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After a laugher against the Clippers’ bench and a day off the Cavs stay home to face the Miami Heat, who are their closest pursuers in the East. The Heat are in 6th place with a 28-23 record, 2.5 games behind the Cavs. The Cavs are 21-5 at home; the Heat are 11-14 on the road. Over their last 10 games the Heat are 6-1 at home and 1-3 on the road. They lost to 15-36 Charlotte on the road two nights ago 122-117.
These teams played in Miami on Nov. 20 with the Cavs getting out to a 31-point lead after three quarters and cruising to a 113-87 win. The Heat were without Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro that night. Cedi Osman was a +39 off the bench with a line of 20/12/3. Coming off a 7-for-7 game on 3’s two nights ago here’s hoping Cedi has found his stroke and confidence and can stay hot.
Miami was 6-for-31 from deep in that game and the Cavs crushed them on the boards by 49-30. The only negative was 20 Cavalier turnovers. When you consider that 28 of Miami’s 87 points came off turnovers it shows how bad their half-court offense was that night.
Tonight, however, the Heat will have their best player, Jimmy Butler, who brings a line of 22/6/5. Butler is shooting 53% overall but only 30% on 3’s. At age 33 Butler is still a great player, ranking in the top 10% of forwards in both points per shot attempt and assist percentage. He averages 34 minutes per game.
Bam Adebayo is a 6’9”, 255-pound load at center with a line of 21/10/3. He shoots 54% but only 10% from deep. He leads the team in on/off at +10.4.
Tyler Herro has a line of 20/6/4, giving the Heat a trio of players who average 20-22 points per game. PG Kyle Lowry, who will be 37 in two months, is still chugging away at 12.4 points and 5.4 assists in 34 minutes, but he’s only shooting 40% from the field and 33% on 3’s. He was 2-for-10 in the first game between these teams.
Victor Oladipo, now 30, averaged 13 points per game so far in January, shooting 42.5% and 31% in 30 minutes per game. He’s been hurt a lot and I think he’s lost some explosiveness as his shooting percentages are down 3-5% from his career averages.
Caleb Martin starts at small forward and averages 10 points. Gabe Vincent and Max Strus average 10 and 13 points per game off the bench.
The Heat are a small team; the only players in their normal rotation over 6’5” are Adebayo at 6’9” and Butler and Duncan Robinson at 6’7”. Robinson is out along with two big men - Jovic and Yurtseven. Jovic and Robinson combined to play 53 minutes in the first game.
Lowry is 6’0”, Herro, Strus, and Martin are 6’5”, Oladipo is 6’4”, and Vincent 6’2”.
I’m really looking forward to watching the Allen/Adabayo and Mobley/Butler matchups.
As a team the Heat are great defensively and pretty bad offensively. They rank 27th in offensive efficiency and last in points per game at 108.6.
When the Heat have the ball:
The Heat like to shoot 3’s, ranking 8th in 3-rate, but they miss a ton, ranking second-to-last in 3-point accuracy at 35.2%, and they’re down to 31% in January. They are not good in the paint, either. cleaningtheglass.com has them 27th in frequency of shots at the rim and 26th in accuracy. They don’t like to attack the rim and they’re not good at it.
Where they do excel is the mid-range shot where they rank 10th in frequency and 7th in accuracy. Jimmy Butler likes the old school mid-range jumper. He ranks in the 95th percentile among forwards in the 4-14 foot area. It will be interesting to see if Mobley’s length bothers him. I expect the Heat will set screens for him and try to switch him onto Okoro or one of the guards that he can back down and shoot fallaways over.
The Heat don’t do much offensively; they’re bad at scoring at the rim and shooting 3’s, which are the two most preferred ways to score in today’s game. They also rank 27th in fast break points per game despite being 2nd in steals - Butler and Lowry are well over 30 and don’t like to run that much.
The numbers paint a picture of a team that plays a half-court game, avoids attacking the rim, is good from mid-range, and shoots a lot of 3’s but is awful at making them. The result is the lowest scoring team in the Association, but that is with Butler missing 30% of their games.
