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After the Miami Heat turned in the most efficient offensive performance in franchise history to knock off the Charlotte Hornets in Game 1 of their first-round series — as in, better than any single performance during any of their championship seasons, including the whole Big Three era — Hornets head coach Steve Clifford's spirits had to be at least somewhat buoyed by the promise of some regression to the mean. After all, there was no way this Heat team was going to shoot like that again, right?
Well ... about that, Coach:
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For the second straight game, Erik Spoelstra's club came out firing, going 13-for-20 in the first quarter before really opening things up in the second to head into halftime with 72 points — as many as the Boston Celtics scored, and four more than the Memphis Grizzlies managed, in their losses on Tuesday night — en route to a 115-103 win that gives the Heat a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Miami shot 74.4 percent from the field in the first half, including 10 straight makes to end the second, and finished at 57.9 percent, with a 9-for-16 mark from deep. That's, um, good.
Joining Wade in carving up Charlotte's defense were center Hassan Whiteside (17 points on perfect 8-for-8 shooting, 13 rebounds), point guard Goran Dragic (18 points, 3-for-3 from 3-point land, four assists) and small-ball power forward Luol Deng (16 points, six rebounds). That avalanche of Heat baskets was cause for celebration on the Miami sideline ...
... and it rendered a second straight strong-enough offensive effort for the Hornets all but meaningless.
"Again, despite the fact that we didn't make 3s, our offense was more than good enough to win," Clifford said after the game. "And, I mean, on the glass-half-full [side], our defense in the second half was much better. They, tonight, shot the ball really well from the perimeter. Even guys that you wouldn't mind taking some of those shots made it, and Wade was unbelievable. To me, that was basically the game.
"If we're going to get 103, we've got to win," he added. "For two games now, our offense has been more than good enough to win. We've got to find a way to be able to put together 48 good minutes of defense. If we can do that and stay low-turnover, we'll give ourselves a chance to win."
If they do that, they might finally cool down a Heat offense that's been historically scorching to open this series:
For his part, though, Spoelstra sees Miami's success at keeping the Hornets from knocking down long-range shots, and sees Charlotte averaging 106.7 points per 100 possessions through two games — which would have been the NBA's sixth-best offensive efficiency mark this season, nestled between the Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Clippers, a full point and a half per-100 ahead of where Charlotte ended up — and sees plenty of room for the Heat's defense to improve.
"Effort. We understand how big a part of the game it is," Spoelstra said in his postgame press conference. "You have to be willing to make multiple efforts. We were getting guys off the 3-point line, but that's also probably why you saw guys driving by us and getting other opportunities. You have to do multiple things to beat a rock-solid team like this."
Miami would need some of those efforts late, because the Hornets wouldn't go away.
Charlotte stayed within hailing distance in the first half thanks to killer production from point guard Kemba Walker (21 first-half points on 13 shots) and Al Jefferson, who poured in 16 in the second quarter by torturing Whiteside with his vast array of moves in the low post. The Hornets finally started to string together some stops in the second half, and after going an ice-cold 8-for-30 from the floor in the third quarter, thanks in part to this Keystone Kops start to the frame from Williams and Cody Zeller:
... Charlotte began to walk down the Heat midway through the fourth. Clifford went smaller, trying to spread out Miami's defense to create more driving room for Walker and Lin, and it worked, as the Hornets scored on eight straight possessions to get as close as seven points on a pair of Spencer Hawes free throws with 3:06 remaining.
But Spoelstra had one last card to play, deciding to go super-small by removing Whiteside to go with an all-wing alignment — veterans Wade, Deng and Joe Johnson, joined by rookies Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson — that could effectively switch every Hornets screen, take away the airspace that Charlotte's shooters and drivers had been getting, and more effectively clamp down for the stretch run.
The move paid dividends, beginning with Wade knocking down a huge turnaround jumper to get the lead back to nine:
... before the opportunistic Heat notched a pair of steals leading to runout buckets that effectively ended the game:
Let's marinate on that for a minute: Spoelstra pulled his $90 million point guard and his all-devouring rebounder/rim protector/interior scorer to close a playoff game with a pair of rookies ... and it worked. It worked because, as Wade told sideline reporter Rebecca Haarlow after the game, Winslow (nine points, four rebounds, one assist, one steal, stellar defense) and Richardson (15 points on 5-for-9 shooting) aren't your average rookies.
"They're ready to play," he said. "These two guys have worked very hard. We believe in them. Everything on this team works, our success works, with everybody being involved, from one to 15, and them guys are just as important as myself and Luol and Goran. They understand that, and they're out there performing."
