The Culture Report: 2 Blown leads, Wiggins' Offense & Defense Slacking
Game thoughts on Bulls, Hornets, Clippers & Celtics. A discussion on how Wiggins is used & the team defense slacking
Welcome to The Culture Report! A Weekly report rounding up everything that you need to know about the Miami Heat to get up to speed on what’s been going on. This will be through “What’s Been Heating Up” where we go through all of the games and main takeaways. Following that is a Heat Check to share any unscripted, unplanned thoughts, where I discuss the current state of the team and any trends & worthy topics to briefly go through. Before going into The Heatle Things where it’s everything in between + compiling any other best Heat work from other creators.
This wasn’t a great week, but no week is going to be great if you’re winless and you had two blown leads against teams with a worse record. So, what’s in store for this week’s Culture Report:
109-114 LOSS vs Chicago Bulls - clutch time, poor defense
102-105 LOSS vs Charlotte Hornets - Bridges & Ball hunting, good clutch offense
104-119 LOSS vs Los Angeles Clippers - Harden ISOs, Bogdan cooking
91-103 LOSS vs Boston Celtics - game in the mud
Heat check - Ware being taken out of the starting lineup, Herro’s continued shooting woes
What’s Been Heating Up
We’re starting off the report by going through thoughts from the game. This will include going through an individual’s performance, key reasons why they won/lost, and a handful of little takeaways. If you missed a game or if you want to dive into some of the main takeaways, this is for you.
Stats for the week:
Offensive Rating: 106.3(103.8, 108.5, 114.3, 98.9)
Defensive Rating: 115.0(109.6, 110.6, 128.6, 112.0)
eFG%: 52.6 vs 55.3
TOV%: 14.1 vs 13.9
ORB%: 22.8 vs 24.6
Free throw rate: 14.1 vs 21.3
Players stats:
109-114 LOSS vs Chicago Bulls
Add this game to the rest of the games that had blown leads. This is becoming the norm now. What’s becoming more frustrating about these losses is that the defense is becoming more of an issue.
The offense wasn’t perfect, either — far from it. They did have a 103.8 ORTG and only 49.0% eFG. A lot of that did come down to poor shooting. Overall, they shot 13/43(30.2%) and your best shooters(Herro and Duncan) combined for 4/17. That poor shooting is what contributed to having two of the worst quarters for the season. They had 73.1 ORTG in the second and 76.9 in the fourth. In those two quarters, they combined for 4/25 from 3pt. That’s 16% vs 50% in the quarter one and three.
That poor shooting combined with at times poor shot selection and being too trigger-happy from downtown cost them a few possessions and allowed the Bulls to go on runs without answering back.
Even scoring at the rim was tough, where they shot 10/17(58.8%) and 13/27 in the paint. They got a lot of shots there in the first place, but simply couldn’t convert.
That’s where you had your three top players(Herro, Adebayo, and Wiggins) combine for 65 points on 53 shots and 11 free throws. However, it was a better performance from both Herro and Wiggins in the second half where they had 28 points on 18 shots.
The offense did step up in generating looks in the clutch after struggling for most of the fourth:
Wiggins was particularly big, providing some shot-making with a triple off a Mitchell drive and kick and a tough stepback. He had a crucial drive off a good Spain PNR with Herro and Adebayo that narrowed the lead to just one with 1:12 left. And he did up end generating a 3pt for Rozier to potentially take the lead.
Herro also had two key drives going to that floater but there was that one play, that probably tilted the game in the Bulls favour and that was the transition pull up 3pt that got blocked. That is where some of the shot selection hurt a lot. That also wasn’t the only possession that ended in a bad 3pt from him. It’s these “little” errors that can swing games.
But almost all other issues came on the defensive end. They lost because of the defense. They allowed the Bulls to come back because of some bad defensive possessions. In the first half, the Bulls had a 92.3 ORTG with a 49.3% TS. That jumped to 124.5 and 65.1% in the second half.