When the Cavs have the ball:
Defensively the Heat are way better than you’d expect from such a short team. They are 3rd in defensive efficiency and 1st in that category on the road. The Cavs and Heat rank 1 and 2 in scoring defense, so this could be a 92-90 game, although we did hang 113 on them at their house.
The Heat have some crazy defensive numbers: they are 26th in opponents’ effective field goal percentage yet are 2nd in points allowed per game, which is hard to comprehend. The answer is that they force a ton of turnovers (3rd most, limiting shots) and are the best team in the league at defensive rebounding (78.4%, also limiting shots). The Cavs are 3rd in defensive rebounding percentage so I don’t expect a lot of second chance points by either team.
The keys to getting points against the Heat are 1) don’t let them steal the ball, and 2) make your first shot. In the first game between these teams the Cavs committed 19 turnovers so hopefully they’ll be better prepared for the Heat’s gambling style of defense this time around. They lack height so they need to go for steals. Garland had 5 of those turnovers so he needs to watch the film of that game.
On offensive opponents love to shoot 3’s against Miami - only seven teams defend more 3-point attempts. The Heat rank 26th in opponent 3-point percentage so they don’t defend them well. The Cavs rank 27th in defending 3’s so we might see a lot of 3’s from both teams tonight. The Cavs are coming off a game where they were 20-for-33 from deep so hopefully we’ll see the Cavs knocking down some 3’s against one of the worst perimeter defenses.
Cleaningtheglass ranks the Heat 8th in 3-point frequency but only 28th in accuracy after removing garbage time stats, so the key is to contest the 3’s, force misses, and get the rebound. The Heat are a little below average in offensive rebound percentage despite all the missed 3’s. The Heat don’t like to go to the rim and probably even more so against the Mobley/Allen duo, so expect a lot of 3’s from Lowry, Herro, Martin, and Strus and mid-range jumpers from Butler and Adebayo.
The good thing is Butler is making just 30% of his 3’s and Adebayo 10% so the Heat don’t have a “five out” offense.
With Mitchell, Wade, and Rubio all expected to be available the Cavs are pretty close to full strength and they are rested after an easy win over the Clippers and a day off. It would be great if they could finish their toughest month with a convincing win against their closest pursuer and finish January with a 9-7 record.
These teams played in Miami on Nov. 20 with the Cavs getting out to a 31-point lead after three quarters and cruising to a 113-87 win. The Heat were without Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro that night. Cedi Osman was a +39 off the bench with a line of 20/12/3. Coming off a 7-for-7 game on 3’s two nights ago here’s hoping Cedi has found his stroke and confidence and can stay hot.
Miami was 6-for-31 from deep in that game and the Cavs crushed them on the boards by 49-30. The only negative was 20 Cavalier turnovers. When you consider that 28 of Miami’s 87 points came off turnovers it shows how bad their half-court offense was that night.
Tonight, however, the Heat will have their best player, Jimmy Butler, who brings a line of 22/6/5. Butler is shooting 53% overall but only 30% on 3’s. At age 33 Butler is still a great player, ranking in the top 10% of forwards in both points per shot attempt and assist percentage. He averages 34 minutes per game.
Bam Adebayo is a 6’9”, 255-pound load at center with a line of 21/10/3. He shoots 54% but only 10% from deep. He leads the team in on/off at +10.4.
Tyler Herro has a line of 20/6/4, giving the Heat a trio of players who average 20-22 points per game. PG Kyle Lowry, who will be 37 in two months, is still chugging away at 12.4 points and 5.4 assists in 34 minutes, but he’s only shooting 40% from the field and 33% on 3’s. He was 2-for-10 in the first game between these teams.
Victor Oladipo, now 30, averaged 13 points per game so far in January, shooting 42.5% and 31% in 30 minutes per game. He’s been hurt a lot and I think he’s lost some explosiveness as his shooting percentages are down 3-5% from his career averages.
Caleb Martin starts at small forward and averages 10 points. Gabe Vincent and Max Strus average 10 and 13 points per game off the bench.