One player who wasn't out there performing at the end of the game, unfortunately, was Batum. The French swingman who served for so much of this season as the straw that stirred Charlotte's drink left the game just over a minute into the fourth quarter, after rolling his ankle by stepping on Winslow's foot:
He instantly reached for his left ankle — the same ankle he sprained late in the regular season — before popping up, hobbling to the locker room and being ruled out for the remainder of the contest. He finished with nine points on 3-for-11 shooting, seven rebounds and three assists in 34 1/2 minutes. After the game, Clifford was asked to describe how concerned he was about his small forward's condition.
"Very," he said. "We won't really know anything until tomorrow, but it was — there was soreness, obviously, and you know, we'll just see."
The already difficult task of holding serve at home and getting on the board in the series would become all the more daunting without Batum's playmaking, supplemental shooting and defensive versatility. While they wait to find out the extent of Batum's injury, the Hornets and their fans will just have to take solace in their offense proving capable of finding paydirt against Miami's defense, the fact that Saturday's Game 3 will come in a home gym in which they went 30-11 this season, and the possibility that they, not the Heat, will be the ones scorching the nets.
"We got lucky," Wade said after the game. "They missed some. That team ... all year, especially the second half of the season, they've been knocking down shots. We've got to expect that they're going to make half of those, if not more, when we get to Charlotte, so we've got to be able to make the adjustment. Today, we got a little lucky."
As the saying goes: it's better to be lucky than good. When you're both, though, you can find yourself with a commanding 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven set.
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Well ... about that, Coach:
[Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr:*The best slams from all of basketball]
For the second straight game, Erik Spoelstra's club came out firing, going 13-for-20 in the first quarter before really opening things up in the second to head into halftime with 72 points — as many as the Boston Celtics scored, and four more than the Memphis Grizzlies managed, in their losses on Tuesday night — en route to a 115-103 win that gives the Heat a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Miami shot 74.4 percent from the field in the first half, including 10 straight makes to end the second, and finished at 57.9 percent, with a 9-for-16 mark from deep. That's, um, good.
Heat finish with an Offensive Rating of 122.8 in Game 2. So not the best offensive game in team history but still, you know, pretty nice.
— Couper Moorhead (@CoupNBA) April 21, 2016
Even with Clifford's defense doing what it could to limit looks from the highest-value areas on the floor — just 14 of Miami's 76 shots came inside the restricted area; just five of the Heat's 16 3-point tries came from the short corners; Miami attempted 22 free throws to Charlotte's 33 — the Heat just absolutely couldn't miss, as star Dwyane Wade led the charge with 28 points on 11-for-22 shooting to go with eight assists, three rebounds and two steals in 32 minutes:— Couper Moorhead (@CoupNBA) April 21, 2016
Joining Wade in carving up Charlotte's defense were center Hassan Whiteside (17 points on perfect 8-for-8 shooting, 13 rebounds), point guard Goran Dragic (18 points, 3-for-3 from 3-point land, four assists) and small-ball power forward Luol Deng (16 points, six rebounds). That avalanche of Heat baskets was cause for celebration on the Miami sideline ...
... and it rendered a second straight strong-enough offensive effort for the Hornets all but meaningless.
"Again, despite the fact that we didn't make 3s, our offense was more than good enough to win," Clifford said after the game. "And, I mean, on the glass-half-full [side], our defense in the second half was much better. They, tonight, shot the ball really well from the perimeter. Even guys that you wouldn't mind taking some of those shots made it, and Wade was unbelievable. To me, that was basically the game.
"If we're going to get 103, we've got to win," he added. "For two games now, our offense has been more than good enough to win. We've got to find a way to be able to put together 48 good minutes of defense. If we can do that and stay low-turnover, we'll give ourselves a chance to win."
If they do that, they might finally cool down a Heat offense that's been historically scorching to open this series:
With a 63.4% eFG in first 2 games, Miami has the best effective field goal percentage in the 3-point era through two games of any series
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) April 21, 2016
Short-circuiting Miami's locked-in rhythm, though, might not be as simple as making individual personnel adjustments or specific tactical switches, as Clifford noted in a tremendous postgame comment about how little you can see without watching film and how, sometimes, the game boils down to whether you do basic things better and the other guys don't make a ludicrous amount of shots:— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) April 21, 2016
.@hornets coach Steve Clifford takes no prisoners after his team's Game 2 loss to Miami. #NBAPlayoffs https://t.co/iaT3jhkXM3
— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 21, 2016
Clifford's certainly right that his team's scoring well enough to win, but he's still got to be at least moderately concerned about the fact that his team, which ranked fourth in the NBA in 3-point attempts at 29.4 per game this season, has managed just 33 total long-ball tries through two games against a Heat defense determined to run Charlotte's shooters off the line. Moreover, he's probably not thrilled about the fact that the Hornets have only made seven, including a 1-for-16 mark in Game 2, with key shooters Nicolas Batum, Marvin Williams, Jeremy Lin and Courtney Lee combining to go 0-for-10 from deep.— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 21, 2016
For his part, though, Spoelstra sees Miami's success at keeping the Hornets from knocking down long-range shots, and sees Charlotte averaging 106.7 points per 100 possessions through two games — which would have been the NBA's sixth-best offensive efficiency mark this season, nestled between the Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Clippers, a full point and a half per-100 ahead of where Charlotte ended up — and sees plenty of room for the Heat's defense to improve.
