The Culture Report: Paolo & Franz Hunt the Heat & The "New" Offense
Welcome to The Culture Report! A weekly report going through the thoughts, discussion, and analysis of the Miami Heat. This is the place for you to get up to speed with everything that’s important, interesting, or simply fun — whether that’s news, specific games, box-scores, actions, plays, signings, trades, trends, financials, schemes + everything else you can think off — and digging deeper into the how’s and why’s through film breakdowns, stats, and analysis.
We are back. Miami Heat basketball is back and we know it’s back with the Heat not scoring 100 points in their first game. This was certainly a way to tip off the NBA season.
And because the Heat don’t play until Saturday evening, there is so much time for that loss to sit with you and it was also a bad loss.
Games from the week:
97-116 LOSS vs Orlando Magic
Stats from the week:
ORTG: 97.7
DRTG: 134.9
NET: -37.2
eFG%: 43.1 vs 56.8
TOV%: 10.5 vs 10.5
ORB%: 19.1 vs 41.2
FTr: 30.6 vs 18.2
Most used lineup: Rozier/Herro/Butler/Jovic/Bam were -20.7 net in 14 minutes with a 93.1 ORTG, 113.8 DRTG
What’s Been Heating Up
To start off the report, we’re going through thoughts from the games and a bunch of film and Xs & Os from the week. This will be in the form of both short-form and long-form breakdowns elsewhere, whether it’s through video or threads. This will include going through an individual’s performance, key reasons why they won/lost, and a handful of little takeaways.
Heat vs Magic Film Session: Butler Uninvolved, Banchero and Wagner Go Hunting, 24/10/24
Paolo Banchero & Franz Wagner Attacking the Heat Thread, 24/10/24
Game Thread #1 vs Magic, 24/10/24
Game Thoughts vs Magic
This wasn’t a pretty loss that resulted in the starters not getting checked back in the fourth because the Magic went on such a run that it didn’t even matter. This was a mess from the start and it only got worse.
Here was their ORTG by quarter:
123.1 → 88.0 → 81.8 → 100.0(in 5:45 before the rookies checked in)
Here was their DRTG by quarter:
123.1 → 104.0 → 169.6 → 158.3(before the rookies checked in)
Even that offense in the first quarter was fools gold with a lot of it happening in transition with Nikola Jovic capitalizing on it. A handful of free throws come from a poor process or in semi-transition. Their scoring was still difficult if they couldn’t push, which you can’t expect them to do the entire game.
The offense was an issue, but what was more demoralizing was all of the offensive rebounds they allowed. The Magic rebounded on 39% of their misses. A lot of it was a lack of effort where guys simply lost the person they were meant to guard. It wasn’t being switched on. At times, it was being outhustled by smaller guys — Anthony Black, Gary Harris, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope combined for 6/18 of the boards.
On offense, it started with the best player. Jimmy Butler scored 3 points on 1/8 shooting. He took equal or fewer shots than Jovic, Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Haywood Highsmith, Black, and Harris. He was seventh on the team in touches and clustered third with many others in front-court touches. Even possessions that did involve him weren’t great.
This whole “new” offense(we’ll get to that later), is another way of saying we’re running an offense through Rozier and Herro doing most of the work. There is an easy fix, though, and it’s simply handing the ball to the best player.
Banchero and Wagner Picked The Defense Apart
Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner combined for 56 points on 15/26 2pt, 7/14 3pt, and 5/6 ft with 7 assists. And that alone doesn’t tell you the whole story of how much they hurt the Heat.
Check out this breakdown of all individual plays:
All of it came down to hunting pretty much everyone on the team. The first and most effective way of doing that was by pushing pace and getting out in transition to attack hunt cross matches and get easy looks at the rim:
Whenever the Magic could push, they did and they simply went at whoever was in their way because, with the defense not set, there wasn’t anything anyone could do.
But throughout the game, it was more get any of Rozier, Robinson, or Herro involved in screens:
That’s where they did a lot of the damage because it pressured the defense in so many ways. You 100% can’t concede a switch. That already takes out one option that you could do. The thing that’s left is showing & recovering but that leaves you even more vulnerable:
Clip 1: Middle Bancher-Black PNR has Rozier showing and because they don’t want to switch, Black should slip that quickly, and that draws Butler as the low man. When that happens, Banchero is able to whip that pass to Pope in the corner.
Clip 2: It’s pushing the pace with Banchero as the screener this time that gets him a wide-open 3pt.
Clip 4: Early offense Wagner-Pope PNR hunting Robinson. Pope pops to the corner and has an open 3pt.
This was a very easy offense for the Magic. What made things worse was the off-ball defense elsewhere. That action already pressures the defense enough. And when you combine that with some over-helping, poor awareness, and not being fully switched on, you’re allowing other ways of getting beat too.
Is the New Offense “New”
As bad as the defense was, it also wasn’t the only issue or even the biggest one. The Heat scored 97 points but that also wasn’t the biggest issue either.
