NBA Playoffs Small Sample Efficiency Check: Miami Heat
The Miami Heat went on an epic heater to beat the Bucks, can they keep it up?
Summer came early in Milwaukee because they already can’t beat the Heat. Bad jokes aside, what the Miami Heat pulled off goes beyond belief. The Bucks had the NBA’s best record, its consensus best player, rampaged to a 31-10 record to close the season, and were absolutely outclassed by the Miami Heat. A back injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo that limited him to less than ten healthy minutes was an unexpected break for the Heat, but so was Tyler Herro’s hand. Giannis’ absence for most of game one and all of games two and three gave the Heat the one thing they needed to pull off the upset of the playoffs, the best player in the series.
Jimmy Butler orchestrated one of the all-time great series. His 37.6 points per game lead the playoffs, and second-place Devin Booker got to his 37.2 points per game in six more minutes a game. On a per 36-minutes basis, Butler has a 5.4-point lead on the competition. The Heat leaned into Butler with a 35.3% usage rate, a massive jump from his regular season usage of 25.6%, and all he did was post a true shooting of 67.1%. No matter who the Bucks threw at him, Butler cooked.
The Heat’s 118.9 offensive rating against the Bucks’ fourth-ranked defense (111.9) was the surprise of the playoffs after limping into the playoffs as the 25th-ranked offense (113.0). And they needed every bit of the offensive uptick as the Bucks produced an offensive rating of 114.0, a 1.4 drop in efficiency but right in line with the 1.7 drop in scoring efficiency seen in the playoffs compared to the regular season. The Heat’s net rating of +4.9 is the lowest of any team to advance but is still impressive considering they did it against the league’s best team, and they weathered a 138-122 loss in game two.
The Heat’s Offensive Metrics, Concerns, and Optimism
If you’re a Miami Heat fan, I have bad news. The Heat are on a heater, and heaters never last. The Heat lead the playoffs in effective field goal percentage (eFG%) but finished 25th in eFG% in the regular season. Teams don’t just flip a shot-making switch in the playoffs, and the Heat’s playoff eFG% of 60.5% will begin to trend ever closer to their regular season mark of 53%.
There’s also nothing in their shot chart to suggest that they should continue to shoot well above their regular season efficiency. In fact, against the Bucks, the Heat saw their shot chart get less efficient as their share of shots around the basket, in the short-mid-range and from 3-point range decreased, and their share of shots in the mid-range increased. Jimmy Butler taking more shots in the mid-range, where he’s excellent, will help keep their efficiency afloat, but expecting Butler to be prime Michael Jordan for an entire playoff run is wishful thinking.
The smoking regression gun for the Heat is their 3-point shooting. The Heat’s 34.4% 3-point shooting during the regular season was 27th, but their 45% playoff 3-point shooting ranks first by a mile. Reggie Miller caught a lot of grief when he said the Heat losing Tyler Herro was a bigger loss than the Bucks losing Giannis Antetokounmpo, but it wasn’t nearly as insane as it sounded. Herro’s 37.8% 3-point shooting, at exceptional volume (8.0 3PA per game), led the Heat during the regular season. It didn’t end up mattering against the Bucks because the six Heat that attempted 15 or more 3-pointers in the series shot over 41%, and Duncan Robinson returning from the grave to hit 14 of 19 (73.7%) threes more than made up for the loss of Herro. If the Heat hadn’t shot 45% and instead hit 38.7% of their threes, which is what the Sixers’ regular season-leading efficiency clocked in at, they would have lost 6.5 points per game and dropped their 124.0 points per game to 117.5– the Bucks averaged 118.8 points per game in the series.
The Heat’s hot shooting was necessary to beat the Bucks because they were relatively poor in the other three offensive four categories of turnover percentage (TOV%), offensive rebounding percentage (ORB%), and free throw to field goal attempt rate (FT/FGA). The Heat’s TOV% of 13% is the fourth worst of the playoffs and an increase from their regular season rate of 12.4%. While the Bucks were an excellent defense, they posted the lowest defensive TOV% in the regular season at 10.4%. Perhaps the Heat getting a bit looser with the ball opened up better shooting opportunities, but a spike in TOV% against the Bucks is not a great sign.
The Heat were particularly poor at generating offensive rebounds (17.8%) and saw their FT/FGA rate crater, but that isn’t a huge reason for concern. The Bucks were top-four defensively in both metrics, and if your shots are falling, there’s no reason to gamble on the offensive glass or force the issue in pursuit of points at the line.
The Heat’s first-round upset over the Bucks being a case of luck isn’t an insult. Upsets, especially very large ones, are the product of luck, which is what makes them so exciting. If teams performed exactly to their established norms, what would be the point of watching? With Jimmy Butler shouldering a heavier load, the Heat’s offense will be better but need to continue to scorch the nets from three if they want to make a deep run.
The Heat’s Defensive Metrics, Concerns, and Optimism
The Heat made the playoffs because of their defense, and it largely held up against the Bucks, with one MVP-sized caveat. The Bucks were only at full strength for roughly one-quarter of basketball. When Giannis Antetokounmpo landed on his back with 1:46 left in the first quarter of game one, the Bucks’ championship odds plummeted. During the regular season, with Giannis on the court, the Bucks’ offense was +7.95 points per 100 possessions better. Giannis would practically miss the rest of game one, all of games two and three, and was clearly still bothered by the injury in games four and five.