However, the first thing that hurt them was also related to the offense. The Heat put themselves in a worse defensive situation by turning the ball over in key situations and having poor transition defense. That’s where the Bulls did get a bunch of easy looks. There were so many transition drives or coming in early offense:
That is way too many points that aren’t even anything special on offense. This isn’t the Bulls figuring out how to break a defense or any of the sorts(obviously, exploiting bad transition defense is also part of it) that the Heat couldn’t take control of themselves.
That’s why in the second half, they had 36 points in the paint, including going 15/17 at the rim. That is hilarious. They had four more makes at the rim than they had total FGM in the paint in the first half(11).
Bad defense in the half-court came here. No one really had success staying in front of anyone:
There’s no scheme that can fix a lot of these issues. You can’t scheme out players getting blown by with ease every single time. You can attempt showing strong help, as the Heat did, but that just leaves you prone to getting beat elsewhere.
It also didn’t help that the Bulls had players that could do some hunting and attack that way. White had his share of hunting going on that led to open looks:
And then the fourth came. The defense in the fourth was the reason that they lost and it was honestly one of the worst performances from them.
I don’t know how much I can point to the Bulls’ offense being that good. The Bulls in the fourth had a 138.5 ORTG and a 70.5% TS. They went 10/10 at the rim and had 7 FTM. It’s all what we’ve seen throughout the game. It’s getting beat in transition, trailing off-ball, needing to over-compensate and help, and not staying in front of players.
Overall, this was one of the worst games for them. They also shouldn’t have been that poor offensively against this team. This shouldn’t have come down to a close game, even with the poor defense, because the Heat shouldn’t have had two quarters that killed them on that end.
102-105 LOSS vs Charlotte Hornets
This was some Groundhog Day. With how this game and the Bulls game started and ended, it was basically this meme to a tee:
The same issues came up again on both ends of the floor. It’s the same story of starting the game well and then as the game goes on, it starts to not look good and it gets worse and worse.
Offensively, it was also similar. For the game, they had a 108.5 ORTG with a 51.8% eFG, and once again, it was hurt by poor shooting, as the team went 10/31(32.3%). Though, they didn’t put up a lot with only a 37% 3pt rate.
But just like the previous game, it was the tale of two halves. In the first half, they had a 126.1 ORTG with 57.1% TS, which kind of showed that it wasn’t necessarily about shot-making but taking care of the ball and rebounding(they had an 8.7% TOV and 36.0% ORB). But that dropped all the way to 89.8 ORTG and 51.1% TS in the second half. That was only a ~6% decrease in efficiency but having a 24.5% TOV is going to kill your entire offense. The turnovers ruined everything. Herro, Wiggin,s and Jaquez all had at least three turnovers each.
It was also another, somewhat, balanced attack coming in at different periods from the top players. Wiggins finished 19 points on 7/12 2pt, 1/5 3pt, and 2/2 ft. Adebayo finished with 23 points on 6/12 2pt, 2/4 3pt, and 5/7 ft with 8 assists. Herro finished with 21 points on 8/12 2pt, 1/5 3pt, and 2/4 ft with only 2 assists.
Wiggins had almost all of the scoring done in the first quarter. That was all about him, as he had 12 points on 6/9 shooting then and only 1 FGM the rest of the way. That was similar to Adebayo, too. He had a lot of the damage done early and both ended up combining for 27 points on 23 shots in the first half, which accounted for almost half the offense for the Heat. On the other hand, Herro had a quiet first half, with only attempting 5 shots but then taking charge in the second half with 14 points on 6/12 shooting.
And that was it for the offense in the second half. Without including Herro, the team went 8/24 from the floor in the second half. They had also almost as many turnovers as FGM.
A big part of the offense being that bad was the Hornet’s defense, surprisingly. One of the main adjustments was to have Mark Williams drop in a lot of the PNRs, help off either Ware or Adebayo and even at times have him on wings.
That was a smart decision from the Hornets because that completely ruined all of the spacing. So many of the possessions were ended or made worse than it should be because of it. And also, big props to Williams for the rim and paint protection that he provided.
