This obviously isn’t the best timing for an article such as this, considering the fact that the Bulls just blew us out 109-90 last night and our defense was horrible in the 2nd half. But the truth is, even though you may have thought that the Heat’s defense was horrible during the regular season, it really wasn’t bad at all.

All that needs to be done is an examination of the Heat’s defensive efficiency this season compared to the rest of the league. In order to do this, I am going to use a stat called “points allowed per 100 possessions.” It’s a different (and better) stat than points allowed per game because it takes into account a team’s pace (basically, how quickly they use possessions), so that teams who limit possessions but aren’t efficient defensively don’t get overrated.

Now, you may ask, why does this matter if the bottom line is that a team allowed a low amount of points per game? It matters because as you slow down the game, you’re cutting down on your opportunities to score as well as those of the other team. As a result, it’s going to take a brilliant offensive effort to have a chance in the game if you’re not being efficient defensively.

Here’s a more visual example. Say the Heat are playing the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks only give up 93 points to the Heat, yet allow the Heat to shoot 39-65 (60%) from the field, 4-8 on 3′s, and 11-15 from the foul line (meaning they slowed down the pace SIGNIFICANTLY). This means that even though the Mavs only allowed 93 points, it’s going to take a monumental offensive effort from them to win the game because, even though they slowed down the pace and allowed fewer points to the Heat, they also limited the opportunities for them to score (and in a game in which they played lousy defense, as much offensive opportunities as possible are needed).

That being said, let’s take a look at the Heat’s points allowed per 100 possessions this season. The Heat allowed 104.2 points per 100 possessions, which was 9th in the league. In comparison, the Heat allowed 102.8 points per 100 possessions in 2004-05, which was 5th in the league. This season’s Heat was only 1.4 points per 100 possessions worse than last season’s Heat, which was generally regarded as a good defensive team. As a result, while the Heat’s defense hasn’t been as good as the 2004-05 Heat’s defense, it wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be. For all the qualms about its shoddy perimeter defense, the Heat still had the 9th-best team in the league defensively, despite missing 2 of its best defensive players in Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning for a combined 40 games.

Then, you may ask, why were the Heat 7 games worse than last season? It’s because of injuries, which cost our team on the offensive (and like I mentioned, defensive) end. This season’s Heat scored 108.9 points per 100 possessions (7th in the league), while last season’s Heat scored 110.5 points per 100 possessions (5th in the league). In other words, last season’s Heat scored 1.6 more points per 100 possessions than this season’s Heat.

Obviously the offense will be much better in the playoffs with a full and healthy roster (as we showed in Game 1 and 2 against Chicago before dropping a stinker in Game 3). But so will the defense. Our declining offense was as responsible for our struggles this season as our declining defense (both of which were due to injuries to our best players more than anything).

This team is by no means near San Antonio, Memphis, Detroit, and New Jersey defensively, but it held its own in the regular season. Let’s see if it can continue to do so during the playoffs.

As the Heat and Bulls wound up game 3 last night, James Posey went on a frenzy. He pushed Tyson Chandler a little harder than normal while tracking down a rebound, but also laid into Kirk Hinrich in the very next play.

According to Stu Jackson, who is the NBA’s disciplinarian, he was ‘sizing up’ Hinrich when he shouldered the point guard down to the floor.

Posey got ejected immediately and left the game.

The Heat then proceeded to implode with a technical from Haslem. More fouls ensued.

And I liked every second of it. Why?

Sure, it pretty much cost the Heat the game at that point. It also cost the Heat one of their best three point threats and perimeter defenders for who knows how long, probably the series. But what it did do is push this team closer to embracing its ultimate identity.

If this team is going to be a champion, it must get a little nastier, a lot meaner. It can’t be the jolly giant that seems to be Shaq these days. It needs to be a fierce competitor, more along the lines of a Wookie – who you will let win or it will tear your arms from your sockets.

The Heat not only need to dominate opponents, but intimidate and instill fear. Zo does that at the center position by redirecting shots taken in the paint with his timely blocks. Haslem looks the part, with the corn rows dangling from behind his head – like something from Mad Max. Wade shaved his head completely bald to, admittedly, not be so ‘pretty’.

Good guys wear white, bad guys wear black. Don the black. Embrace it. Give in to the Dark Side and become more powerful than you could ever imagine. Pat Riley needs to let his team feel this identity grow and take hold of it. They need to come out with swords drawn, eyes glaring, flaming nostrils.

This is the playoffs. Win or go home. Someone stole your car, your house, has held your family hostage. Take no prisoners. It is about doing whatever it takes to succeed – climbing over the carcasses of those who came before you at the mouth of the Hydra.

