We’ll have more on the Robert Sarver situation in Phoenix on the Lowe Post podcast today, but in the meantime, here’s this season’s second 10 Things — starring the 6-2 Miami Heat, some superstar big men, bad fouls, and more.
1. The Miami Heat half-court symphony
This may be the most Heat team ever — straight out of Pat Riley central casting. It bleeds #HeatCulture.
That is most obvious on defense, where the Heat are even more ferocious than they appeared on paper — a snarling, bumping, switching machine that cackles while smothering you into submission. They rank second in points allowed per possession, behind only the Golden State Warriors.
Miami’s four best defenders — Kyle Lowry, Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, and P.J. Tucker — can switch pretty much anything. Offenses target the fifth guy, but the Heat are confident those four can help without yielding profitable shots. Things get dicier when two of Duncan Robinson, Tyler Herro, Max Strus, or Caleb Martin are on the floor, but such lineups have defended well so far.
The real story is the offense — or it was, until the Boston Celtics’ switchy defense ground it to dust in an emphatic win Thursday that encapsulated why some preseason observers (including this one) pegged Boston as a top-six lock in the East. (More Aaron Nesmith, please!)
That game dropped Miami to No. 4 in offense, and portended issues they might have against versatile defenses. Still: If Miami maintains a top-eight-ish offense, the Heat are likely a title contender. I’m still slightly skeptical they can continue scoring at that level — and worried about their ability to withstand injury — but their start has forced everyone to recalibrate expectations.
Analysis has focused on Miami’s renewed zest for offensive rebounding, Herro’s scorching brilliance, and Lowry kicking the Heat into a new gear. (Seriously, Miami plays two styles: super-fast Lowry-ball, and then normal basketball when Lowry rests.) But don’t overlook the sheer beauty of what these guys do in the half court. The Heat are light on outside shooting, but compensate with overflowing hoops IQ. Within 10-square-foot areas, the Heat write basketball symphonies — rapid-fire cuts, screens, fake screens, and wink-wink passes that crescendo into easy shots:
Lowry misses, but wow, what a buildup of delicious subtleties. Robinson sees Butler streaking toward him, and leans in for a hand-off. Robinson’s defender bites, and Robinson pivots backdoor for a potential corner 3. Two defenders swarm Robinson — unlocking Butler’s cut.
Even Tucker, Old Man Corner Statue, is catching these vibes and working with Robinson on little games within the game:
The Heat have barely scratched the surface of the Butler-Lowry two-man game, and the inverted Adebayo-Lowry pick-and-roll — with Lowry as screener.
Herro, averaging 20 points off the bench, has amplified everything by becoming way more decisive. He’s rocketing off screens and handoffs, and dishing slick dimes at full speed:
Herro’s first step is at a completely different level, like he went to First Step Summer School. He is blowing past defenders (other than Boston’s Jaylen Brown, who stonewalled him), and cracking several feet of space for step-back jumpers.
2. Anthony Davis, going middle from the right block
Davis’ continued refinement of his twisting, from-the-treetops post game — a rare combination of power, finesse and balletic footwork — is one reason the Los Angeles Lakers‘ offense can subsist and even thrive in tight spacing.
Davis’ L.A. seasons have been his three highest-volume post-up campaigns, and finding Davis on the block has been consistently productive, per Second Spectrum. The Lakers have averaged at least 1.15 points per possession on trips featuring a Davis post touch in each of those seasons — equivalent to the league’s best overall offenses, per tracking data.
My favorite Davis pet move: going left from the right block — sometimes with a spin — and flicking a righty push shot as he floats through the air in the opposite direction:
Sometimes Davis releases this bad boy after drifting past the center of the rim — meaning he’s aiming to his right, across his body, and in the opposite direction of his airborne momentum. Gorgeous.
He has all the needed counters — including a spin back right, into a baseline jump hook.
That second clip features both Russell Westbrook and DeAndre Jordan on the opposite block — suboptimal spacing endemic to lineups featuring Westbrook, Davis, LeBron James, and one true center. The Lakers’ 2020 title run featured heavy doses of such lineups with various low-usage and sometimes shaky-shooting guards in what is now Westbrook’s slot. Westbrook is a different presence. Even those Lakers shifted Davis to center when threatened.