Finally, I do need to highlight the offense in the clutch because the Heat absolutely spammed this one action for five straight possessions and had all good looks from it:
All it was is a staple action for the Heat. Herro is a hub with Bam coming off a Duncan pindown in the paint to get to an elbow hub position. Once that happens, it’s all about reading the defense and seeing what options to get into next. Whether that’s a simple Duncan screen into a handoff, a cut, a Bam PNR, or flowing into another handoff with Herro. The possibilities are endless.
On defense, on the surface, it wasn’t as big of an issue. The Hornets only had a 110.6 ORTG and 54.6% TS. You would take those numbers. That even dropped in the second half. In the aggregate, it wasn’t bad, but it was timely bad defense that cost them the game too, especially in the fourth quarter — that’s when the Hornets had a 128.0 OORTG with 64.1% TS.
They were fortunate to have LaMelo Ball struggle a lot(but did have timely buckets), where he scored 15 points on 5/21 shooting with only 3/3 ft. But they weren’t fortunate to have both Miles Bridges and Mark Williams cook. They combined for 59 points on 21/32 shooting. Yikes. Outside of those three, no one else had more than 2 FGM.
It was Bridges and Ball that did a lot of hunting:
But all things came crashing down in the fourth, particularly on the defensive end. The Heat led 88-77 with 6:47 left and since then they scored 26 points to take a four-point lead of 103-99 with 0:20 left:
Bridges was on a mission. The Heat were giving him those looks early in the game by going under screens and not doing much to contest the shots. That’s why in that stretch, he made four of them.
Overall, all of their issues are just getting repeated and it’s the way that they lose that it’s frustrating. Offensively, that is going to be how it’s going to be(even then, they still did what was necessary to put themselves in the position to win on that end). It’s the defense that they can easily improve by brushing up on simple mistakes. That is not how the Heat have played the game all these years.
104-119 LOSS vs Los Angeles Clippers
At least this loss wasn’t a loss that I was overly annoyed or frustrated with. You can’t blow leads when you don’t have a lead in the first place. But that’s also how the game went. The Heat had the first offensive possession. They scored on that possession and had a two-point lead… and that was it. That was the end of their time with the lead.
It was a comfortable win for the Clippers and result be damned but it’s again how the game has gone. There were at least a lot more bright spots at different times. The Heat found themselves down 10 multiple times in the game but they kept answering back. It wasn’t a non-contest until basically the fourth. The Clippers may have been leading but they never run away with the game until the end.
Big whoop. That just sounds like some moral victory… And it is but it’s also better than the two previous losses. I doubt it’s fun for the players or anyone there to be constantly blowing leads and crumbling in the fourth. How you lose probably matters to an extent.
The Heat were led by Herro’s 31 points on 11/16 2pt, 2/7 3pt, and 3/3 ft with 7 assists. He did almost all of the damage in the second half, particularly in the third quarter. In the first half, he had 11 points on 10 shots. In the third quarter alone, he had 13 points on 7 shots.
I do like that despite the 3-point shooting not being there, he still found a way to find shots inside the arc. He has loved that floater that has been open to him every single time now on those drives.
At the same time, I’m also not sure how to feel with just one player taking that many shots relative to everyone else. He had 23 shots, Wiggins had 17, and no one else had double digits. This was also a Wiggins game with his 22 points on 7/10 2pt, 2/7 3pt, and 2/5 ft but with 5 assists and 4 turnovers.
The offense also was bogged down a lot more because of how the Clippers defend. They have Zubac drop a lot, which takes away the paint — that is what he did with Adebayo. They have pesky defenders who can deny everything, which made all of the off-ball actions much more difficult. Derrick Jones Jr was everywhere. They ice the PNRs and pack the paint early. That takes away a lot of the offense.
