Defending Milwaukee Threes

Trends can be funny, hollow little things. If you’re driving your usual route to the grocery store, on the usual day at the usual time, and you see three police cars on the road, you might be apt to say to yourself, “My, there have been many police cars around lately.”

Of course, there might not be a single extra Crown Victoria on the road than is typically allotted for your neighborhood. They might be the same exact cars you’ve seen before. But because those three cars happen to cross your line of sight on this trip to the grocery store, therefore altering your daily experience, it triggers a reaction.

That’s how the old journalism trope – or joke – goes. If you need a story, take a walk outside. See three examples of the same thing, and you’ve got yourself a trend to write about. Sometimes this is just fine and dandy, but that line of thinking runs into problems when what passes for a trend manifests itself as a truth.

The trend through the first six weeks of the Miami HEAT’s 2011-12 season has been that teams are hitting threes at a high rate against them, a bottom-third 36.3 percent. But with that number coloring the game-watching experience, it’s easy to quickly forget about context and allow a few examples, such as recent losses to Milwaukee and Orlando, to create a truth. That truth being that the HEAT have serious, long-term issues with allowing three pointers.

Early in an 18-point victory Monday night, as the Bucks hit four of their first seven three pointers, this same effect was in play. Once again, the HEAT were getting beat up with threes. They had to be, because the shots were going in and the results were bad, right?

Well, what did the process look like?

Even if we grant that Mario Chalmers was half a step behind on Brandon Jennings’ first triple – which we can also call a defense-beater because of Milwaukee’s ball movement – we’re left with a pull-up three in transition and five other well-contested three-point attempts, three of which fell through the net. But because similar things happened in dramatic, frustrating losses, this immediately becomes a concern.

Well, with the Bucks taking similarly contested threes for the rest of the night, the HEAT allowed them to make five of their next fifteen attempts. Jennings only had one more field goal the rest of the night.

It’s a very simple point to make, but it’s an important one. During the regular season, it’s the process that matters. Miami has had poor nights when tired legs, against Denver, affected closeouts or good ball movement, against Orlando, got the best of them, but they’re still only allowing a league-average 37.8 percent shooting on threes in losses. Meanwhile, they’re barely allowing over 50 percent shooting within eight feet of the rim.

The most significant issue is cut-and-dry. Two-thirds of the catch-and-shoot opportunities allowed by the HEAT are unguarded – as logged by Synergy Sports – which is a mark topped only by the Denver Nuggets. With a defense built on using the team’s speed and athleticism to provide help and recover once the ball leaves the paint, and an offense that has increased in pace, the team has struggled at times on when to try to manufacture turnovers and fast-break opportunities and when to focus on staying in position to close out on shooters.

There’s a balance to find, to be sure, but in all those unguarded shots – shots the team has no control over since they’re, of course, relatively open – the HEAT are allowing a bottom-third 1.13 points per possession. For comparison’s sake, the Dallas Mavericks, allowing almost the same percent of unguarded opportunities among catch-and-shoots, have the fifth-lowest points per possession on those attempts.

The difference between Miami and Dallas is 1.5 points given up per 100 possessions. And Dallas is the fifth-best defense in the league right now. So, it stands to reason that if the HEAT find a better balance between playing passing lanes and playing shooters, and there’s even some minor regression in opponent percentages, they’re right back to being a top five defense.

But when those numbers do eventually fall, don’t allow a few missed threes by an opponent to be the truth. See if there is a hand contesting the ball on the shot. Because come playoff time, all the defense can control is where the hand is when the shots go up. No matter what, the numbers, and results, will always be chaotic.