"Effort. We understand how big a part of the game it is," Spoelstra said in his postgame press conference. "You have to be willing to make multiple efforts. We were getting guys off the 3-point line, but that's also probably why you saw guys driving by us and getting other opportunities. You have to do multiple things to beat a rock-solid team like this."
Miami would need some of those efforts late, because the Hornets wouldn't go away.
Charlotte stayed within hailing distance in the first half thanks to killer production from point guard Kemba Walker (21 first-half points on 13 shots) and Al Jefferson, who poured in 16 in the second quarter by torturing Whiteside with his vast array of moves in the low post. The Hornets finally started to string together some stops in the second half, and after going an ice-cold 8-for-30 from the floor in the third quarter, thanks in part to this Keystone Kops start to the frame from Williams and Cody Zeller:
... Charlotte began to walk down the Heat midway through the fourth. Clifford went smaller, trying to spread out Miami's defense to create more driving room for Walker and Lin, and it worked, as the Hornets scored on eight straight possessions to get as close as seven points on a pair of Spencer Hawes free throws with 3:06 remaining.
But Spoelstra had one last card to play, deciding to go super-small by removing Whiteside to go with an all-wing alignment — veterans Wade, Deng and Joe Johnson, joined by rookies Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson — that could effectively switch every Hornets screen, take away the airspace that Charlotte's shooters and drivers had been getting, and more effectively clamp down for the stretch run.
The move paid dividends, beginning with Wade knocking down a huge turnaround jumper to get the lead back to nine:
... before the opportunistic Heat notched a pair of steals leading to runout buckets that effectively ended the game:
Let's marinate on that for a minute: Spoelstra pulled his $90 million point guard and his all-devouring rebounder/rim protector/interior scorer to close a playoff game with a pair of rookies ... and it worked. It worked because, as Wade told sideline reporter Rebecca Haarlow after the game, Winslow (nine points, four rebounds, one assist, one steal, stellar defense) and Richardson (15 points on 5-for-9 shooting) aren't your average rookies.
"They're ready to play," he said. "These two guys have worked very hard. We believe in them. Everything on this team works, our success works, with everybody being involved, from one to 15, and them guys are just as important as myself and Luol and Goran. They understand that, and they're out there performing."
One player who wasn't out there performing at the end of the game, unfortunately, was Batum. The French swingman who served for so much of this season as the straw that stirred Charlotte's drink left the game just over a minute into the fourth quarter, after rolling his ankle by stepping on Winslow's foot:
He instantly reached for his left ankle — the same ankle he sprained late in the regular season — before popping up, hobbling to the locker room and being ruled out for the remainder of the contest. He finished with nine points on 3-for-11 shooting, seven rebounds and three assists in 34 1/2 minutes. After the game, Clifford was asked to describe how concerned he was about his small forward's condition.
"Very," he said. "We won't really know anything until tomorrow, but it was — there was soreness, obviously, and you know, we'll just see."
The already difficult task of holding serve at home and getting on the board in the series would become all the more daunting without Batum's playmaking, supplemental shooting and defensive versatility. While they wait to find out the extent of Batum's injury, the Hornets and their fans will just have to take solace in their offense proving capable of finding paydirt against Miami's defense, the fact that Saturday's Game 3 will come in a home gym in which they went 30-11 this season, and the possibility that they, not the Heat, will be the ones scorching the nets.
"We got lucky," Wade said after the game. "They missed some. That team ... all year, especially the second half of the season, they've been knocking down shots. We've got to expect that they're going to make half of those, if not more, when we get to Charlotte, so we've got to be able to make the adjustment. Today, we got a little lucky."
As the saying goes: it's better to be lucky than good. When you're both, though, you can find yourself with a commanding 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven set.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!Follow @YourManDevine
Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, "Like" BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.