BUT, as it was with the two previous losses, the loss came down to defense. Now, one of the reasons for the poor defense is it was defending James Harden, who, despite being much older and out of his prime, can still get his just the same — I say that as he had 24 points on 20 shots and shot 6/20 from the floor but did make up for it going 9/13 from the line. He also had 11 assists and only 3 turnovers. This also doesn’t take into account how easy he made a lot of those possessions look:
The Heat tried to do everything. They switched and trusted the guy 1v1 where they didn’t send much help. They showed help in gaps and the elbows. They went under and over screens. They aggressively showed bodies. They blitzed him. They doubled him. It didn’t matter.
Not figuring out how to defend Harden is one thing. But then to also not figure out how to stop Bogdan Bogdanovic in 2025 is another, especially when you are meant to have a plethora of defenders at your disposal — Wiggins, Mitchell, Adebayo, Larsson, and Highsmith, should all be capable of stopping him. They didn’t:
He did a lot of the cooking in the PNR where it was a basic coverage of drop and going under/over screens. He was just getting to his spots with ease and getting clean looks. It wasn’t until the end that they started to blitz him, only to give up a corner 3pt.
This didn’t stop here as Ivica Zubac also cooked for 26 points on 12/16 shooting. His life was so easy. He cleaning up putbacks, getting easy passes on rolls, and getting clean looks in the post on hooks.
Overall, this was a loss to a better team. There also wasn’t the kind of collapse that we saw against the Hornets or the Bulls(yay). The defense from the Clippers is legit and that was going to be an issue. Defensively, there’s only so much you can do to scheme out Harden without giving something up, but I did expect a much better effort defending everyone else.
91-103 LOSS vs Boston Celtics
Quick side note for the Celtics thoughts. This won’t include any film, actions, highlights, or any examples in things that caught my eye until I do a second rewatch. That would likely be updated later in the day.
Wow. This game was in the mud. I don’t know if I expected the Celtics to play like this… though, I’m not that surprised. I tweeted that this is the second game against the Celtics that it felt they aren’t taking things seriously. Some of the shot selection that they had was hilarious. I’ve watched plenty of the Celtics over the last two years, there is a difference in how they can get up 3s. They did take 50 out of 83 shots, but not all 3s are the same.
That’s why this game was closer than it probably should’ve been. The Celtics did go on plenty of scoring droughts. They had multiple stretches where they went a few minutes without a single FGM. The Heat’s offense wasn’t better or even average, but if you give the Heat so many opportunities against a non set defense, looks will come up.
This was also a sloppy game. They combined for 31 turnovers(14 to Boston and 17 to Miami). That’s how you get games in the mud. Both teams shot around ~38% from 3pt.
And the fourth was just both teams looking to get out of it with the Celtics coming ahead because of Derrick White scoring 12 points(the Heat had 14 in the fourth). The Heat, on the other hand, shot 5/20 in the quarter. They were getting all of the opportunities to make a run but they couldn’t capitalise.
A lot of that was how they were running the offense. This was a lot of Wiggins(we’ll get to that later in the report). In the fourth alone, he went 2/8. No one else had more than four shots(Jaquez). Wiggins led the team with 23 points on 6/13 2pt, 3/8 3pt, 2/4 ft with 3 assists and 4 turnovers.
I’m not sure why that is the case at all. Why is Adebayo getting seven shots(one less than Davion!). I didn’t get the process at all on offense in this game.
There really isn’t much to take away from this game. The Heat couldn’t generate many good looks either. This wasn’t open looks not falling but more struggling to generate anything. The defense wasn’t in the rotation. It wasn’t having that ball flying everywhere that led to a good look.
The Heat were fortunate that this was a Jayson Tatum game where he went 8/21 and White was almost scoreless before the fourth. But they couldn’t really stop Jrue Holiday, as he finished with 25 points on 5/7 2pt and 5/8 3pt. He simply picked his spots well.
Overall, this was a game against an elite team. The results don’t matter as much but it’s those little things process-wise where it’s having Wiggins be the main option, not getting Adebayo involved, and cleaning up on simple mistakes.
