The Heat won in 2013 because of 3-and-D strategy

[JohnMax]

The Heat won in 2013 because 3-and-D strategy was still only a few years old, and the league hadn't figured out how to shut down a plain-vanilla, 3-and-D strategy yet.

But by 2014, the Spurs had made the adjustment, and now the unsophisticated strategy employed by the Heat in 2013 will never work EVER AGAIN.

[NZStreetBaller]

How did the spurs shut it down?? And how does 3 and d work?

[FreezingTsmoove]

2011 Mavs literally did the same thing

[Akrazotile]

The Heat won in 2013 because 3-and-D strategy was still only a few years old, and the league hadn't figured out how to shut down a plain-vanilla, 3-and-D strategy yet.

But by 2014, the Spurs had made the adjustment, and now the unsophisticated strategy employed by the Heat in 2013 will never work EVER AGAIN.


Da fuq you talm bout? Thats like the ONLY thing that works now.

You think Carmelo and his midrange jumpers is gonna lead a team to the chip? :biggums:

[Kawhi]

Da fuq you talm bout? Thats like the ONLY thing that works now.

You think Carmelo and his midrange jumpers is gonna lead a team to the chip? :biggums:
Carmelo Anthony midrange jumpers won't, but Kawhi Leonard midrange jumpers might. http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016.html

Take a look at no. 25.

[feyki]

Ray,Battier,Miller - 20 points with %70 TS

Lebron,Bosh,Wade - 6.1 stl , 3.8 blk

[keep-itreal]

Gregg Popovich was the MVP of the series

[GIF REACTION]

No the Spurs just exposed Miami's scramble defense which wasn't the same as the two years before

Crisp passing and knockdown shooting. The spread pick and roll read and react offense.

On defense they played Lebron the same as the year before, perhaps a bit tighter but they locked down everybody else.

[3ball]

The Heat won in 2013 because 3-and-D strategy was still only a few years old, and the league hadn't figured out how to shut down a plain-vanilla, 3-and-D strategy yet.

But by 2014, the Spurs had made the adjustment, and now the unsophisticated strategy employed by the Heat in 2013 will never work EVER AGAIN.
This is EXACTLY what happened.. Their focus on high efficiency via 3-and-D completely backfired.

Just look at the stats - the 2014 Heat actually ACHIEVED their goal of high efficiency against the Spurs - they shot the best of any Spurs opponent BY FAR (highest eFG by far), yet they scored the least PPG and performed the worst.. So clearly, there wasn't a correlation between shooting efficiency and better performance versus the Spurs - the Heat's highest efficiency resulted in the least PPG and biggest blowout.

Otoh, the stats show that achieving RAW PPG (not efficiency) resulted in better performance versus the Spurs - the stats show that the more a team scored against the Spurs (PPG), the smaller the Spurs advantage in Ortg.

This was true for every Spurs opponent - so Dallas scored the most per game against the Spurs, and the Spurs advantage over them in Ortg was the smallest...

OKC scored the 2nd most, so the Spurs advantage in Ortg against them was the 2nd smallest behind Dallas.. Ditto for Portland and Miami who were 3rd and 4th in PPG and had corresponding bigger gaps in ORtg.

You might be thinking that this is intuitive - OF COURSE higher PPG results in less of a blowout right?... But that's the whole point - the Heat lost sight of that in their pursuit of meaningless efficiency - instead of matching raw production with raw production like the other Spurs opponents tried to do (which resulted in better success), the Heat's conservative efficiency-seeking was blown out of the gym.

And this falls on Lebron's head - we all know that he attempted only 17 shots per game in the 2014 Finals - again, this pursuit of efficiency was blown away by raw production... AND HE LEARNED HIS LESSON IN 2015, when he doubled his shot attempts versus the Warriors, and VIOLA - he won 2 games and had a chance to win the series.

It couldn't be more clear - in 2014, Lebron and the Heat succeeded in their pursuit of high efficiency, but this pursuit hurt their raw production, and resulted in blowout... In 2015, Lebron got back to basics - he dismissed efficiency pursuits and instead fought raw production with raw production, and it was MUCH more successful - now what would've happened if he did that in 2014 playoffs - could he have controlled the Spurs pace and controlled the series better by taking 34 shots per game like he did in 2015?.... OF COURSE HE COULD HAVE... But he was dumb, and it cost him and his team... MJ would never have made this dumb of an error or taken such a passive, beta approach to begin with.