The Culture Report: Shooting like the Celtics, Blowing out the Lakers, No Paint Defense vs Raptors

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. There will be additional breakdowns and pieces either on Simply Ballin or AUCH that dives in deeper into other topics and questions compiled here with additional thoughts. Following that is a Weekly Ramble to share any unscripted, unplanned thoughts, before going into The Heatle Things where it’s everything in between + compiling any other best Heat work from other creators.

What’s Been Heating Up

We’re starting off the report by going through thoughts from the games, a bunch of film and Xs & Os, and any newsworthy topics that arise during the week. 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.

Games of the week:

• 121-111 WIN vs Toronto Raptors, 29/11/24

• 116-119 LOSS vs Toronto Raptors, 1/12/24

• 89-108 LOSS vs Boston Celtics, 2/12/24

• 134-93 WIN vs Los Angeles Lakers, 4/12/24

Key stats:

• ORTG: 119.5(126.0, 117.2, 93.3, 144.3)

• DRTG: 115.1(116.8, 119.0, 118.7, 103.8)

• eFG%: 54.7% vs 56.6%

• TOV%: 12.4% vs 16.8%

• ORB%: 28.2% vs 29.0%

• FTr: 17.0 vs 16.0

Player stats:

121-111 WIN vs Toronto Raptors Game Thoughts

This was another game that was way too close. This wasn’t even a Raptors team that was fully healthy. They were missing Gradey Dick, Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, and Immanuel Quickley.

It was a combination of two things. Poor defense and playing like the Boston Celtics offensively.

The Heat shot 21/54 from 3pt! 54 out of 94 shots were 3s. That is the highest 3-point rate for the Heat this season. That is also the 14th highest 3pt rate in any game at the time of writing. That was the reason why they couldn’t score at all in the first. They went 2/17! That’s how they came out of the gate.

They did generate plenty of good open looks. A lot of the time, it was good offense that forced the defense to make a decision. At times, it was the defense doing everything to take something else away and 3s opened up.

Luckily after the 1st quarter, they did have shooting on their side where they went 19/37 in the following 3 quarters. They needed that because they shot 50% inside the arc. They shot better from 3pt than 2pt. They went 10/19 at the rim, 4/7 in the paint, and 2/6 in the mid-range after the 1st.

They did rely heavily on the 3-point shooting and it kind of felt bad at different points because they couldn’t get anything else going. They struggled shooting in the paint. But in the end, they did get hot when they needed to do and they were able to extend the lead.

That’s exactly what happened at the end of the third. It was a game of runs in that quarter. The Heat took the first swing when they went on a 17 to 2 run. It started off with a Herro-Adebayo PNR that got Herro the and one followed by an Adebayo triple, two scores in transition, two dunks from Butler and Adebayo, and to close the run, a Herro transition 3pt. The Raptors answered right back, though with a layup line to the rim. Four layups. That lead they took quickly vanished, only for the Heat to answer right away and never looked back.

But that run from the Raptors showed the issues defensively from this game. The Heat couldn’t guard them or stop them from getting to the rim. The Raptors had 62 points in the paint. They shot 27/36 at the rim.

A big part of that was Poeltl who missed one shot and he missed one shot because he was constantly being guarded by someone a lot smaller than him. The Heat were switching almost everything and he was cooking in the paint. Outside of Poeltl, Barrett, Barnes, Mogbo, and Mitchell all had at least two scores at the rim.

The Raptors did end up being more efficient with 60.6% eFG and 63.4% TS, but the Heat were lucky enough to force them into 20% TOV. They needed that because not only did the Raptors score efficiently, but they were grabbing 34% of their misses, too. This was a very poor defensive effort. If the Raptors didn’t go 4/14 from deep in the 2nd half, this easily could’ve been a different game.

The Heat’s top 3 all had reasonably good games. Butler finished with 26 points on 6/10 2pt, 2/4 3pt, and 8/9 ft with 6 assists. Adebayo had himself a triple-double (thank you, Butler). And Herro had 23 points, whilst shooting 4/10 from 3pt.

116-119 LOSS vs Toronto Raptors Game Thoughts

I hate it when the Heat are playing the same team in consecutive games. I never know what to expect because more often, the past result in the previous game doesn’t really matter. But in terms of this game, the results were pretty much the same.