The bigger issue is what this whole new offense has been about in during pre-season and against the Magic. I have been exaggerating the point that the offense hasn’t changed. It has. It is different and it definitely was against the Magic.
One of the main sources of offense, especially early in the year was Adebayo going to the post(over 20% of his offense was) or trying to cook in isolation(over 10% of his offense). It was also a bunch of Herro handling the ball and doing it through a whole bunch of PNRs. That was not the case at all throughout the pre-season or against the Magic.
That is a change.
They also added the element of a five-out offense(that also isn’t maximized or used how its meant to). There was an emphasis on pushing the pace. There was a lot more screening. Their shot profile did shift for more paint shots and 3s.
But those changes don’t necessarily mean better or ones that make a significant difference in themselves. A lot of those points that they addressed are things that are more complementary and to maximize your offense, but they don’t have a good offense to build around to maximize.
I don’t see that as a thing that gets better with reps if it continues in a similar way.
I’ve seen takes that the Heat have to figure out how to get Butler involved in the new offense. But, I’m sorry, what kind of a question is that?
Have we ever had question marks on any team’s best player and how they’d fit in the offense? I don’t think the Lakers ask themselves how to get LeBron James more touches. I don’t think the Warriors are asking themselves that with Stephen Curry. This shouldn’t be a thing to consider.
The only reason that it is, it’s because the new offense is what happened last year to an even more extreme. It’s making the best player an off-ball weapon. And again, no best player is put in an off-ball role(his off-ball play type frequency has increased each year). That can only work if you have another on-ball player that can bend defenses.
A Rozier show doesn’t do that. An Adebayo post-up didn’t do that. A Herro show doesn’t do that. The only thing that does that is Butler leading the team in touches.
It’s really that simple. Adebayo being delegated to the corner isn’t an issue. He shouldn’t be in a similar position that he was last year where over a third of his offense was in isolation or post-ups. Adebayo being maximised in a different way off-ball like being in the corner will also only be maximised with Butler taking charge.
As much as you want to give Butler’s touches off-ball through cuts and other opportunistic ways, YOU CAN’T BUILD AN OFFENSE AROUND THAT.
It is only one game but based on what has happened in these two years, there is absolutely no indication that this will change. Butler’s touches and usage has gradually decreased and fell off the cliff with the best players. And with how they approached everything from just acquiring Rozier, it doesn’t give me hope that this will suddenly change.
And looking at some of my notes from the offense, none of the actions they run is a question of scheme or chemistry. It’s simply talent and the ability to either have a dribble penetration or pressure the rim one way or the other.
This isn’t overreacting to one game. This is overreacting to the last two seasons too. Running an offense that has any of Rozier or Herro leading you in touches will result in a bottom-10 offense. None of the changes they looked to address in spacing or transition fixes that issue.
I tweeted this:
The Heat’s offense feels like there are a bunch of individual actions, sets, or plays that can get you a good look here and there.
Some of their 3-point attempts were a case for that, where they did get a couple of good, open catch-and-shoot looks that were decent. There was also a play with Jovic being a hub that got Herro a drive. Another shot at the rim was with Adebayo in a delay set that got Rozier a cut to the rim. All of those are actions to me that would work around an offense that can consistently pressure the rim or draw the defense.
The Warriors and Nuggets are a good example of running more of an egalitarian offense but their engine is still Jokic and Curry putting a fear in the defense. Other examples include having Lillard be able to consistently take defenders off the dribble in PNR. That is a lot of the Thunder’s offense too with Gilgeous-Alexander not having any defender capable of staying in front.
Every other offense that revolves/ed around movement, unselfishness, ball movement, cutting, and off-screens still are built on the foundation of something making the defense panic — The Magic made the defense panic with having two wings being capable of matchup hunting and consistently getting to the rim.
It is just one game, but the potential solutions(have Butler be more on-ball) aren’t looking likely.
The Heatle Things
To end the report, here are some tidbits of anything else that caught my eye, some random stats, lineup data, tweets, actions, or anything else you can think off.
Rozier’s defense needs to be better
No one was good enough defensively but I also didn’t see anyone else have more lapses than Rozier with getting beat off the dribble, dying on screens, or losing cutters.
This is one of the reasons why I’m not encouraged about the offense, no matter what the tweaks are. I don’t believe Rozier is a starting caliber guard on a good team that can be at the top of the team in touches or time of possession. If that is the role he’s in, a lot of this poor decision-making has to be cleaned up.
Robinson, Butler, and Adebayo played 3.7 minutes together. That can’t and shouldn’t happen at all. Even with foul troubles or matchups, the best trio shouldn’t get so few minutes
The Heat allowed a 41.2% ORB% in non-garbage time. That would’ve ranked second last year. The number of 40% games allowed in the last five years: 0(2020), 1(2021), 0(2022), 6(2023), and 1(2024). Not a great start
This was the second time with the Heat that Butler took only 3 shots with at least 25 minutes played — the last being December 20th, 2019.
Only one Adebayo post-up in the game