Even though Giannis was either out or limited against the Heat, they still did an excellent job slowing down the Bucks’ attack. The Bucks saw their offensive rating drop from 115.4 to 114, and that was despite a small uptick in eFG%. The Heat kept the Bucks off the offensive glass, away from the free-throw line, and limited their ability to get near the rim. Also, if it wasn’t for the Bucks’ game-two 25-for-49 3-point explosion producing a single-game offensive rating of 133.8, the Heat’s defensive showing would look more impressive.
It’s hard to analyze how the Heat lowered the percentage of the Bucks’ shots zero to three feet from the basket from 23.6% to 19.2% and their efficiency on those shots from 72.4% to 69.7%. Giannis led the Bucks in shots near the rim as they accounted for 48% of his 20.3 of his field goal attempts, and he finished them at a 79.1% clip. Considering the Giannis-sized hole in the Bucks’ attack, did the Heat really do anything special?
If you watched the Bucks crumble against the Heat, you would assume that the Heat forced the Bucks into a ton of turnovers. Even though the Bucks looked lost on offense at times, the Heat’s defense didn’t capitalize with turnovers. In fact, the Heat saw their defensive TOV% drop from 14.5% in the regular season to 12.4% in the playoffs. However, the Heat appear to have been very unlucky. Their 18.8 deflections per game lead the playoffs and is a +4.0 increase from their regular season mark. It’s scary to think about, but the Heat’s ability to force turnovers may be even better than in the regular season when they finished second in TOV%.
The Heat’s final defensive components don’t warrant a ton of discussion. Their defensive rebounding in the playoffs (77.5%) remained steady from the regular season (77.7%), as did their defensive FT/FGA. The Heat’s .164 FT/FGA looks like a significant improvement from their regular season production of .198, but it can mostly be explained by the playoffs seeing a decrease in free throw attempts, the Bucks’ loss of Giannis for an extended stretch, and the Bucks’ shooting 71% from the line compared to the regular season league average of 78.2%.
The Heat’s defense looks relatively unchanged from the unit that finished tied for eighth in defensive efficiency. If they can start racking up turnovers like their playoff deflections suggest is possible, then there’s a strong likelihood that the Heat’s defense will be one of the best defenses remaining in the playoffs.
Playoff-Jimmy, Bam’s Struggles, and Pace
Jimmy Butler won’t continue to be Michael Jordan circa 1986-87, but Butler is routinely one of the best players in the league and has a track record of upping his game in the playoffs. Since his breakout in 2014-15, Butler has a regular season offensive box plus-minus (OBPM) of 4.5 and a playoff OBPM of 4.9. Considering a slight dropoff in production is expected in the playoffs, Butler upping his offensive game at all is very impressive.
The biggest concern the Heat have going forward is who will pick up the slack when Butler isn’t producing at a historic level and when the 3-point shooting comes back to Earth. The answer every talking head will have is Bam Adebayo, but his performance against the Bucks is worrying. Adebayo remains an excellent versatile frontcourt defender but looked completely out of sorts against the Bucks. On the surface, his 17.4 points and 5.0 assists per game look solid for a player coming off a 20.4 points and 3.2 assists per game season. However, Adebayo’s shooting efficiency and free throw generation plummeted while his turnovers exploded.
Adebayo went from averaging 14.9 field goal attempts and 5.4 free throw attempts in the regular season to 16.0 field goal attempts and 3.2 free throw attempts. In terms of raw shooting opportunities, Adebayo’s volume hardly budged, which is what makes a drop of three points a game so concerning. He doesn’t need to be a go-to scorer, but he needs to give the Heat at least league-average production as a scorer. The explosion in turnovers is another significant concern. Without Tyler Herro, Adebayo, behind Butler, is the Heat’s next best bet to create offense for himself and others. His 5.1 turnovers per 100 possessions against the Bucks is simply too much for a player that lacks elite playmaking or scoring.
The final note on the Heat is the most interesting. The Heat played at the NBA’s second slowest pace in the regular season (96.3), but their series against the Bucks was the second fastest of the playoffs (102.1). With playoff pace dropping below the regular season average, it’s incredible that the Heat played at nearly a six-possession per game faster pace. Interestingly, the Heat’s regular season record in games with a pace of at least 101 was 1-7. Four of their five games against the Bucks topped a 101 pace, and they went 3-1 in those games. This could all be noise, but it’s something worth monitoring.
The Heat’s epic upset of the Bucks saw their defense perform near the levels they established during the regular season and their offense go to a level previously thought unattainable. Having Jimmy Butler in playoff-mode makes up for many offensive woes, and so does shooting 45% from three. When the Heat experience some 3-point shooting regression, they’ll look a lot more like the 44-win team they were during the regular season. I hate betting against Jimmy Butler, but even if he continues to play at this level, the outside shooting has to regress. The Heat might be better than the seven seed they were during the regular season, but they aren’t anywhere near the giant-slaying level they showed against the Bucks.