Riley likes to point to the story of Cortez and his ambition in Mexico, where he had his boats burned so that his men knew there was no way out. The mission was their life. Or like Patton said, the object of war is not dying for your country, but making the other poor bastard die for his.

Fall down 7 times, get up 8? Not unless you are going to knock down someone else each time you get up.

That is what this team needs to learn. That is the identity this team needs to grab hold of and embrace. In order to win, the Heat have to get a little crazy, feel a little bloodlust. They need to smell the blood in the water and go for the kill.

Time to embrace the dark side.

Basketball-reference.com has released offensive and defensive ratings (points produced and allowed per 100 possessions) for every player in the league for the 2005-06 season. While I don’t always trust the defensive ratings, the offensive ratings are excellent indicators as to how efficient a player was on the offensive end. So without further adieu…

Dwyane Wade was by far the Heat’s best and most efficient player in the 2005-06 season. He produced 115 points per 100 possessions while allowing 103. In comparison, last season, he produced 109 points per 100 possessions while allowing 103. The league average for points per 100 possessions was at 106 both seasons, so Wade basically improved his offensive rating by 6 points per 100 possessions while carrying a slightly heavier load. He has been developing at a rapid rate since he came into the league (he improved by 8 points per 100 possessions from his rookie year to his 2nd year and like I already said, by 6 points per 100 possessions from his 2nd year to his 3rd year). He did a much better job carrying this team compared to last year’s team.

The reason for this is because Wade’s true shooting percentage (stat that adjusts for 3-pointers and free throws) improved from 56.1% in 2004-05 to 57.7% this season (in large part because his FG% went up from 47.8% to 49.5% and his FT% went up from 76.2% to 78.3%), his turnover rate decreased from 12.9 turnovers per 100 possessions in 2004-05 to 10.6 turnovers per 100 possessions in 2005-06 (very significant drop), and his rebounding improved slightly. In comparison to Wade, LeBron James produced 115 points per 100 possessions while allowing 104, and Kobe produced 114 points per 100 possessions while allowing 105. Wade established himself as a top 3 player in the game this season and is the major reason why we have a shot at the title.

However, Wade needs to continue to get his turnovers down to below 10 per 100 possessions. I’d also like to see him get his assists up a little (his assists went down from 20.8 per 100 possessions in 2004-05 to 19.8 per 100 possessions in 2005-06). It’d also be nice if he could get his FT% to above 80% and continue to work on his mid-range shot. He’s going to have to rely on it more during his career in order to keep himself healthy instead of driving to the rim so often. It’ll mean fewer FT attempts, but it’ll also mean a healthier Wade and as a result, more wins.

Shaquille O’Neal declined from 2004-05. He produced 108 points per 100 possessions this season while allowing 102 (last season, he produced 111 points per 100 possessions while allowing 100). I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say his struggles were in large part due to his injuries (that caused him to miss 23 games and undoubtedly created some sort of rust) and his weight problems at the beginning of the season, but this still doesn’t bode well for the Heat in the future. Don’t take this as a knock on Shaq, though. His efficiency offensively is still remarkable considering his age and the large amount of possessions that he has to carry, and he had a significant role in JWill and Posey’s improvement, to go with Haslem’s very good year (all discussed later). You also have to take into account the impact he has on the defensive end (basically forcing opponents to shoot from the perimeter). He’s just not nearly as good as he was 3-4 years ago.

The reasons that Shaq’s efficiency declined significantly from last season are because his assists went down (from 10.9 per 100 possessions last season to 8.8 per 100 possessions this season), and his turnovers went up (from 11.1 per 100 possessions last season to 13.0 this season). His shooting and rebounding stayed virtually the same. It’s very discouraging to see his turnovers go up, because 13.0 turnovers per 100 possessions is horrible (about as bad as Wade’s turnover problem in 2004-05). What especially worries me is the fact that Shaq’s fouls went up from 4.2 per 40 minutes in 2004-05 to 5.1 per 40 minutes in 2005-06. He fouled more often, meaning he played the fewest minutes of his career (30.6 per game).

But on the flip side, like I’ve said, the rust coming back from the ankle injury (and his lack of mobility when he first came back after the 18 missed games) played a big part in his decrease in efficiency. The Shaq of this year’s playoffs will likely be much better than the Shaq of the regular season (as he’s already shown through the first 2 games).

Alonzo Mourning had an excellent season backing up Shaq (and taking over as starting center while Shaq was out at the beginning of the year). He produced 113 points per 100 possessions while allowing only 98. He’s the reason why our defense was still pretty good during the regular season due to his shot blocking. The only reason his offensive efficiency wasn’t in the late 110s-early 120s was because he turned the ball over so frequently (15.7 turnovers per 100 possessions) and didn’t really pick up many assists (only 2.2 per 100 possessions). Regardless, he established himself as the best backup center in the league and the 3rd best player on this team.

