Based on the moves they made this offseason, it’s clear that the Miami Heat have championship aspirations. They re-signed key players and brought in some very talented free agents.
Kyle Lowry, PJ Tucker, and Markieff Morris will all bring a lot to the table. However, Tucker has a very specific set of skills that will be of great help to the Heat.
Last season, the Heat were a top defense in the NBA, and a large part of that was due to Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. Now, they won’t have to take on as large of a load on that end of the floor, and will still be an amazing defensive team.
With Tucker in the frontcourt, Butler and Adebayo won’t always have to take the toughest matchup. Tucker can take on some of those assignments instead.
Who are some of the players Tucker will have to guard next year? What assignments will he be sure to get on the Miami Heat this season?
Defensive assignments for PJ Tucker with the Miami Heat: Tobias Harris
This may seem like an odd choice, but it makes all the sense in the world. The Miami Heat will likely be competing with the 76ers in the East, and Tucker can easily clamp down Tobias Harris.
Tucker is an undersized four who can guard almost any position on the court. He guarded Kevin Durant for the majority of Milwaukee’s series vs Brooklyn.
Well, if he can handle guarding Durant, he should certainly be able to handle Harris. This would allow Bam Adebayo to guard Embiid, and Butler and Lowry to focus on other matchups.
He should be able to shut Harris down, which would in turn give the 76ers one less player to run through on offense. Tucker should be able to handle that matchup with ease.
Defensive assignments for PJ Tucker with the Miami Heat: Khris Middleton
Khris Middleton is a great shooter, as well as PJ Tucker’s former teammate. If there’s anyone suited to guard him, it’s a player who knows how he works.
Tucker played with Middleton for the entire second half of the season last year. While this doesn’t necessarily make him more qualified to guard Middleton, he definitely has more insight than other players.
Obviously, Bam Adebayo will be the primary defender on Giannis Antetokounmpo moving forward. Past that, though, there’s some wiggle room for Miami.
They have Lowry, Butler, and Tucker, who are all great NBA defenders. However, Tucker might be Miami’s best bet to guard Middleton.
Butler could easily handle the assignment, but the Miami Heat might be better suited putting him on Jrue Holiday. Lowry is a bit undersized and could guard the likes of Donte Divincenzo instead.
This means Tucker would get the Middleton assignment, which works out super well. Middleton is their closer, and they need a defensive-minded player to focus on him.
If Tucker can shut Middleton down in the final few minutes of games, the Bucks might be out of luck. As dominant as Antetokounmpo is, Middleton is the guy who ends up making a bunch of their clutch shots.
Tucker could get in his face and disrupt his rhythm. That would give the Miami Heat their best chance to win.
Defensive assignments for PJ Tucker with the Miami Heat: Kevin Durant
Most people look at Kevin Durant’s stats during the Bucks vs Nets series last year and assume Tucker did a poor job defensively. However, that’s just not the case.
There’s only so much a player can do against one of the best scorers in NBA history. The best he can do is make Durant’s life as difficult as possible, and he did just that.
It was clear by the frustration on Durant’s face how well Tucker was playing him. Tucker was constantly getting under Durant’s skin and doing everything possible to throw him off.
Tucker guarded Durant for a total of 59:13 that series, holding him to 35-77 (45.5%) from the field and 8-26 (30.8%) from deep. He still got his buckets, but Tucker made it very hard for him to do so.
It’s unfair to solely look at how many points Durant scored and base Tucker’s defense off of that. In order to fully understand how well he played it’s important to watch the actual games.
He was always in Durant’s face and picking him up at halfcourt. By the end of the series Tucker had committed eight shooting fouls on Durant, but he did what he had to do to slow him down.
Putting Tucker on Durant would take a little bit of the load off of Butler and Adebayo. He could focus all of his energy on guarding Durant while they could focus on other areas of the game.