Heat vs Hawks film session: How Jimmy Butler and Co. got rim pressure

The Miami Heat won again! They defeated the Atlanta Hawks 121-111 on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center. This was easily their best preseason game on both ends of the floor, but it was their offense that felt a lot better.

Let's have a look at how they managed to generate more rim pressure and everything else that stood out from the game!

The Heat still ended up taking a lot of 3s, but this time it was with rim pressure.

You can have a Terry Rozier and Jimmy Butler action with Rozier coming off a handoff, getting that baseline drive, collapsing the defense, and opening up the kick to Bam Adebayo.

Who would've thought that we'd be seeing Adebayo take early 3s above the break off a drive and kick? That's the benefit of having four players who are threats from behind the arc.

Then there's another handoff from Adebayo (more on the handoffs later) that gives Herro the chance to get downhill. He's able to draw the extra defender from the strong corner, and that's an easy kick for Jovic. I do love the zero hesitation from him.

How about some off-ball action that started off with Tyler Herro looking to cut, before looking to get the pass from Nikola Jovic? But as Herro catches the ball, he doesn't look to stop or flow into something with Jovic.

Instead it's a snap decision to attack Jalen Johnson off the catch. That quick rip-through and go allows Herro to beat him, forcing Trae Young to rotate as the low man, which forces an additional rotation for someone to take Rozier in the corner, and that gives Herro the open kick to Butler (I did have to double check that was, in fact, Butler thanks to him copying the look).

They also generated rim pressure to create 3s via post-ups.

It all starts with matchup hunting and it looks like they may now have three players that can do that.

As usual, you have Butler-Rozier pick and roll to get the switch that they want. The whole side is cleared, though I'm not a fan of everyone just standing still for that long. As the defense comes to double from the baseline, Larry Nance Jr. has to be ready to help in the paint. That allows Adebayo to set that pin-in screen. So, when the ball gets moved to Jovic, it's a quick extra pass to get it to Herro.

I do like Jovic in that position the most, though. He doesn't have the matchup hunting ability as Butler or even Adebayo. He's not an effective scorer to exploit that consistently, which may mean the defense wouldn't overhelp consistently. But he makes up for that with arguably better and faster processing speed. He looks to post up, the second Nance comes to help, the pass is gone. That was impressive. The defense didn't have time to react and it's already a Herro triple.

How the Heat have made it easier to get downhill

The Heat have surprisingly been getting downhill more. It's mainly been through two ways: guards screening and handoffs.

Shooters make the best screeners. That's because they cause the most confusion. Are you switching? Are you staying with the ball handler? Or are you making sure to not let a shooter get free?

Both Duncan Robinson and Alec Burks screen for Jaime Jaquez Jr. and it results in a paint touch. It gives Jaquez a clear path that forces the defense to rotate and opens up Burks for 3.

This has been a thing for Butler too. This is also where I've been liking Herro. He's been looking to screen more. It's a subtle thing, but that brief milisecond of potential confusion is enough for Butler to attack.

Here's another possession with Herro setting a ghost screen for Rozier! The effect is drastic. The defense didn't know what to do, and that's mainly because of that fast, sudden screen from Herro. The defense switches late, but you already have Rozier going downhill, has the step, and is able to spin to the rim.

Going to the handoffs, this should be a bigger thing for all of the guards. If a guard has trouble beating guys off the dribble, make his life easier! One way to do that is by going into a get action. A get action is a simple two-man action where you pass to a player and sprint to follow the pass and get it back. A player will travel faster without the ball.

Rozier makes the pass to Butler and accelerates to get it. That works because once he passes, a defender does tend to relax. That brief moment is what allows Rozier to

Or you can run the handoff this way that accomplishes a similar result in a slightly different way. It still exploits the defense in the same way. Rozier starts off with a cut inside and looks like he's going to slow down and drift to the corner. That's enough to make Young relax. As he does, now Rozier can come off a screen from Herro into a handoff with Adebayo. He has the head start and again moves faster without the ball to get downhill.

They also did better because Herro was simply better. I liked the effort from Herro to get to the rim in various ways. He had a possession in transition where he blew by Dyson Daniels with ease. He took the defender off the dribble in the PNR before he was able to recover. Or he even attacked a closeout again.

Things that caught my eye

Adebayo remains one of the best, if not the best, at playing both the ball handler and recovering to blow up the lob when defending in drop. He had three possessions where he did that in the single half. What can you do as an offensive player? He rightfully takes the drive and the ball handler knows that the lob is there... but it isn't because Adebayo is there.

I haven't been much of a fan of Jovic's off-ball defense. This has been a thing in previous games too, where he ends up helping a lot, which isn't necessarily bad, but he often loses his man when doing so. In the clips, his man manages to either curl to the rim or come in for a rebound.

Finally, their five-out offense still needs a lot to work through, whether it's players adjusting to it or continuing to add wrinkles to the off-ball actions and movement to combat this. Five-out alignment just for the sake of it does nothing. The offense has to learn to take advantage of this by the ball handler or by the four other players spaced around.

In all of those clips, Adebayo's defender is helping off or completely ignoring him. That's not the end of the world in itself, but it is an issue if they don't do anything to exploit that. If someone is being ignored, there is a player open. That shouldn't mean going up and challenging the extra defender at the rim.