difficult for teams. Multiple efforts,” Adebayo said. “We’re playing for one another, and that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.”
The question is: Is the Heat’s elite defensive play sustainable during a longer stretch?
With much of the same core in place this season, the Heat’s defense was statistically mediocre last regular season with the NBA’s 12th-best defensive rating (allowing 109.3 points per 100 possessions) and even finished last postseason with the eighth-best defensive rating among 16 teams (allowing 110.8 points per 100 possessions).
With the help of the the unit’s 11-game stretch of elite play, Miami’s defense is right around where it was last season. The Heat is allowing 109.6 points per 100 possessions this season, which entered Thursday ranked ninth in the NBA because of an offensive uptick around the league.
So in reality, Miami’s defense is playing around the same statistical level it did last season. But what has been different about the past 11 games?
For one, seven of the 11 games have come against teams with a below-average offense that entered Thursday ranked worse than 15th in the NBA in offensive rating. And two of the four quality offenses the Heat faced during this span were missing superstars — the Los Angeles Clippers without Paul George and Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Lakers without Anthony Davis.
Also, opponents aren’t making as many threes against the Heat during this recent stretch. Teams have shot 34.5 percent from three-point range against Miami in the past 11 games, compared with 38.4 percent in the first 21 games of the season.
But the Heat deserves credit for sticking to and executing its defensive game plan, which is to close off driving lanes and limit opportunities around the rim even if it means allowing an opponent to shoot a bunch of threes.
Whether teams are making threes at a high percentage or not, the shot profile of Heat opponents indicates that defensive philosophy of protecting the paint has been in motion since the season began. Miami is limiting opponents to the second-fewest shot attempts per game from inside the restricted area (22.6) while also allowing teams to average the most three-point shot attempts per game (41.1) in the NBA this season.
Opponents’ three-point regression could be the biggest factor in the Heat defense’s recent statistical improvement because of how many it gives up per game.
“You can see visually the commitment to more multiple efforts,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s hard to guard in this league. It really is. Night in, night out, the level of skill, shooting, spacing, players’ ability to draw fouls, it is extremely complex. You have to be sharp in the mind, you have to develop a level of trust. That doesn’t happen overnight. You have to have some mental fortitude to withstand different things and then by all means, you have to make multiple efforts. There’s just no way around it.”
It’s also not a coincidence that the Heat has had its two best defenders and players, Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, available for each of the past 11 games. Butler missed 12 of Miami’s first 18 games.
The Heat’s defense has allowed just 104.2 points per 100 possessions during this 11-game stretch with Adebayo and Butler on the court together. The duo is responsible for helping to blow up numerous offensive actions with their ability to switch and stay in front of almost every player on the court.
To put that number into perspective, the Lakers own the NBA’s top defensive rating for the season with 106 points allowed per 100 possessions.
“We’ve been contesting shots and then securing rebounds. That has been huge,” Butler said. “We weren’t doing that for a stretch. We got back to doing that, so now let’s hope we continue to do it. We lose a lot of games just because we give up so many offensive rebounds.”
While opponents could consistently begin making threes at an efficient rate again soon, the Heat’s team commitment to its scheme has been there all season and that’s encouraging. It has also been very important because Miami’s offense, while showing positive signs in the past few weeks, has been one of the least efficient units in the NBA this season.
“You never feel like you’ve arrived,” Spoelstra said. “We just have to keep on grinding and working. We feel like we’re getting healthier, we feel like we’ve made some progress just in terms of building some better winning habits, doing it more consistently.”