It’s too early to read much into lineup data — especially given how many different configurations these Lakers use — but it’s worth noting L.A. has been at its best (by far) when its Big Three plays without a traditional center. (Lineups with three stars and either Jordan or Dwight Howard have been awful — the main reason the Lakers are exactly even for the season with their Big Three together.)
3. The take-foul plague
The NBA would like credit for legislating away non-basketball flailing and broaching the take-foul plague with the competition committee this week.
They get very little here for the latter. Some of us have complained about take fouls for 10 years. The freaking G League changed its rules several seasons ago to combat them. (They labeled them “transition fouls,” and rewarded the victimized team one free throw — plus possession.)
And yet it took an early-season boom in this hideousness — borne of several factors, including teams spending less time in the penalty — for the competition committee to agree to “attempt to come up with a potential rule change to eliminate the tactic,” according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.
I dunno, how about the rule change you already tried in the G League? How about Jeff Van Gundy’s proposal — outlined on the Lowe Post podcast — of harsher penalties on fouls committed with 20 or more on the shot clock? How about making the take-fouler wear a dunce cap?
The league has expressed two main reservations about instituting harsher penalties: differentiating transition take fouls from intentional last-minute hacks trailing teams need for comebacks, and players disguising take fouls more artfully as steal attempts — meaning beefed-up penalties would not result in any actual decline in fouls.
Neither is persuasive. Take fouls and late-game comeback hacks look nothing alike. And so what if players camouflage take fouls? They’ll get away with some, but referees have discretion to detect intent.
4. Darius Bazley, stretch-4, is on life support
Bazley is still just 21, with plenty of time to hone his jumper. He has good feel, and the length and quicks to switch across almost every position. That should keep him in the league as a bit player, but he won’t become anything more on a team trying to win unless he becomes a real stretch power forward and not a theoretical one.
After hitting 2-of-3 Thursday in yet another Thunder rally over the Lakers, Bazley is 10-of-40 for the season and 93-of-326 — 29% — combined over the past two. His league-average mark from two seasons ago — plus his 11-of-22 outburst in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s first-round loss to the Houston Rockets that season — looks more like a fluke with each passing brick fest.
He’s passing up good looks to drive into nothingness:
That’s a raging closeout from Paul George — the kind Bazley should see less and less, making it harder for him to get into the lane — but a true stretch-4 wants this shot. Bazley has decent vision, but his turnovers are up — and he’s on pace to finish with more cough-ups than assists for the third straight season.
Oklahoma City’s turnstile of forgettable big men has yet to turn out a surefire rotation player, unless you count Kenrich Williams — an import tweener forward. (I have my eye on Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.)
The zoomed-out picture is OK. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looks every bit the star, Josh Giddey is real, and I like the white-ish city edition court/uniform combination.
5. The Portland Trail Blazers remade defense
Portland ranked 29th in points allowed per possession last season, so you can understand Chauncey Billups reimagining things. Perhaps the conservative, dropback scheme Terry Stotts favored — one the Blazers tweaked around the edges — ran its course.
Billups has the Blazers blitzing by far the most opponent pick-and-rolls of any team, per Second Spectrum. It’s an ultra-aggressive scheme that requires pinpoint, flying rotations underneath the point of attack. I get the theory, but I’m not sure it’s any more viable than what came before.
Portland is 21st in team defense, and allowing both lots of 3s — including the third-most corner 3s — and shots at the basket, per Cleaning The Glass. Blitzing generally exposes the defense to more 3s, but with the benefit of barricading the rim; offenses have to pass around you instead of slicing through you. Giving up everything is untenable.
Blitzing requires Jusuf Nurkic to lunge at pick-and-rolls beyond the arc. Nurkic is contesting only 4.4 shots per game at the rim — a teensy number for a starting center, per NBA.com.
The Blazers behind Nurkic are small. Big men catching on the move can overpower Portland’s guards down low. Ball handlers go right at Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, and Norman Powell. Robert Covington and Larry Nance Jr. are stout, but neither can hold the fort solo until Nurkic scrambles back. (The Blazers have not played Covington, Nance, and Nurkic together, and that trio might be creaky on offense.)