Things that caught my eye
Additional thoughts, stats, takeaways, actions, and anything else that I liked(no matter how small or insignificant) from these games only. All links are to clips on Twitter
Something that has been showing up more frequently(it showed up the previous Clippers matchup, too) is Jaquez getting guarded by a big. The Clippers did that with Zubac on him. 1 of the possessions was him starting on Jaquez and helping off the corner from him(they did end up getting a Jaquez 3pt after he lifted) and the other time was on a switch involving Adebayo. A similar thing happened with the Hornets
Bam is so good at blowing up lobs. No official stats here but he has to be near the top in something like this
Eddie Johnson said that there aren’t any off-ball actions being run, so obviously, here’s a floppy action for Duncan
I loved the instant reaction from everyone on this play. Blind pig with Bam-Herro. The possession was going nowhere and the Clippers were doing a good job denying everything, so once Bam was fed, Herro made a quick back cut
I haven’t been much of a fan of Wiggins’ defense, especially in the PNR and going over screens. He has been dying a lot more on them and that just stresses the defense a lot more because he’s constantly trailing
The Heat really need to fix their rebounding issues in critical moments. They are a good rebounding team overall for the season. They may have good rebounding numbers if you look at the full 48 minutes. But there are specific instances that are just so, so bad that it can cost them games. They gave up a lot of those rebounds to the Hornets in the fourth
Wiggins needs to clean up those turnovers on drives. He had four of them against the Clippers
Staying on Wiggins’ offense, I do feel like it has been a lot of ISO/Post centric and I’m not sure I’m a fan. Having a player that has almost half of his offense in such a way can take the flow out of the offense. It’s a lot of looks like this. I also wouldn’t call Wiggins a player who can successfully mismatch hunt or create easy, efficient looks consistently, especially in those stationary situations. I do think he needs some help to get him going downhill
And on that note, I do like it when he does get going in the PNR, like below. There are still some questionable and that’s due to some shot selection that makes you go hmm, but this is a much better alternative than feeding him more ISO/Post possessions. That’s why I liked the Spain PNR with him, Bam, and Herro. That was one of the ways he scored in the clutch against the Bulls. They run the same actions against the Hornets, but that was where shot selection came in, as he settled for pull up 3s. But there’s more potential in these actions to get him going downhill
This shot from Rozier is hilarious
I liked these reads from Herro in the PNR on those skip passes
Bam in transition needs to happen a lot more when you have possessions like this and this! Both got a strong drive to the rim for the foul
I have no idea how Wiggins missed this kick to Herro. That is a WIDE-open kick where all he had to do was look up on the drive slightly
There are still a lot of concerns with spacing, particularly good defensive teams. As mentioned against the Clippers, Zubac was sinking and dropping in the paint. You do have plays like this where Adebayo does look to get into a pull-up but I don’t know how much of that is enough to make the defense shift. But there’s also this play for Duncan that ideally should bring up the big
Herro has been getting a lot of looks coming off pindowns. That has been one of the main ways of getting him touches, particularly against the Bulls. On that note, on similar plays, there has been some more help showing off Davion at the nail
I have been enjoying Ware’s passing when given the opportunity and when being in those situations. There’s this possession with Ware as the hub and makes the perfect read to Wiggins cutting. There are two short roll possessions, with one does ending in a turnover but he cleaned that up the next time and was more patient to find Herro on the cut. There was also this quick, instant reaction on the drive that I LOVED
Highsmit’s defense needs to get back to what it was because it has been disappointing
Here are a few possessions from Ware switching onto White and Giddey that had solid results(outside of one where he got beat)#
If you’re wondering why the Heat’s offense struggles in the clutch at times, it’s because of possessions like these
This has been a regular theme for this year, but with Bam continuing to draw so much attention, especially lately, he needs to make better decisions out of it. There are still too many times when he has that score-first mentality and misses potential kickouts like here against the Bulls and here against the Hornets. This has to get better because he also constantly gets this kind of coverage against him, but the Heat haven’t capitalized on
I’m just keeping track of this action. A Herro-Bam-Wiggins/Duncan Horns PNR. I don’t think we’ve seen such a setup before and it can be pretty good
Jaquez’s playing time has been inconsistent and dropping. He played 10:33 against the Bulls, 13:43 against the Hornets, and 6:03 against the Clippers. But I think that has been warranted. The play hasn’t been great and there was a possession like this that stood out with him looking confused:
Larsson is such a Heat lifer. He had a DNP against the Bulls and played 3:34 against the Hornets. So, that obviously means he’s going to play 28:16 against the Clippers and play 8:10 in the fourth to close. The reason that he closed? He HUSTLES. Just look at this play. I knew then that he was going to close 100%, especially after he flexed
Horford was cooking hunting mismatches in 2025. Let me repeat that. The Celtics were going into Horford post ups to draw defenses and create easy looks. I’m sorry, that is inexcusable
Davion on defense was so nice against the Celtics. He pressured the ball handler constantly, provided full court press, and hustled like hell
The Celtics really feel like they’re toying with the Heat with some of the shot selection
Heat Check
Here is where I give a “heat” check on the team through a weekly ramble that’s me simply ranting about the Heat and a handful of other newsworthy topics that occurred throughout the week or trends to talk about. This can be a quick, brief discussion on multiple smaller topics that should be noted for a deeper look at in the future.
