Miami Heat again taking zone defense to NBA playoff heights
BOSTON – Even in finding a solution, there was respect for the problem posed.
No, Jaylen Brown said, the Boston Celtics’ challenge at the start of the Eastern Conference finals was not typical. Few teams mix in and mix up as much zone defense as the Miami Heat and coach Erik Spoelsrta.
“The way they play defense, the way they play zone, the way they try to hide matchups, they try to make sure they keep their primary defenders up higher and try to hide their lesser defenders,” Brown said, with the teams squaring off Thursday night at TD Garden in Game 5 of the best-of-seven series. “It’s been taking us a little while to kind of figure it out. It ain’t always going to be you scoring the ball normally, because they’re not guarding us normally.”
With a roster that features several net-negative individual defenders, Spoelstra has cycled through a variety of schemes over the years. The latest rendition has featured Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent at the top of the zone.
“I mean, two guys that are like Swiss Army knives,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said of the dogged duo, “obviously getting out of their comfort zone, guarding people, out way past the hash [28 feet from the baseline] and then having to recover.
“Those two spots aren’t easy. So the fact that we put those two up there, we trust them the most. And we feel like they give us a dynamic two-man front, in front of our two-three.”
With Adebayo orchestrating from the rear.
“I’m the anchor, Adebayo said. “I’m the back line, so I do all the communicating to the wings and the guys up front.”
Previously, the Heat would save the zone for when Adebayo rested, when his switch-everything skills were unavailable. But lately, with Adebayo in and Jimmy Butler out, Spoelstra has injected a considerable amount of zone.
Martin said it is just another defensive aspect where Adebayo has been able to excel.
“Just with the reps, I think he just got way more comfortable, just kind of knowing the timing of when to go to certain places and when to stay around the basket,” Martin said. “And that’s just part of the luxury of having someone as versatile as he is, to have someone at the bottom like that, to be able to cover that much ground in such a short amount of time and just kind of be the one on the fly that makes our job a lot easier.”
For his part, Spoelstra long has bristled about the notion of a zone being the easy way out.
“It really isn’t about schematics,” Spoelstra said. “It’s more of a mindset about doing tough things. It really doesn’t matter. I know it sounds like semantics. It’s just a different language.
“If you’re dealing with somebody like [Jayson] Tatum or Brown, they are going to put pressure on you, on your defense. There’s no one thing that’s going to get it done. You have to do a bunch of tough things, and the quicker you can wrap your mind around that, you know, you’ve got a better chance of staying stable even as they are making some shots. You just have to try to make it as tough as possible.”
For Martin and Vincent the goal is singular – havoc.
“I think that just shows how much chemistry that me and Gabe have built over the last two years in that zone, and kind of being able to feed off each other naturally,” Martin said. “So we’ve been able to kind of maintain that as much as possible so far.”
For opponents such as Brown, the consternation comes from the uncertainty of when Spoelstra will spring the zone.
“It’s a big advantage for us,” Martin said of creating that uncertainty. “Because teams, not every team has to deal with that. I think we’re kind of unique in that sense, to where we can kind of switch it up really randomly and adding K-Love [Kevin Love] and Cody [Zeller] to the mix, too, who know how to do that and just kind of fell in line with that naturally. They’re really smart players with high IQs.
“So they just know what they’re doing. I think that’s part of the experience, too, to be able to help us in that aspect.”