As mentioned, the previous game could’ve gone differently if either the Raptors didn’t shoot particularly badly, didn’t turn the ball over as much, or the Heat wouldn’t have hot shooting. All of that happened to varying degrees.

The Heat’s eFG% went from 56.9% to 52.8%. The Raptors maintained their shooting efficiency only dropping from 60.6% to 59.1%, all because they feasted in the paint again, which was an issue in the first game.

The difference maker was that Heat was not forcing as many turnovers. Forcing a turnover on a fifth of their possession in the first game was needed to offset the poor paint and rim defense, as well as the poor rebounding. That 20% TOV dropped to 16% and with the margins so small, it made a huge difference.

But the story of the game remained the fact that the Heat struggled to defend period.

They did adjust to the Raptors from the first game. We didn’t see them switching as often as they did and it didn’t matter because they went to attack in other ways. They got attacked in transition, on the glass, offcuts, and off drives either in isolation or PNR.

That’s why you had Barrett cooking the Heat with 37 points and only missing five shots. He went 12/16 inside the arc and 4 FTA.

It wasn’t just Barrett. Almost everyone was cooking inside and that’s why the Raptors shot 62% from 2pt.

Offensively, it was a similar pattern from the first game, too. The over-reliance on 3s. Struggling to get good clean looks inside. They shot 50% from inside the arc.

Butler had an awfully quiet night with 17 points on 9 shots and 6 FTA with only 3 assists in 34 minutes. That’s not going to cut it, especially when you’re struggling shooting from anywhere on the court. Part of that was Duncan scoring 8 points on 12 shots with 2/7 from 3pt. Adebayo had a rough shooting night only finishing with 13 points on 13 shots.

Herro led the Heat with 31 on 16 shots and 7 FTA. A lot of those points came from tough shot making, which again showed the struggle to generate easy offense

They did step up in the fourth. They managed to keep the Raptors to a 84 ORTG and only 47% eFG and 5/9 in the paint. They forced 8 shots outside of the paint. That ratio worked in their favor in an attempt to make the comeback. They stalled their offense getting to the paint. They forced many more longer possessions. Some poor decision-making from the Raptors led to turnovers, which gave the Heat chances in transition that they capitalized on.

The Heat did have a chance to tie the game with 30s left but it was an unfortunate miss from Herro:

With that miss, it was a free throw game and that was game.

89-108 LOSS vs Boston Celtics Game Thoughts

I don’t know what I expected from this game, but this was outright disrespectful to the Celtics. This was a game without Butler, which obviously changed the expectations. This was always going to need some outliers and exceptional circumstances to have this be a game.

The Celtics also weren’t at full strength missing Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, and Al Horford. They had Jordan Walsh start, Drew Peterson playing 26 minutes, Baylor Scheierman playing 11, and their bigs rotation was Luke Kornet and Neemias Queta playing 41 minutes combined.

Somehow it wasn’t even a contest. The reason I also said this was disrespectful is because the Celtics didn’t play good basketball. The Celtics obviously put up a lot of 3s period, but this felt like they didn’t care. They were just going to let it fly and it didn’t matter if it was contested, in transition, or a very quick shot in the possession. It felt like they were settling.

They started the second half with many consecutive turnovers that were almost all unforced. They let the Heat get out in transition for 22 fast break points. And it didn’t matter.

This was still no contest.

I can’t even recall what they did offensively that was good. Tatum went off for 18 points on 21 shots with 3/12 3s and only 1 FTA. But it was Brown, White, and Pritchard that had them combine for 14 3s — Brown came one short from all three making at least 5 triples.

But it was also a lot of hunting and going to work around the paint. Those were timely, easy buckets that they were able to generate whenever they needed a scoring boost.

Offensively, there wasn’t much to discuss either. This was going to be a struggle game without Butler. That was going to be worse when you also shoot 8/35 from deep. They couldn’t buy a bucket from 3pt — Duncan, Herro, Jaquez, and Adebayo combined for 3/23 from 3pt. You’re not winning shooting this poorly. Without the 3pt shooting to open anything up, there wasn’t much that they could’ve done.

Which is kind of disappointing, considering the bigs that the Celtics played. That made Adebayo’s performance stand out even more with his 15 points on 18 shots, where most of the points came in garbage time.

The only bright spot was Jaquez’s relentless attacks. It was also an inefficient night with 5/14(0/3 3pt) but added 9/12 from the line.

