It’s Not Even Summer Time, and No One Can Beat the Heat
The Miami Heat are one game away from the NBA Finals. How did they pull off the most surprising run of the 21st century? By harnessing variance
I’d like to formally apologize to the Heat. I picked the Celtics in four, otherwise known as a sweep, in the Eastern Conference Finals, and naturally, the Heat went out and won games one, two, and three to take a 3-0 series lead. I had my reasons for being very confident in the Celtics, and I still have those reasons, but I did give myself a lifeline in our Eastern Conference Finals Preview if I was wrong.
“The Celtics are so much better than the Heat that this should be a short series. The only reason I say ‘should’ is because of the respect I have for Jimmy Butler to be the best player in the world for a seven-game stretch. The truth is, even if Butler goes nuts, the Heat are going to need another outlier 3-point shooting performance and the Celtics struggling on offense to come out ahead.”
Even when I’m wrong, I’m right.
My confidence in the Heat basically started with Jimmy Butler and ended with the reality that 3-point shooting variance is the greatest equalizer in modern basketball. The myth of Playoff Jimmy Butler is a mere myth, not because he doesn’t exist, but because he is just as awesome in the regular season. The only thing that changes is Butler plays more minutes, takes a few more shots, and you actually watch him play.
(A full article on playoff Jimmy being a myth will follow shortly, so smash subscribe if you’re interested)
So how are the Heat on the precipice of the NBA Finals when a little more than a month ago they were on the brink of summer vacation?
It’s the 3-Point Shooting Variance, Stupid
The NBA’s love affair with the 3-point shot has turbo-charged offense, but it has had another unintended consequence, variance. Three points is 50% more than two points. Mathematically speaking, hitting 33% of your threes is just as valuable as hitting 50% of your twos, but that misses a critical statistical mark. What are the error bars? What is the variance?
Using the Heat and the Celtics' regular season production gives us some insight. The standard deviation of the Heat’s 3-point shooting on a game-by-game basis during the regular season was 7.55% but was only 7.19% on 2-pointers. A gap of 0.36% is small, but when one shot is worth 50% more, the total point production is much more varied. If you normalize their 3-point percentage to be equivalent to 2-point percentage on a point-per-shot basis, the standard deviation jumps to 11.33%. The same was true of the Celtics, their 2-point shooting standard deviation clocked in at 7.99%, and their 3-point shooting, when normalized, was 11.83%.
Feel the Heat
The Heat have been scorching hot from 3-point range all playoffs. Their 34.4% 3-point shooting was 27th during the regular season, but they’ve hit 38.8% of their threes in the playoffs, tied for first, and that undersells how timely their 3-point shooting variance has been. Against the Bucks, they shot 45% from three, and against the Celtics, they’ve hit 47.8%.
While the Heat have had the exact type of positive 3-point shooting variance they’ve needed on offense, their opponents have also come up cold beyond the arc. The Bucks shot 37.8% from three, but outside of game two, when they went 25 of 49, they only hit 33.7% of their threes. The Knicks shot a ghastly 29.85% from three, which offset the Heat’s 30.56% mark for the series, and the Celtics have shot 29.24%.
Have the Heat been the luckiest team in NBA history? Or are they doing something to win the battle beyond the arc?
In terms of 3-point shot openness, the Heat haven’t really done anything different from the regular season, outside of hitting them. During the regular season, the Heat attempted the fewest open threes per game of any team at 13.7 and hit them at a 37.1% clip, good for 25th in the league. In the playoffs, they’ve taken 12.2 wide-open threes (15th out of 16) but hit a scorching 43.3%, the best in the playoffs.
The same trend emerges for open threes. The Heat took 15.5 per game (7th) and hit 34.3% (18th) of their open threes during the regular season but have taken 14.6 (6th) and hit 40.7% (1st) in the playoffs. The Heat went from one of the worst 3-point shooting teams on open and wide-open looks to the absolute best. The question is how?
The Heat have run more pick-and-rolls in the playoffs than in the regular season, but considering their volume of open and wide-open threes hasn’t changed much, the simplest answer is probably the best. The Heat are shooting well above their regular season levels. However, there is compelling evidence that the Heat’s regular season 3-point shooting wasn’t entirely indicative of their true ability.
In 2021-22, the Heat secured the one seed in the Eastern Conference and led the league in 3-point shooting at 37.9%. For a roster that remained largely unchanged, dropping from 37.9% to 34.4% is massive. Going through the Heat’s roster, nearly every player of consequence on this playoff run saw their 3-point shooting dip substantially from 2021-22 to 2022-23. This isn’t to suggest that the Heat are a true talent 39% 3-point shooting team as they’ve shown in these playoffs, but it does indicate that they’re not overperforming their true shooting talent to the degree that their 2022-23 metrics suggest.
Has Their 3-Point Defense Gone to Another Level?
Defensively, the Heat holding their opponents to 32.9% 3-point shooting in the playoffs is unlikely to continue. The Rockets, who were nowhere close to the playoffs, converted a league-worst 32.7% of their threes, while the Pelicans had the best 3-point defense, holding opponents to 33.9% shooting from beyond the arc during the 2022-23 regular season. 3-point defense is a real skill, but no team is this good, and there’s tangible evidence that the Heat have been the benefactors of luck.
Teams have hit an ice-cold 31.1% of their above-the-break threes against the Heat, the third lowest of the playoffs, and the lowest of any team to play more than a single series. That figure should rise, and if the playoffs were as long as the regular season, it would. The Heat also haven’t done a good job limiting 3-point attempts. They’re allowing 43.7% of their opponents’ shots to come from distance, the third-highest rate of the playoffs, and 27.7% of those have come from the corners, where their opponents have converted at a respectable 37.9% rate.
Allowing threes but preventing them from going in is a repeatable strategy, but the Heat haven’t been monsters at contesting shots from distance. They’ve allowed 15.1 wide-open threes per game (8th most out of 16), 16.6 open threes (2nd), and 5.3 tightly contested threes (8th). The only reason it’s working is they’ve ‘held’ their opponents to 34.6% on wide-open threes, 33% on open threes, and 28.4% on tightly contested threes. The tides may not turn, but there’s every chance they do.
Chocking a surprising playoff run up to 3-point shooting variance isn’t fun, nor is it entirely true regarding the Heat. They’ve played to their maximum level. Jimmy Butler has decided to shoot more, Bam Adebayo has strung together a consistent run on offense, the role players have shot the absolute lights out when needed, and the defense was always good, regardless of shooting variance.
However, this team’s maximum level shouldn’t have been enough to get to the NBA Finals. The Bucks didn’t have a fully functional Giannis Antetokounmpo for more than 10 minutes, the Knicks got to the second round because the Cavaliers imploded, and the Celtics have frankly shot about as poorly as possible while seeing their opponent never miss. The Heat deserve a ton of credit for raising their game, but how much they’ve raised it is difficult to pinpoint when so many things are going their way beyond the arc.
The Heat haven’t figured anything out that we didn’t already know. Teams look amazing when variance is on their side. We’ll make a lot out of Heat culture, Eric Spoelstra, Jimmy Butler, the Celtics collapsing, Joe Mazzulla can’t coach, can Jaylen and Jayson win a championship, but in reality, this is the modern NBA. The 3-point shot has made basketball more exciting by increased scoring, but it has also thrown more variance into outcomes.
With a new Collective Bargaining Agreement on the horizon aimed at preventing super teams, the days of dynasties might be over, and the Heat may be the canary in the coal mine. With a more even distribution of talent and more variance through 3-point shooting, the Heat may be the first in a growing history of surprise playoff runs. Whether that’s a good thing or not is another discussion.