Man. It’s tough to watch the team go winless in the whole week. It’s even worse when it’s how they did it. They just can’t score. Those scores are funny. Low 100s every time. This isn’t mentioning the two blown leads. It has been an experience trying to watch this team, especially when there aren’t many things that you can talk yourself into, like “hey, they lost, but WOW x player is looking great, x player is making strides, or x group is starting to jell”.
Instead, we see players kind of taking a turn for the worse with getting benched, continuing to shoot poorly, be inconsistent, and the team as a whole defensively hasn’t been looking great.
As mentioned in some of the game thoughts, the offense is going to be bad. That’s not a surprise. It’s not something that should be looked further into or make a big deal out of. I just also can’t take that same kind of effort on the defensive end. This team should be better on that end because the mistakes that they give up are all within their control. A lot of the time, it isn’t the offensive pushing buttons that they can’t answer. It’s more allowing the opponent to push any kind of button and it works. And the collapses are just the cherry on top.
We have seen a change in the starting lineup and that probably should’ve been seen coming after this recent stretch and that mostly has to do with Ware.
He was already benched against the Clippers in the second half and didn’t really see minutes. He came off the bench against the Celtics and played the fewest minutes since January 6th. In these last two games, he played 18:24 and 15:23. The last time he had sub 20 minutes was February 5th against the 76ers. The last time he had B2B games with sub 20 minutes was January 17th.
That was warranted. He has looked bad, especially on the defensive end. There were some talks in these losses that he should have played the fourth and Spoelstra even addressed that before the Hornets game. He played and had a horrible two minute stretch that swung the game.
That is expected. He is a rookie. This isn’t making this a big concern or a worry. It’s addressing that he has hit that wall.
Something is really wrong with Herro’s shooting. This was mentioned in the previous reports, but it continues to get worse. He’s now shooting 31.3% post ASB and it has dragged his overall % to 36.9%. He went from having a career year to the second lowest.
But I still like that he manages to stay afloat with the inside scoring. In that same span, he’s shooting 54.1% from 2pt. His 3-point rate has also been decreasing, which is smart, considering the poor shooting. That has dropped to 42.3%. Good adjustment to not force the same shots when they aren’t falling.
That’s where the floater comes in handy. He’s shooting 51.2% from within 4-14ft where he takes now 35.9% of his shots there.
On top of that, he has a higher AST% to USG% post-ASB, which is also encouraging to see. A lot of that is coming on drives where he has a 13.3% assist rate on drives, where he passes 44.8% of the time.
Finally, the Heat have 16 games left. They are currently 29-37 and sitting at the ninth spot, with only one game ahead of the Bulls. They aren’t going to miss the entire play-in. That is a gap far too big from the Raptors. But now, they’re also almost definitely behind the top six seed from even being a possibility.