Udonis Haslem followed up his excellent 2004-05 season (offensive rating of 118 and a defensive rating of 102) with a strong 2005-06 season. He produced 116 points per 100 possessions and allowed 104. His true shooting percentage went down from 58.8% to 55.8% (in large part because his FG% went down from 54.0% last season to 50.8% this season), and he rebounded the ball 15.0% of the time compared to 15.8% of the time last season, but he made up for it by cutting his turnovers down from 11.8 per 100 possessions last season to 9.4 per 100 possessions this season. His efficiency would have been even better if not for the broken pinky that bothered him at the beginning of the season. He’s been quite the steal for the Heat ever since we signed him, and conventional stats (points per game, rebounds per game, etc.) don’t reflect his worth to this team on the offensive and defensive end. The fact that he played 81 of 82 games for the Heat this season is also a testament to his durability and heart. He’s shown that he was well worth the 5-year, $31 million deal.

J-Dub improved markedly in his first year in Miami with the help of the open looks created by Shaq. He produced 113 points per 100 possessions while allowing 108 (the most points he’s produced per 100 possessions by far). Take away his horrible streak of games after returning from the lacerated finger, and he has an even more efficient year. He averaged 27.7 assists per 100 possessions and turned the ball over only 9.7 times per 100 possessions (in other words, he assisted the ball 28% of the time and turned it over 10% of the time). His true shooting percentage went up from 52.2% in 2004-05 to 56.1% in 2005-06.

James Posey did a pretty good job replacing Eddie Jones this season. His conventional stats won’t jump at you (7.2 PPG, 4.8 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 40.3% shooting), but what sets him apart is his identical 40.3% shooting from behind the arc (compared to EJ’s 37% shooting behind the arc last season), which helped him to have a true shooting percentage of 57.2% (compared to EJ’s TS% of 55.6% last season). Posey had an offensive rating of 112 and a defensive rating of 104, compared to EJ’s offensive rating of 113 and defensive rating of 104 last season (this season, EJ had an offensive rating of 109 and a defensive rating of 100 with the Grizzlies). Efficiency-wise, Posey was almost as good as EJ was last season. He and JWill alone were well worth the price of Eddie Jones.

Gary Payton had a mediocre year backing up J-Dub, with a TS% of only 52% despite getting plenty of open looks (and then proceeding to shoot 29% behind the arc). He averaged 26.7 assists per 100 possessions and 10.6 turnovers per 100 possessions, which isn’t bad. As a result, GP produced 107 points per 100 possessions and allowed 107 points per 100 possessions. He was much better than our backup PG last season in Keyon Dooling (who produce
d only 99 points per 100 possessions and allowed 106), but I can’t help but think that this team would have been much better off with Damon Jones backing up JWill instead of GP (DJ produced 124 points per 100 possessions while allowing 107 last season). On the bright side, GP did play good D and played in 81 of the Heat’s 82 games.

Antoine Walker improved upon his efficiency in Atlanta and Boston last season, but still had a mediocre year. He produced 101 points per 100 possessions and allowed 105 (comparable to his year with Dallas in 2003-04). Walker had a TS% of only 52.4% (which was actually the highest TS% of his career) and turned the ball over 11.8 times per 100 possessions, which is why his offensive rating was so low. He deserves credit for being the only player on the team to play all 82 games and he did carry a large part of our offense while having the most efficient year of his career (not to mention being a pretty good playmaker and working well with Zo). He also helped to keep this team afloat while we suffered through a number of injuries to our best players. Considering the success of JWill and Posey, the 5-team deal was well worth it. In hindsight, I would have preferred that we had signed Shareef Abdur-Rahim to be our backup PF, but Walker wasn’t too bad.

As a team, we produced 108.9 points per 100 possessions (7th in the league) and allowed 104.2 points per 100 possessions (9th in the league). Last season, we produced 110.5 points per 100 possessions and allowed 102.8 points per 100 possessions (both 5th in the league).

Our strengths were that we shot the ball well (effective field goal percentage of 51.7%, which was 2nd in the league behind Phoenix), we were an excellent defensive rebounding team (we rebounded the ball on the defensive end 76.4% of the time, tops in the league), and we got to the FT line often (28.2 FT attempts per game, 7th in the league). We allowed an effective field goal percentage of 47.7% (11th in the league) and allowed 27.1 FTs per game (12th in the league), both of which were decent. Our weaknesses were that we turned the ball over too much (16.0 turnovers per 100 possessions, which was 16th in the league), we didn’t do a good job on the offensive boards (we got offensive rebounds 26.7% of the time, which was 17th in the league), we only forced 14.3 turnovers per 100 possessions, which was 29th in the league (ahead of only the Clippers), and we only shot 70% from the line.

