Although the Miami Heat are off to a rocky, 2-5 start, they sit a respectable 13th in offensive rating and operate at a breakneck pace. It’s a style that could catch any team off-guard — and it often has over the past year or so — especially one playing the second leg of a back-to-back as the Los Angeles Lakers were Monday night. This season, Miami touts the NBA’s fastest time to shoot at 10.4 seconds per possession, according to inpredictable, and is fourth in transition frequency (18.4%), per Cleaning
the Glass.
In the first half of Monday’s duel, the Lakers struggled to corral Miami’s uptempo attack. They surrendered 72 points before the break and led by just seven. After intermission, they held the Heat to 45 points and pulled away for a comfortable, 136-118 victory.
“We really challenged the guys at halftime. The biggest thing for us, the first thing on the scouting report was get back and get set,” head coach JJ Redick told reporters after the win. “We had multiple clips and multiple guys, after makes, running towards our hoop instead of getting back. This was not a pick up, full-court game. They want to make it a track meet. They want to play high volume early offense.”
According to NBA.com, the Lakers posted a 95.7 defensive rating in the second half. Redick attributes much of that success to slowing Miami’s early attacks and containing its half-court offense, the former of which featured starkly different performances between halves.
“We gave up 40 points in the first half in the first eight seconds [of a Heat possession]. We gave up, I think, 16 in the second half in the first eight seconds and they were 0.71 [points per possession] in the half court, which is [the 98th percentile], is as good as you can kind of hope for,” Redick said. “I thought the way they responded in the second half, or at halftime and then in the second half defensively, was awesome.”
Despite being 6-2 with the league’s second-ranked offense and fourth-best net rating, the Lakers are just 18th in defensive rating thus far. Moving forward, they’ll hope they can parlay Monday’s impressive second half into a prolonged stretch of feisty defense to complement their abundantly potent offense.
You can follow Jackson on Twitter at @jackfrank_jjf.