They do have a rough stretch coming up and it is rough — Grizzlies(away), Knicks(away), Pistons, and Rockets. One game against the Hornets(though, they also lost to them previously) before the BIG game against the Warriors, where we’ll see Butler play against the Heat for the first time.
That’s also not the end of the world, if we’re being honest because right now, this is what matters the most:
This can be doable. With the way the season has turned out, going from ~7% to enter the top four to around ~20% would be massive.
To finish up the report, let’s quickly go through Wiggins offense and the defense kind of slacking lately.
How has Wiggins been used
So, when I was writing up what Wiggins could bring to the Heat when they traded for him, I looked at his play types and how he was used in Golden State this year and over the years:
This was for this year only:
Around 35% of his offense came via self-creation(PNR, post ups, and ISOs). That was the highest rate for him since 2021 when it was 38.5%, and that was also ~5% lower than what he was doing with the Wolves. His lowest self creation rate was in 2023 where it was only 20.8%.
My question was how the Heat would look like to use him. Will they lean into the 2023 version or this year? I also tracked his efficiency since 2020:
It’s only been 10 games so far, but we have seen a clear answer to what they want to lean into. Here are his play types now with the Heat:
PNR: 5.7 possessions per game / 28.5% freq / 0.77 PPP / 37.5% eFG
Spot up: 4.0 / 20.1% / 0.86 / 40.3%
Transition: 2.7 / 13.4% / 1.13 / 60.5%
Post up: 1.9 / 9.5% / 1.24 / 66.7%
Isolation: 1.8 / 8.9% / 0.75 / 40.9%
Handoffs: 1.6 / 7.8% / 0.86 / 38.9%
46.9% of his offense is now self-created. That is the second-highest of his career, with the highest being at 49.5% in his last season with the Wolves before being traded after 42 games.
He’s also taking 19.2% of his shots with 6 seconds of touch time and 37.5% with 3 or more dribbles. He’s also taking 2.1 pull up 3s(14.2% of his shots).
The efficiency hasn’t been great… but it’s also on par with his career averages, so it’s not something that should bounce back or improve either. Overall, he has scored 72 points on 84 possessions in self-creation, shooting 25/59(42.3%). That’s 0.85 points per poss.
I have liked some of the sprinkles with the post-ups, but overall how they went about feeding him those looks is something that I’m not a fan of. All this does is add another player who stops the ball and doesn’t improve the flow of the offense. Something that I’ve noticed is a lot of the time on extra passes, he stops the possession to look to get into an ISO or a PNR. That’s trading potentially better looks for someone who shoots ~42% from the floor on those looks.
And I also don’t buy the argument that who else do you want taking the shots? Lacking players that can reliably get shots in self-creation doesn’t also mean let’s feed players that can’t do that at a volume more volume. There are other ways to get players involved than just PNR, ISO or post up. This also isn’t saying that Wiggins needs to be how he was in 2023, where it was only ~21% of his offense but it can’t be near 50% either. There needs to be a better balance.
Defense Slacking
The defense has been “kind of” slipping, particularly since the All-Star break. Per Cleaning the Glass, since the ASB:
114.0 DRTG(14th in that span)
55.8% opponent eFG(20th)
13.8% opponent TOV%(18th)
24.9% opponent ORB%(4th)
17.0 opponent FTr(4th)
Now, I say slipping but that is still better than average — the Heat just have better standards. There is a reason why they have been at least a top 10 defense everywhere since 2016, including five seasons top five.
But it’s also the way it has been slipping. A lot of the issues for the Heat don’t seem as bad when looking at it as a whole, but when you dig in further, that’s when flaws show up.
Here are their stats pre vs post ASB:
1st half: 110.4 vs 109.6
2nd half: 114.6 vs 118.1
4th: 113.3 vs 120.0
That is a big difference. They have an elite defense in the first half but that goes completely out the window once halftime ends and it gets worse as the games on.