He was aggressive. That was visible early and it was loud. At times, it was too much, where he opted in to go finish through traffic instead or missed a wide-open kick. But based on what he was doing so far in the season, he hasn’t looked this comfortable simply attacking.

But outside of that, there wasn’t much to take away from this game. This was likely going to be a scheduled loss on the second game of the back-to-back

134-93 WIN vs Los Angeles Lakers Game Thoughts

I don’t know what this was. This was the best Heat game all season long so far for one reason. I comfortably spoiled the score at the end of the third quarter. For the first time, I was so confident that there wasn’t going to be any fake comebacks to make this a clutch game — that also says a lot about the Lakers.

This was the Heat’s best offensive game, statistically, by far. Per Cleaning the Glass, before garbage time, the Heat scored 114 points on 79 possessions(garbage time started at 8:43 in the 4th). That’s a 144.3 offensive rating, which ranks in the 100th percentile. They had a 72.4% eFG to go with it.

There were three reasons for that. They got easy looks in the paint in transition, they were scorching hot from 3pt, and Tyler Herro.

The Heat had 24 points on the fastbreak and a lot of them were coming in at the rim. That all contributed to them also scoring 52 points in the paint. Before the fourth, they shot 21/31 in the paint. Absurd efficiency.

They had the easiest points off of turnovers and on the break. They also added a lot of easy points because the Lakers’ defense didn’t want to defend.

Then, they got the scoring boost from beyond the arc. Before the fourth, they shot 19/36 and even when you exclude Herro, they shot 10/20, thanks to Highsmith going off for 4/5:

That’s how they got their comfortable lead of 17 at the half. Even with 10 turnovers, the Heat still had a 138.0 ORTG and 69.5% TS. They rebounded 50% of their misses! This was a disgusting defensive performance by the Lakers.

But it was in the third quarter that Herro took over and it was wraps for the Lakers. I had never seen such a poor defensive play against a player.

Herro wasn’t doing anything that you’d think they just couldn’t stop him but at least they tried. At some point, the defense had to adjust… they didn’t and Herro cooked them. Then, he cooked them again. And somehow, he was open again and cooked them even more.

The Miami Celtics were on display

Talk about putting up 3s. That was a big reason why the Heat were able to get the win against the Raptors at home in the first game against them. They took 54 3s out of 94 shots. That is a 57.4% 3pt rate, which is the highest rate for the Heat this season — for comparison, this would only be the 10th highest for the Celtics.

Outside of the first quarter, they not only had the volume of 3s but also the efficiency. They shot 2/17 in the first then went 19/37 through three quarters.

I went through a handful of their makes and see how they generated such looks:

How the paint defense was non-existent

The Heat’s defense against the Raptors in both games was abysmal. They allowed a combined 130 points on 99 shots in the paint in these two games.

In the first game, they got cooked with Adebayo switching a lot and Poeltl was left to feast inside or others where there wasn’t a rim protector in sight. In the second game, the Heat did adjust by having Adebayo in a drop and limited the switches, but the results were the same — the Raptors feasted inside, scoring 68 points on 52 shots including 15 free throws.

They got hurt in transition, putbacks, cuts, drives, and the post. It was getting hurt on all counts.

I broke down all those ways with how the Raptors managed to score so well in the paint:

Heat Check

Here is a weekly ramble where it’s me simply ranting about the Heat. No plan. No script. No thoughts in structure. There’s not much analysis or breakdowns here. It’s me giving my thoughts and opinions on the state of the team and where I’m at with them. Plus some additional thoughts I may have that could be interesting or anything newsworthy to add.

We have officially reached the 20-game mark and the Heat are 10-10. Just for a comparison, here are their stats at the 20-game mark in past seasons:

• 2025: 10-10 with +1.8 net(13th), 114.8 ORTG(11th), 113.0 DRTG(11th)

• 2024: 11-9 with -0.0(20th), 115.2(13th), 115.2(18th)

• 2023: 9-11 with -0.8(20th), 110.9(22nd), 111.6(12th)

• 2022: 13-7 with +6.5(4th), 111.7(8th), 105.1(4th)

• 2021: 7-13 with -5.5(26th), 107.2(25th), 112.7(20th)

• 2020: 15-5 with +6.5(7th), 110.6(10th), 104.1(7th)

The encouraging point is that this year is the third-best year! The less encouraging point is that it’s still nowhere close to their two best seasons. But then again, the encouraging point is it’s better than 2023 when they made a final run — the only question is how much do you believe in that run can be replicated?

