Areas of Note
This Summer League team is full of 3-point shooters and defensive stalwarts hoping to make it onto a roster. They locked up the Lakers with a mix of full court and half court pressure, man to man, and you guessed it 3-2 MATCHUP ZONE. For those of you who thought that was just a gimmick to get the team through One Last Dance, you were wrong. After Monday night, it’s clear the zone is here to stay and will only get better as the younger players get fed a healthy diet of it.
After game number one of Summer League, you can see two concepts that are prevalent in this offense besides pick and roll out top. The spread dribble handoff and horns. One Miami staple out of the spread DHO is the ‘Kelly Keeper’ where Kelly Olynyk receives a high post entry pass and is allowed to use his basketball IQ and size to either pass to the open man if the double team comes, hand the ball off to the guard as he comes from the baseline/opposite wing, or everyone’s favorite where he fakes the handoff, pivots, and beelines it right to the cup with a soft layup.
We got to see the same action from Chris Silva after a timeout in the third quarter. The ball was inbounded directly to him in the high post, and Herro came running past. At this point the Lakers defense was so bent out of shape, they didn’t know what to do. Silva shows the ball and pivots to the basket seeing it unprotected, he makes a run for it and gets a free layup.
We were also treated to an exotic Horns wrinkle where Tyler Herro received the high post entry pass while they ran a big underneath. It almost worked perfectly, but the pass down low was tipped by the Lakers but stolen right back which resulted in two points for the Heat anyway.
Chris Silva and Ibrahima Faye were everywhere on defense and the boards. Maybe they’re both auditioning for Bam Adebayo‘s backup spot. Keep an eye on this to see which one of them has a more significant impact. If Faye can keep swimming around opponents to get tip slams off of missed free throws, we may have a race here.
Guard Jeremiah Martin scored twelve points, five rebounds, two assists, a steal, and a block in twenty-nine minutes of action. We also saw him hit the James Harden double step back for a mid-range jump shot at the free throw line. There’s no denying it, that was tuff!
Tyler Herro needs to work on his handle a bit to succeed at the next level. Thankfully he didn’t get any travel calls, but there were some turnovers as a result of his handle not being as tight as it should including one where he tried to do an in and out and drive to the left, but the defender wasn’t fooled in the least, so he ran into a brick wall and dribbled the ball off his back foot and out of bounds.
The Heat has plenty of time this summer to iron out the kinks but be sure to see what else they pull out of their sleeves as time goes on. Maybe Herro can break the summer league 3-point record. We’ll see.
Random Arkansas player: chirp chirp
Tyler Herro: “I’m a bucket!”