It’s one thing for Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland to score 30 points, or close to it. It’s another to give up 28 to Ty Jerome.
The Sixth Man of the Year finalist was curiously left open again and again in the Miami Heat’s Game 1 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. So was Sam Merrill, who hit a pair of big 3-pointers in the second half. With the floodgates open, even Mitchell and Garland got open shots.
In fact, of Cleveland’s 43 3-point attempts in Game 1, 35 of them were considered open, or wide open, meaning there wasn’t a defender within 4 feet of the shooter when they released the shot.
This was an uncharacteristically sloppy game for the Heat, and you can bet Erik Spoelstra will be showing his team the film in an effort to clean it up ahead of Wednesday night’s Game 2.
Losing Jerome – a knockdown 3-point shooter – on an inbound is unacceptable.
The Heat were late on several closeouts and rotations. Confusion between Haywood Highsmith and Andrew Wiggins leads to this open corner 3 for Merrill to put the Cavaliers up 10 amidst their fourth quarter onslaught.
On another fourth-quarter possession, Wiggins and Davion Mitchell are both defending Evan Mobley while leaving Donovan Mitchell – MVP CANDIDATE DONOVAN MITCHELL – wide open on the wing.
The Cavaliers were the top offense in the league this season. They are going to score points, no matter what Miami’s defense does. But the Heat also can’t make it this easy for them. The Cavs made 42% of their 3s in Game 1, compared to 38.3% for the regular season. It’s an elite regular-season mark, but that’s still a big difference.
Every margin matters in this matchup, especially for an eighth seed trying to upset a No. 1 seed.
Spoelstra and his staff had little more than 24 hours to gameplan for this series after Friday night’s play-in win in Atlanta. They should be more dialed in after a two-day break between Games 1 and 2.
There are plenty more adjustments -- that you can read about here and here -- that the Heat need to make, but the No. 1 priority should be taking away this low-hanging fruit.