Because right now, the hope feels like it comes entirely from that 2023 season. That run altered the perception on what is likely to happen and how likely you’d want to write out a team. That team defied the odds time and time again. That was one of the biggest upsets in the first rounds, then again in the conference finals — some only gave them a 3% chance!

And because it happened after a season where they didn’t look great during the season, it now constantly feels like that run can justify any potential run despite not showing any signs of it during the season.

How are you going to argue that it can’t happen when it did happen? But for the most part, each season should be evaluated on its own.

If we do that, at the quarter mark of the season, this team hasn’t shown that it’s a serious contender. People say that the 20-game mark is when you get the idea of the team. The idea of the Heat is that they are good enough to constantly be in games, they can beat up bad teams, and can at times push the great teams to the wire, but they’re also not bad enough to be completely in any given game.

There are still questions on both ends of the floor. We have yet to see them have a great defensive game against a good offensive team. We have also are yet to see them score well against better defensive teams.

Even in games that they do have an elite statistical offense, I still worry a lot about how they generate their looks. If they’re looking to contend or even make some noise in the playoffs, they are still long ways to show they can do that.

It’s still figuring everything out. There is still potential for it all to be better. Adebayo can easily play better. Rozier can also play better. Jaquez can continue to bounce back. There are still ways to make this team a bit better than what it’s been, but there will always be a ceiling unless you don’t get a consistent production from Butler.

That has still been one of the biggest issues for the Heat.

But in other news, this team has been as good as it is because of Herro’s production and what has done is create a lot of buzz going around his All-Star case. That is legit this year. I do think he has a solid case to be in the running for either the last guard spot or the wild card.

We are still only in December and many things can change and happen, but right now, he’s on his way to having a good case any other potential candidates.

He is averaging 25.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per 75 possessions on 58.9% eFG and 62.3% TS. It’s high-scoring with additional playmaking. It’s efficient. It’s shooting the hell out of the ball from deep at 42.0% on over 14.6 attempts per 100 — that ranks 8th in the league and out of 11 players with 14 or more, he’s 4th in percentage.

On a less positive note, Adebayo is still having a rough season. In his last five games, he’s shooting 12.8 points on 41.3% from the floor, which was boosted by the Lakers game. This was his shooting in these five games:

• 6/8 vs Lakers

• 6/18 vs Celtics

• 5/13 vs Raptors

• 6/16 vs Raptors

• 3/8 vs Hornets

Not counting the Lakers game, it drops to 36.4%. It has to bounce back at some point because it is getting frustrating to watch.

On the other hand, his assists have skyrocketed. In that same five-game stretch, he’s averaging 7.8, with two 10-assist games. He has nine games with a 25% assist rate and four with 30%. He had 17 games with 25% last year and 11 with 30%.

We have seen that his role has shifted a lot more to being responsible for being the hub.

They do have a tougher schedule coming up with the Suns, Cavaliers, Raptors(not a strong opponent in general but it was for them), Thunder, and Magic twice. The only easy opponent in the next eight are the Pistons and the Pistons.

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.

• Rozier has been getting out of the slump when it comes to shooting off the bench. He’s averaging 12/2/2 in six games off the bench on 61.4% eFG and 65.2% TS. He’s also shooting 43.3% on 5.0 3s.

• The Heat are still one of the best transition teams in terms of efficiency at 1.20 points per possession. All these years of not being able to finish, they finally fixed it

• The Heat’s paint defense has been slipping. They are allowing 48.6 points in the paint per 100, which ranks 16th

• Butler is somehow having his most efficient season from 2pt(57.5%), eFG%(57.1%), second highest TS%(64.4%), highest rim%(69.5%), third highest short mid-range%(47.7%), but he is having his lowest USG% since 2015 at 22.0%

• Another random Butler stat, he’s having the highest % of his shots as dunks with 9.55 of his shots. He has 16 dunks in 15 games already. For comparison, that was 5.7% with 41 dunks in 60 games last year

• The starting lineup of Herro-Duncan-Butler-Highsmith-Adebayo are +8.5 in 92 minutes with a 122.7 ORTG shooting 58% from 2pt and 42% from 3pt