Game 7 of a messy, cluttered Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors doesn’t merely give every player a last chance to get it right.
Game 7 offers one more opportunity to each head coach, one more chance to leave a positive imprint on this series after six erratic games over 13 bewildering days.
One strong coaching performance on Sunday in Canada will enable Dwane Casey or Erik Spoelstra to say that they took their teams as far as they realistically could this season. A bad showing from the bench, on the other hand, will create a sleepless offseason marked by a litany of regrets.
It’s a player’s league, of course, but that doesn’t mean coaches aren’t enormously influential at this time of year. Consider what Terry Stotts has done to boost the Portland Trail Blazers; how Rick Carlisle impossibly guided the Dallas Mavericks as far as he did; or, conversely, how much Frank Vogel hurt the Indiana Pacers against the Raptors by holding Paul George on the bench for nearly three and a half minutes in the fourth quarter of Game 5, when he could have re-inserted him into the lineup after the first two minutes of that stanza.
As difficult as it has understandably been for coaches to find a clear plan in this series, given the injuries to starting big men Jonas Valanciunas (Toronto) and Hassan Whiteside (Miami), it remains that Casey and Spoelstra have made particularly puzzling decisions over the past fortnight. More to the point, those perplexing chess moves substantially cost their teams. One of the two coaches could be celebrating a series victory this weekend, preparing for a trip to Cleveland. Instead, a do-or-die moment awaits in the Air Canada Centre.
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This series acquired a very different texture when Valanciunas and Whiteside were healthy enough play in the first two-plus games. Nevertheless, Casey could not (would not?) rein in DeMar DeRozan or curb his tendency to sabotage the Raptors’ offense. Billy Donovan of the Oklahoma City Thunder has finally broken through with Dion Waiters, getting him to bag the bad shots and devote more effort to non-scoring components of competition. Casey hasn’t made such headway with DeRozan, but what’s worse is that the offense flows through No. 10 far more often than it should. Only when Kyle Lowry finally regained his shooting touch in Game 3 did DeRozan’s corrosive influence begin to appreciably recede.
The mistake by Casey which most directly cost Toronto a game in this series pertained not to his backcourt, but his depleted frontcourt. In the absence of Valanciunas, Bismack Biyombo is the Raptors’ primary rim protector, and a very good one at that. Biyombo won’t provide much offense (though he did enjoy a feel-good run early in Game 5), but his late-game paint-clogging defense is extremely valuable. He’ll stop penetration or alter a shot if Goran Dragic or Dwyane Wade try to attack the tin.
As long as the Heat can’t hit threes, choking off drives to the rim is pretty darn important for the Raptors. Lowry and DeRozan were both back in StruggleVille in overtime of Game 4, so it was paramount for Toronto to win with defense.
Casey benched Biyombo for that overtime period. The Heat, in a world where two plus two still equals four, pulled away and won. For Casey, two plus two equaled a 2-2 series, instead of the 3-1 stranglehold the Raptors could have attained.
Has Spoelstra coached better than Casey in this series? It’s hard to say so in light of how Game 3 went down.
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The Heat are in good position for the future (though not great position — not with Chris Bosh’s career likely being over). Many reasons support this contention, the chief one being that Spoelstra, to his great credit, has thrown rookies Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson into the fire. He’s asked them to do a lot. He’s challenged them and developed them over the course of the season.
The fearlessness and energy of the young bucks — including Hassan Whiteside — has propelled Miami far beyond its limitations. Trusting the kids has set the table for the home stretch of Dwyane Wade’s career while also serving as a bridge to the more distant future. Spoelstra’s handling of Winslow and Richardson in particular has not only represented a sound in-season move; it made sense in a much larger context beyond 2016.
Why, then, did Spoelstra slap a “DNP” on Winslow at home in Game 3, after only 14 minutes in Game 2? When a series shifts venues in Game 3, the home team’s role players usually benefit from the return to comfortable surroundings. That point aside, Winslow’s primary strength is his defense. Playing at home figured to make him an energized player… as was the case on Friday in Game 6.
Spoelstra’s supremely baffling choice to staple Winslow to the bench in Game 3 deprived Miami of the perimeter defense which could have crowded the Raptors’ guards and made them more uncomfortable. The point isn’t even in the decision to reduce Winslow’s minutes, though; the idea of a DNP — not even giving Winslow a relatively modest 15 minutes on a day when the Heat were scrambling to find adequate lineup combinations — went against everything Spo had done to build up Winslow’s skills and confidence.
This was a bad micro-level move, but also a bad macro-level move. It didn’t make sense within a specific, localized situation, but it also represented a departure from what had been a successful big-picture philosophy and approach. There was — and is — no defense for that decision, which has exemplified the cluttered nature of this series for both head coaches.
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This brings us to Game 7.
Miami’s small-ball approach worked at home in Game 6, so it would seem to be a natural move for Spoelstra to stick with that plan in Game 7. It will be a challenge for the Heat to establish and maintain a faster pace on the road, but the possibility of freeing up Dragic — who transforms the Heat’s offense when he’s locked in — is too valuable to revert to a slower style of play. That much seems obvious for Spo.
What’s more interesting — and more relevant to Game 7 as far as Miami is concerned — is the extent to which Spoelstra keeps Wade and Dragic together on the floor. That’s the question he must resolve in his mind.
Late in the game (assuming it’s close), Dragic and Wade will need to be on the floor together. Their combined talents must earn the respect of an opposing defense. They will simply have to share the ball and space the floor with the responsibility and care they know how to display as professionals. However, in the first 3.5 quarters, Spo must be willing to break up his lineups. The primary goal should be to give Dragic a chance to influence the game, but another piece of this puzzle is that Wade — who put forth a lot of energy and must now recuperate for a day game at age 34 — would stand to benefit from managed minutes.
Dragic ought to get a chance to run the offense for much of the first 18 minutes on Sunday, with Wade sitting. If Dragic can not only carry the scoring load in the first half, but establish the right pace as well, Miami should be able to play the first half on even terms at worst, and very possibly grab a small lead. Wade could play limited minutes before halftime and enter the third quarter relatively fresh. He could play 20 second-half minutes — getting a small breather in each quarter (with Dragic on the floor during those breathers) — and enable the Heat to enjoy the best of both worlds. Their best player would be fresh, and their X-factor would be in rhythm.
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Now, what about Casey?
The reality of Toronto’s situation is that Lowry and DeRozan will necessarily take a lot of shots. That can’t — and probably shouldn’t — be avoided. Casey can’t change where the ball goes, but he can certainly structure his offense such that DeRozan (in particular) gets the ball off screens and cuts, not in isolation situations. The “what” of Game 7 — Lowry and DeRozan shooting a lot — shouldn’t change. The “how” of Game 7 — when and where do Lowry and DeRozan shoot, and how do they get the ball in their hands — ought to become the Raptors’ main concern on offense. Putting Patrick Patterson on the floor with them, and doing similar things to space the court, must enter into Casey’s plans.
On defense, the Raptors shouldn’t mess around. Biyombo is only 23. He didn’t play extended minutes in the first three games of this series. This is a Game 7 at home in which adrenaline will carry younger players. Biyombo should get 40 minutes in this game so that Toronto never has to play very long without its best rim protector. Toronto must force Miami to win this game with long jump shots. Keeping Biyombo on the floor as much as possible will aid that basic goal.
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Erik Spoelstra and Dwane Casey have groped for solutions, and only occasionally found them, over the past 13 days. What they do in the final game of Heat-Raptors will make the difference between a contented offseason and a sleepless one.
