What's Been Heating Up: The Paint was wide open against the Raptors

Only a couple of days later, the Miami Heat fell short against this same Toronto Raptors team that they beat, but similar issues bit them again in game one.

The Raptors had 68 points in the paint on 52 shots. They shot 62% inside the paint. 57% of their points came here and if you also include 15 of their free throws, that is almost 70% of their points. 59% of their shots came here.

That was basically the same story as in the first game, where the Raptors had 62 points in the paint on 47 shots. That was also still 55% of their points in the paint and almost 70% if you include free throws. That was also 58% of their shots. Almost identical.

The only difference was the Raptors took care of the ball much better. They had a 16.0% TOV compared to 20.0%. That 4% can make a difference. Without the reliance on turnovers, the Heat couldn’t defend as well.

This really was an abysmal defensive performance from the Heat even beyond just the total points in the paint and at the rim. The effort wasn’t there in transition. Layup lines. Players jogging to the rim with no one getting picked up. Losing cutters. And no one was able to stay in front or offer any kind of resistance.

So, let’s go through the defense, focusing on their paint and rim defense.

There were five different ways they were getting hurt: transition, putbacks, cuts, drives, and post. When writing that out, it’s basically getting hurt in every way possible. There wasn’t anywhere that they could defend.

The first thing that stood out was their effort defensively:

I’ve seen many takes that a missed shot layup or dunk is essentially a turnover. That’s what happens on the first go. Adebayo misses the putback, Barnes gets the board and everyone is already sprinting alongside him. Barrett runs the lanes and catches Butler backpedaling, which he will easily beat that sprinting to the rim. Butler wasn’t going to recover on that.

In the next clip, Larsson didn’t pick up Barrett before it was too late. He’s going to attack aggressively and there’s nothing that Larsson was going to do at that point, similar to Butler.

All four instances were just horrible going back. Each time, each Raptor was sprinting before any defender had the chance to recover or react.

Moving on to another instance where it was because of lack of effort, not being switched on or engaged and it had to do with their cutting. It was ball-watching and losing cutters behind them. It was guys slipping on screens.

Similar to the Heat, they also exploited this perfectly. They were using Poeltl as the hub up top, which does take away Adebayo from rim protecting duties.

You can see that in the first clip. Poeltl gets the ball on the elbow and acts as the hub. Barrett is screening Highsmith. Not sure why the Heat didn’t switch that with Butler. Instead, Highsmith takes the longer route to get to him and Barnes is able to catch the ball right under the basket. Also, note that Duncan is glued to Agbaji, eliminating any potential help.

In the following clip, they picked apart the zone defense like it was nothing with the Boucher cut behind the defense. Adebayo was left with two choices, either to Barnes or sinking down low to Boucher. He chose Barnes and Barnes made him pay.

This is another example of where Poeltl being a hub makes all of this work. All of this is what should be going on with the Heat with Adebayo as the hub, but that requires better reads from the perimeter players. That’s what Barrett does. It’s a Delay action with Poeltl. Barrett is coming off a screen with Larsson trailing him. He looks like he’s recovered, expecting the handoff, but Barrett reads that perfectly and makes that strong backcut. Agbaji is again the sole spacer on that one side, which takes away Burks as the low man.

You can’t get beat like that on the cut. Larsson overplayed after the screen and got burned because of it.

But it was this cut that made my blood boil:

This is a semi-transition cut with Boucher JOGGING. He’s JOGGING and somehow gets an open cut to the rim. That goes back to their poor effort getting back defensively. But this is also Larsson not paying attention to where his man is.

The final defensive part where it’s about effort and engagement was their defensive rebounding. They allowed a few easy putbacks:

Some of it was effort. Some of it was poor discipline. Some of it was simply bad, lazy, poor defense. And some of it was also being too small.

Take the first clip. Agbaji goes at Duncan in the post but you also have Adebayo, not only overhelping but also biting on a fake that gets him out of position to help boxing out. Highsmith is late to react to Poeltl and that’s an easy putback for him.

The next clip was poor defense from Adebayo, allowing Poeltl to get in front of him to get a better position in the first place. Poeltl now has a better position and has the size advantage.

This possession was simply hilarious and there are no words for that. Multiple chances and a poor ending to at least salvage it with good defense.

Now, we get to the isolation and drive defense.

A lot of the time, their perimeter defense against drives was nonexistent. It didn’t matter if it was off the catch beating closeouts or in the PNR. Too many times, the defending guard offered little to no resistance. The Raptors didn’t end up turning the corner but whoever was in front was if there wasn’t anyone in front in the first place.

Here, Barnes attacks Duncan quickly in the post, which draws the double. That’s an easy kick to Barrett. Herro does recognize that and quickly looks to rotate over. The issue is when he did that, Barrett didn’t care and he went straight through him.

Or take this off the dribble drive. Though there is also the issue with Jaquez being cross-matched on Poeltl. It’s a Shead PNR and he goes through Rozier so easily.

The Raptors also had a handful of possessions in the post, that I liked from them.

The first was a cross match with Duncan on Poeltl. That alone is an immediate panic for the Heat because the biggest guy going to the post against Duncan and your best rim protector is on the perimeter. There’s little that you can do quickly to take away that advantage. Duncan tries to front but Butler is late on the help from behind, so when Poeltl gets the pass, he’s already under the rim.

Finally, Barrett cooked. Simple as that:

This was one of the simplest ways the Raptors attacked the Heat and it involves simple 1v1 against any of the perimeter defenders. Even Butler had bad possessions against him that ended with him getting pushed out of his spots. Barrett was him this game and there was nothing the Heat could’ve done without actively changing their scheme and adjusting aggressively to stop Barrett, and that could’ve opened up so much more for the Raptors.