In the Cleveland Cavaliers’ win over Portland on Wednesday, Ricky Rubio torched the Blazers by baiting their traps, and then passing ahead of Portland’s rotations. Blitzing a so-so shooter like Rubio is overkill. Ditto for the slumping De’Aaron Fox, who tore Portland’s defense apart in the Sacramento Kings’ season-opening win.
Opponents have scored almost 1.2 points per chance when the Blazers blitz pick-and-rolls, per Second Spectrum — well above the league’s top-ranked offenses.
There is value in establishing a bedrock scheme before varying it game-to-game. Portland has dialed down the blitzing in some recent games, and it should introduce more opponent-specific adjustments.
6. Jalen Green is off to a rough start on defense
Green has been as advertised on offense: a 6-6 ball handler with decent vision, turbocharged explosiveness in every direction, and a quick-trigger 3-pointer that already merits some respect from defenses. (Green is shooting only 32% from deep, but that’s encouraging for a teenager daring long pull-up 3s. His form looks fine)
He sees the floor, and can pass over defenses. He knows where all his targets are, and how defenses rotate based on each movement — including where he directs his gaze. He even dabbles in slowing down on the pick-and-roll, pinning his defender on his hip, and waiting for the defense to take a false step.
Green has slipped some snazzy passes — pocket dimes and longer-range bullets — to his screening partners rolling to the rim.
Green’s length and speed should make him a solid on-ball defender as he adds muscle. Tracking off-ball movement has been tougher for him:
Green gets lost behind screens. He’s not exactly embracing the ruggedness of contested rebounding, either:
Good news: This is all expected for a skinny rookie. Let’s see how Green handles this stuff in April.
7. A subtle Jazz note in Utah’s defense
Utah’s defensive ethos is so ingrained, you don’t need to look up their numbers anymore. They limit 3s and shots at the rim; avoid fouls; clean the glass; and force few turnovers. Utah is a regular-season defense machine. Wind them up, watch them finish in the top five.
Rudy Gobert, off to a sensational start, is the keystone — a one-man defensive architecture. He protects almost the entire paint by himself, allowing Utah’s other defenders to stick to shooters.
Being a low-switch team is baked into Utah’s roster construction, but the Jazz take unusual pride in switch avoidance. It helps them control the glass, since their bigs rarely switch out toward the arc. They keep fighting when most teams would give in to the switch, crafting subtle bits of high defensive art:
(That clip is two years old, but Utah still pulls this same magic.)
Devonte’ Graham drives at Gobert, and skitters along the baseline — dragging Gobert far from his original assignment (Bismack Biyombo). Royce O’Neale, trailing Graham, lingers in the passing lane to Biyombo. Most teams would concede the switch — and the resulting mismatches — here:
O’Neale keeps going. He is confident he can zig-zag through bodies back to Graham. Gobert shares that faith, and stays near Biyombo.
Here’s a more recent example involving two different players — including a much-criticized backup center doing well in Utah:
D.J. Augustin wrong-foots Donovan Mitchell, and knifes toward Hassan Whiteside. Most defenses shrug and switch in this moment:
But Augustin backs out as Alperen Sengun cuts inside, and both Mitchell and Whiteside spy the opportunity to reset. This kind of half-switching and instant un-switching can be risky; one misguided lurch, one blip of miscommunication, and big windows open. Utah is almost always in sync.
8. Joel Embiid, conductor
One of the joys of this season has been watching Embiid, in the absence of Ben Simmons, lording over the proceedings from multiple locations — directing traffic, waving cutters here and there, outwitting defenses as a gigantic stand-still point-center.
In signaling cutters, Embiid thinks two or three steps ahead. He rarely expects to hit that specific cutter — though that’s ideal — but instead anticipates how that cut might warp the defense and open shots elsewhere.
Embiid is averaging almost five assists per 36 minutes, well above his career average, and committing his fewest turnovers ever. His role change is both emergency adaptation to this Simmons-less environment, and a recognition that the Sixers without Simmons have more shooting around Embiid — generating more options, wider passing lanes, and longer rotations for defenses.