Both our offense and defense slipped off a bit (DJ would have helped in regards to offense), but overall, it wasn’t bad considering the fact that Shaq and JWill both missed 23 games, Zo missed 17 games, Posey missed 15 games, and Wade missed 7 games. With a relatively healthy roster, I think we have a good shot at winning the title.

The Heat are up 2-0 and I am going to be guilty of something Pat Riley is calling the media out for – for judging this team too harshly.

But I have been a big proponent of this squad and the moves Riley the GM made this past offseason, so I think I have a little wiggle-room on this: I don’t think the Heat are playing intense enough to get past the second round, let alone win a rematch with the Detroit Pistons – if it comes to pass.

In tonight’s game 2 with the Bulls, the Heat had reached 100 points with 9:19 left in the 4th quarter. It got to 102-87 with 7:51 left and then the lead was widdled down to 102-91 with 4:41 left in the 4th. At one point, it got within 4 points as the Heat allowed the Bulls to get back into the game.

The problem with the Heat was not offense – they were scoring at ease. In fact, they may have gotten a little slack with the game, thinking once they reached 100 points their job was done. At the end of the game, both teams were scoring with, what seems to be, ease. The Heat shot 52% while the Bulls shot 53% for the game.

The key was the difference between the 3rd and 4th quarters. It was night and day. In the 3rd, the Heat scored 27 points to the Bulls 19 to end 95-76 in favor of the Heat. James Posey had hit 3 three pointers and contributions were coming from everyone on the floor. The Heat clamped down on D, everyone attacked the rim. Everyone played aggressive defense.

Then the 4th happened.

The Heat hit 100 points and everything seemed to be in place for a blow out, but the Heat got complacent. They started to shoot threes and play soft on defense. They no longer attacked the rim and gave far too many open shots to Kirk Hinrich, who decided to take over the game. The Bulls shot 14-21 (66%) in the 4th, Hinrich alone was 7-9 (77%) from the floor.

This is NOT the way you win championships. This is not the way you make it easier on your hobbling team, either. Ideally, the Heat should have continued to attack in the 4th quarter, and sat their starters down and let their bench take over and ride out the big lead for the win. Demoralize your opponents as you go to Chicago for Game 3. You don’t want your opponent feeling like time ran out otherwise the result would have been different. The Bulls are a young and hungry team and they won’t quit playing. Scott Skiles is an excellent strategist in terms of creating matchups and demands that his players dont quit. And they won’t.

The Heat can learn something from the Bulls – they can learn what it will take to win a championship. They have to put the Bulls away early and keep them put away, not just misplaced.

If the Heat don’t realize this, they will have this series dragged out and on longer than it needs to be. Not even Wade’s newly shorned head can gleam a path through the impending jungle.

Riley is right, this team is judged too harshly. This team is up 2-0 and heading to Chicago for the coup de grace on the series and their young opponents. Let’s hope for no more attrition though and instead, see if this team can respond and not only come out with intensity, but sustain it until after the final bell rings.

*If necessary

NOTE: All National Broadcasters will air games in HD. HEAT Spanish Radio feed on Sun Sports via SAP. ABC and ABC HD are WPLG-10 in South Florida, WPBF-25 in the Palm Beaches and the Treasure Coast, and WZVN-26 in Southwest Florida.

SUN SPORTS
ROUND 1: HEAT local television broadcast partner Sun Sports will broadcast all playoff games made available for local team broadcast, along with a 30 minute pre-game show and extended post-game coverage. Eric Reid will handle play-by-play duties, with Tony Fiorentino providing color commentary. Jason Jackson will reprise his role as sideline reporter.

ROUND 2: Once again, HEAT local television broadcast partner Sun Sports will broadcast all playoff games made available for local team broadcast, along with a 30-minute pre-game show and extended post-game coverage. For playoff games that are not broadcast locally on Sun Sports, Sun Sports will broadcast one hour pre-game show along with one hour of post-game coverage and commentary.

ROUND 3 / NBA Finals: Sun Sports will broadcast a one hour pre-game show along with one hour of post-game coverage for every game played in Round 3 and the NBA Finals.

ENGLISH RADIO

HEAT Radio 610 WIOD will carry all HEAT playoff games and will have expanded HEAT playoff coverage featuring HEAT play-by-play announcer Mike Inglis, color commentator John Crotty and host Jorge Sedano.

SPANISH RADIO

All HEAT playoff games can be heard en espanol on Radio Mambi WAQI 710 AM. Jose Paneda will handle the play-by-play duties, with Joe Pujala serving as host / color commentator.