H O W A R D S B E N D

As I see it,  the Miami Heat only have two problems to work out before game six of the NBA Championship Series.  The first is their offense and the second is their defense.

I will start with the defense as this appears to be the easier problem to address.  The Heat trap the ball on almost every possession which means that two Miami defenders are on the ball trying to take the ball or force a weak pass out of the double-team so that it can be intercepted by a teammate off the ball.  This has not worked to create turnovers as Dallas is too good and too well disciplined to be forced into rash mistakes.  Dallas has seen this same defense for five games now and has the timing to turn this aggressive defense into an ineffectual and counter-productive strategy.  The Dallas player with the ball quickly passes away from the double-team to an open teammate.  Generally the Miami defense can rotate quick enough to cover the first pass, but Dallas who spaces the floor perfectly makes a second and sometimes a third pass around the court until someone is wide open for a jump shot.  Dallas has too many players that can hit a wide open shot.  The Miami defense should play a “stay-at-home” defense in which every Miami player sticks to the one man he is defending.  It might be difficult to guard Dirk Nowitzki with one man and he will probably get 35 points.  However, none of the other Dallas players are skilled enough to create their own shot and this defense will absolutely eliminate the wide-opne threes that defeated Miami in game 5.  This defense would allow Dirk is 35 with the four or five other offense players averaging 10 points each giving Dallas a total score of 75 to 80 points for the game.

The offense will be much harder to fix.  First, the Heat must take the ball out of LeBron’s hands as he likes to hold the ball thirty feet from the basket as the shot clock winds down believing he will make the perfect pass for the score or hit a three pointer as the shot clock goes off neither of these happening recently.  Put the ball in a guard’s hands and let LeBron work to get open either running through picks or posting up his defender.  Making LeBron work for the ball will hopefully get him into the flow of the offense.

Dallas has been using the zone to prevent Miami from penetrating and getting to the basket.  Against this zone, Miami should go small with Wade holding the ball and Chalmers and  Miller set at the three point line and James on the baseline.  Haslem sets a pick that lets Wade penetrate into the zone and as the zone collapses around him he can kick the ball out to his shooters on the three point line or find James along the baseline for a dunk or pass to Haslem who goes to the free throw line.  Against, the man-to-man, the Heat have demonstrated their efficiency on using the pick.  These picks have created mismatches with James being guard by Jason Kidd or Jason Terry.  James must take advantage of this mismatch and go to the basket instead of passively passing away from this key opportunity.  Also the Heat worked the pick-and -roll to perfection during the forth quarter of Game 5.  I would repeat this until it does not work anymore.

And finally, I might hang a big sign from the rafters stating, ” Michael 6, Magic 5, Kobe 5, Lebron  0.”  Let LeBron mew over what greatness is about.