Here are their opponent's four factors post ASB:
1st half: 53.2% eFG / 0.208 FTr / 13.9% TOV / 25.3%
2nd half: 58.1% / 0.238 / 13.7% / 27.1%
4th: 58.6% / 0.283 / 13.3 / 27.9%
That wasn’t even that bad pre-ASB — their opponent's eFG% in the second half was 54.9% and 53.5% in the fourth.
Trying to dig in to see where it’s going wrong:
Opponent PITP per 100: 50.5(21st)
FBPS: 12.3(2nd)
2nd PTS: 11.2(1st)
Pts off TOV: 16.2(10th)
3pt%: 35.3%(12th)
2pt%: 57.4%(27th)
Rim FGM: 17.6(22nd)
Rim freq: 28.4%(21st)
Rim FG%: 69.3%(23rd)
They don’t give up easy points on the break. They don’t give up any second-chance points. They’re good at limiting points off turnovers. It’s just that paint and rim defense.
That’s interesting and concerning, given how elite the Heat have been at protecting the rim all these years. Even with Adebayo on, they have a 118.2 DRTG and allow 67.8% at the rim on 27.2% freq. The issue starts to appear when you include Ware. With those two on, the DRTG jumps to 126.6(Yikes)! The opponent is shooting 73.3% at the rim with 25.3% freq and also 53.3% within 4-14ft.
When looking at their individual rim protection, Ware defends the most shots within 6ft at 6.4 attempts and opponents are shooting 69.0%, which is 3.2% better than expected. Adebayo is fourth at 5.0 and allowing 65.0%, which is 0.3% better than expected.
And one final stat that is raising alarms(that I’ll look more into for another day) is the starting five. Mitchell-Herro-Wiggins-Bam-Ware has a 122.2 DRTG with othe pponent shooting 57.5% from 2pt and 43.0% from 3pt. They shoot over 70% at the rim and 48% in the paint.
The Heatle Things
To end the report, here are some random tidbits that could be stats, lineups, plays, actions, or anything that I found fun, as well as compiling some other content that I found interesting.
I mentioned that the Heat are a good defensive rebounding team but it’s some critical moments that kills them. For the year, they have a 72.4 DRB%, which is tied fifth. But here are by quarter:
1st: 72.4%
2nd: 74.5%
3rd: 72.7%
4th: 69.6%
Clutch: 66.6%
In the first three quarters, that is top five or better. But their fourth number would rank 22nd and the clutch would be dead last.
I was curious to see how Wiggins looks in terms of passing and turnovers on drives
2025 Post ASB; 7.7% / 10.8%
2025: 7.6% AST / 7.6% TOV
2024: 7.2% / 5.9%
2023: 11.2% / 8.2%
2022: 6.1% / 5.9%
2021: 7.0% / 6.7%
2020: 6.3% / 6.6%
Looking at players with at least five drives, both numbers are quite low(for ASTs) and high(for TOVs), but it’s nothing extreme either. But post ASB, that would be tied for third third-highest turnover rate
In March, the Heat have four games already in the bottom 6th percentile in ORB%. That has completely gone out the window
Their 3pt% is continuing to trend down by month: 36.8% → 38.2% → 36.6% → 35.4% → 34.4% → 34.8%. That is the difference between being in the top 10 or bottom 10
Courtesy of Sravan(Sradjoker on Twitter). Here are Herro’s and Adebayo’s performance trends in the last five years by Daily RAPM estimate
Adebayo had two straight games with only seven attempts. The last time he had single digit attempts was January 19th against the Spurs. The last time he had a B2B games like that, it was November 27th
Jaquez being defended by bigs has been a common theme this week. For the year, he has spent ~8% of his total possessions being guarded by a “big”
Post ASB Heat in wide open 3s:
Mitchell: 19/30(63.3%)
Herro: 7/25(28.0%)
Highsmith: 11/23(47.8%)
Wiggins: 6/22(27.3%)
Duncan: 12/22(54.5%)
Adebayo: 7/21(33.3%)
Burks: 4/16(25.0%)
Larsson: 4/14(28.6%)
Rozier: 3/10(30.0%
And that is everything for this week’s report! If you made it to the end, I appreciate you taking the time for this long piece.