Beating the Heat in the playoffs
Beating the Heat in the playoffs
I compiled the summary boxscore stats for the playoff games the Heat lost over the last 3 years and found that on average pace was low (86), the opponent clearly outperformed the Heat on eFG%, most especially OREB% (nearly 30% to under 23%) and FT/FGA but not own turnovers and that the opponent's offense produced more of the margin than the opponent's defense or Heat shortfall from their norm on offense. For teams wanting to beat them in the playoffs this provides some useful information and there is more at the team and player stat level that could be mined by the motivated. I wonder how much the top contenders have done to study these specific stats.
Re: Beating the Heat in the playoffs
Which contender was best suited to winning low pace games last playoffs? Don't have playoff data ready at hand (and it would be smaller sample) but last regular season according to 82games.com Celtics only won 35% on games against low average pace teams like the way the Heat play, especially in the playoffs. Bulls 59%, Clips 77%, Griz 55%, Thunder 75%, Spurs 62%, Pacer 64%. Just one factor and not sure how important but by this data the Clips and Thunder might have been a bit more suited to winning games against a low pace team like the Heat. Spurs were typical for this group, Celtics the extreme worst last season (they used to be good in these type games in the past- 70%W- but not last season). For contenders who hope to face and defeat the Heat in the future I'd feel better about them if they post good to great win%s on this. More thorough analysis would of course also look at win% in games that actually are actually low paced and against low average pace teams.