The Heat are a small team; the only players in their normal rotation over 6’5” are Adebayo at 6’9” and Butler and Duncan Robinson at 6’7”. Robinson is out along with two big men - Jovic and Yurtseven. Jovic and Robinson combined to play 53 minutes in the first game.
Lowry is 6’0”, Herro, Strus, and Martin are 6’5”, Oladipo is 6’4”, and Vincent 6’2”.
I’m really looking forward to watching the Allen/Adabayo and Mobley/Butler matchups.
As a team the Heat are great defensively and pretty bad offensively. They rank 27th in offensive efficiency and last in points per game at 108.6.
When the Heat have the ball:
The Heat like to shoot 3’s, ranking 8th in 3-rate, but they miss a ton, ranking second-to-last in 3-point accuracy at 35.2%, and they’re down to 31% in January. They are not good in the paint, either. cleaningtheglass.com has them 27th in frequency of shots at the rim and 26th in accuracy. They don’t like to attack the rim and they’re not good at it.
Where they do excel is the mid-range shot where they rank 10th in frequency and 7th in accuracy. Jimmy Butler likes the old school mid-range jumper. He ranks in the 95th percentile among forwards in the 4-14 foot area. It will be interesting to see if Mobley’s length bothers him. I expect the Heat will set screens for him and try to switch him onto Okoro or one of the guards that he can back down and shoot fallaways over.
The Heat don’t do much offensively; they’re bad at scoring at the rim and shooting 3’s, which are the two most preferred ways to score in today’s game. They also rank 27th in fast break points per game despite being 2nd in steals - Butler and Lowry are well over 30 and don’t like to run that much.
The numbers paint a picture of a team that plays a half-court game, avoids attacking the rim, is good from mid-range, and shoots a lot of 3’s but is awful at making them. The result is the lowest scoring team in the Association, but that is with Butler missing 30% of their games.
When the Cavs have the ball:
Defensively the Heat are way better than you’d expect from such a short team. They are 3rd in defensive efficiency and 1st in that category on the road. The Cavs and Heat rank 1 and 2 in scoring defense, so this could be a 92-90 game, although we did hang 113 on them at their house.
The Heat have some crazy defensive numbers: they are 26th in opponents’ effective field goal percentage yet are 2nd in points allowed per game, which is hard to comprehend. The answer is that they force a ton of turnovers (3rd most, limiting shots) and are the best team in the league at defensive rebounding (78.4%, also limiting shots). The Cavs are 3rd in defensive rebounding percentage so I don’t expect a lot of second chance points by either team.
The keys to getting points against the Heat are 1) don’t let them steal the ball, and 2) make your first shot. In the first game between these teams the Cavs committed 19 turnovers so hopefully they’ll be better prepared for the Heat’s gambling style of defense this time around. They lack height so they need to go for steals. Garland had 5 of those turnovers so he needs to watch the film of that game.
On offensive opponents love to shoot 3’s against Miami - only seven teams defend more 3-point attempts. The Heat rank 26th in opponent 3-point percentage so they don’t defend them well. The Cavs rank 27th in defending 3’s so we might see a lot of 3’s from both teams tonight. The Cavs are coming off a game where they were 20-for-33 from deep so hopefully we’ll see the Cavs knocking down some 3’s against one of the worst perimeter defenses.
Cleaningtheglass ranks the Heat 8th in 3-point frequency but only 28th in accuracy after removing garbage time stats, so the key is to contest the 3’s, force misses, and get the rebound. The Heat are a little below average in offensive rebound percentage despite all the missed 3’s. The Heat don’t like to go to the rim and probably even more so against the Mobley/Allen duo, so expect a lot of 3’s from Lowry, Herro, Martin, and Strus and mid-range jumpers from Butler and Adebayo.
The good thing is Butler is making just 30% of his 3’s and Adebayo 10% so the Heat don’t have a “five out” offense.
With Mitchell, Wade, and Rubio all expected to be available the Cavs are pretty close to full strength and they are rested after an easy win over the Clippers and a day off. It would be great if they could finish their toughest month with a convincing win against their closest pursuer and finish January with a 9-7 record.
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