5 notes from the Miami Heat’s Game 6 win over the Toronto Raptors

The Miami Heat stay alive to force a Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.

Before the game, Dwyane Wade said someone would have to have a special game for the Miami Heat to win Game 6 and force a Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors. That’s exactly what Goran Dragic did, scoring 30 points to stave off elimination and extend Miami’s season for at least one more game.

Here’s some observations from the game:

1. Miami’s backcourt was on fire

Dragic led the charge with his highest scoring output as a member of the Heat, as well as finishing with four assists and seven rebounds. Dragic pushed the pace, setting the tone early and getting his teammates involved.

With the ball in Dragic’s hands, the Heat play faster and more efficiently. He’s a down-hill runner and, with a screen, he can get to the rim in a flash. If the shot isn’t there, he wheels around the paint to find an open teammate along the perimeter. He had just four assists, but launched plenty of multiple-pass sequences.

I absolutely love when the keys are handed to Dragic. Let him cook, and allow Wade to efficiently eat of his table. Dragic carried the team and Wade, with 22 points of his own, pushed them across the finish line.

2. Small from the tip

Despite Erik Spoelstra going to a super-small lineup of all perimeter players often since Hassan Whiteside was injured earlier in this series, this was the first game in which he started with his small-ball unit. Luol Deng handled the opening tip as Miami’s nominal center, and the Heat pushed the pace from the get go.

On offense, Miami’s players moved around off the ball, looking for open cutting lanes or spots along the perimeter for open jumpers. Miami shot 47.6 percent, and had more than 80 shot attempts for the first time since Game 1.

Everyone was a willing screener, and Miami consistently got Biyombo to play outside of the paint to open cutting lanes behind him.

On defense, the Heat held their ground against Toronto’s big lineup by switching everything and fronting the Raptors bigs to make passes into the paint more of a chore. On the boards, Miami was aggressive, grabbing 41 rebounds compared to 43 for the Raptors. The Heat crashed the glass and ran after defensive rebounds to create possessions in semi-transition.

In Game 7, we can expect Miami to stick to this strategy.

3. Tighter rotation

Since Whiteside went down with a sprained right MCL, Miami’s rotation has been an absolute mess. For Game 6, Spoelstra settled on eight players: the starters Deng, Justise Winslow, Joe Johnson, Wade and Dragic, along with Josh Richardson, Tyler Johnson and Josh McRoberts off the bench. The tighter rotation helped the players find a cadence and play with better chemistry.

Rather than rotate among his remaining center, Spoelstra played just McRoberts and settled in with his small-ball unit with Deng and Winslow contributing minutes at the 5.

The bench stepped up, totaling 24 points on 18 shots combined. Everyone in the starting unit outside of Deng scored in double figures, while Deng pulled down eight rebounds and helped Miami push the pace.

4. This and that

• The Heat turned the ball over just seven times in Game 6, by far its cleanest performance of the series. The Heat had been averaging more than double that against the Raptors.
• Winslow helped open up the offense by hitting a three-pointer early and another long two shortly after. As always, the Heat have another weapon when his shot is falling. He finished with 12 points, mostly coming in the paint and off of mismatches. But getting those early shots to fall tend to get him going.
• Tyler Johnson’s been fantastic in regards to ball movement. He’s always moving off the ball, whether its along the baseline or the perimeter or cutting to the rim. His presence helped in Game 5, and that everyone else got on this page in Game 6.
• Joe Johnson finished with 13 points, including a huge three-pointer to beat the shot clock late. He was five-of-10 from the floor and while he wasn’t necessarily aggressive, he was efficient. With Dragic in the drivers seat and Wade firmly in shot gun, I’m just fine with that.
• Josh McRoberts made five of his eight shots and was a plus-nine in his 18 minutes. He was more aggressive, but also clearly more comfortable in Miami’s spaced out, faster offense.

5. Game 7

No team has ever advanced after being down 3-2 in a series twice in one post-season, and that’s exactly what the Heat will be trying to do Sunday in Toronto. The Heat won Game 1 on the Raptors floor, so they can win on the road.

More heat: With Cavs looming, does it matter who wins Heat-Raptors?

Toronto will come back with a counter punch but, if Miami can maintain the pace from Game 6 and get a special performance from someone in addition to Wade in Game 7, we could likely see a Miami-Cleveland Eastern Conference Finals.