Tyrese Maxey and Seth Curry have been up to increased ballhandling duties. Maxey has hit 58% on 2s, and zooms through diagonal gaps off the catch. Curry is hitting almost every damned thing he tosses up. Every bench guy is contributing, Georges Niang most of all. Matisse Thybulle is piling up stocks — steals and blocks — at a ludicrous rate. Tobias Harris improves each season.
Combine all that, and the Sixers are 7-2 with the league’s best offense — despite Embiid shooting a ghastly 41%, and both Harris and Danny Green missing recent games. Even with four wins coming against Oklahoma City, the Detroit Pistons (twice), and New Orleans Pelicans, that’s impressive given the player not playing.
9. Keep an eye on the young Magic — including a forgotten big man
The Magic are kinda fun — even though two of their key building blocks (Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac) are still out, and another (Chuma Okeke) returned Saturday on a minutes restriction. Franz Wagner is good. (More on him next week.) Cole Anthony is all moxie and audacity.
But keep half an eye on the long forgotten, assumed-he-was-a-bust Mohamed Bamba.
The Bamba-Wendell Carter Jr. double-center look is treading water — or at least not drowning — which is surprising on multiple levels. Carter has just enough malleability for the setup to survive; he tries to space the floor — Carter has hit 39% from deep and is already approaching a career-high in attempts — and chases stretchier power forwards on defense, allowing Bamba to stick near the rim.
But Bamba is producing over a minutes load (almost 32 per game) that seemed frankly preposterous just a few months ago. He has hit 40% on 3s and 57% on 2s, and looks steadier on defense — staying down on fakes, keeping his equilibrium, and effecting more shots without leaping into oblivion.
He and Carter cover enough space to compensate for brief missteps. They’ve flashed some nice communication, toggling assignments on the fly to snuff openings:
Let’s not go overboard. There’s a reason the Magic extended Carter, but not Bamba. Bamba still has quarters, even games, when you barely feel his impact. He needs a way of helping the offense beyond shooting 3s, which go hot and cold. He should be a more dangerous rim-runner — he rarely catches lobs — though the Magic have not put him in good position for that given the blah shooting around him.
Bamba has to prove he can do this for 70 more games. If he does, he’ll have suitors (at the right price!) in free agency.
10. The funniest possible zone shot
This will go down as one the season’s most sneakily hilarious shots:
Orlando flummoxed the Minnesota Timberwolves with a basic zone Monday until Karl-Anthony Towns thought, Has anyone ever tried having a very tall human just pull up in between the two guys at the top of the zone and shoot? Should we do that?
And it worked — so well that when Towns tried again later, the Magic basically abandoned their zone to trap him out there. It helps that Towns may be the most well-rounded scoring big man in NBA history (depending on how you classify Kevin Durant) — an annual 50/40/90 threat who rains 3s and bullies suckers on the block. Towns is blistering early for the frisky Wolves: 24 points on 50/48/85 shooting.
It remains maddening that Towns is third on the Wolves in usage rate, and neck-and-neck with D’Angelo Russell for No. 2 in shot attempts. This is life sometimes for bigs playing alongside two ambitious perimeter guys: You depend on them to get you the ball, and they enjoy shooting.
Some opponents are also doubling Towns anywhere near the paint, and he has been careless dealing with pressure — slinging wild sidearm kickouts, and bringing the ball low enough that guards can whack at it.
Regardless: Either the Wolves need to give Towns more control, or he has to seize it.
Towns is still not bringing enough on the other end, though his effort seems livelier. His rebounding has dipped to an alarming level, and the Wolves are last (by a lot) in defensive rebounding. They are ninth in points allowed per possession, but I’m not buying; it is the product in part of good opponent shooting luck and forcing turnovers at an unsustainable rate. (The LA Clippers drained 21-of-36 from deep against the Wolves on Wednesday, bursting that luck balloon.)
But Minnesota starts two good defenders — Jarred Vanderbilt and Jaden McDaniels — and head coach Chris Finch has them mostly trying the right things. If the Wolves hover around league average on that end, they should stay in the play-in race.
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