![]() ![]() Gabe Vincent is the team leader in the category. Of the 19 players this postseason who have deflected at least 20 passes, four play for Miami. Among remaining teams, the Boston Celtics rank a distant second at 14 per game. No defense is disrupting that passing better than Miami's pesky group of stoppers, who are deflecting 17.6 passes per game. Eight years later, these quirky numbers are giving us a unique glimpse into the definitive element of this team's unlikely playoff success.ĭeflections: 17.7 per game (First out of 16 playoff teams)Īn average NBA game this postseason includes about 540 passes, or about 270 for each team. A decade ago this assessment would've sounded like an unprovable cliché, but now we have the numbers to back it up.īack in 2015, the NBA started logging hustle stats. They lost Game 2 in New York, when they lost the dirty work battle, but Miami is a stunning 7-2 in the 2023 playoffs in large part because it has made more hustle plays than its opponents. "The things that we take pride in - ball in the air, ball on the floor - they pretty much dominated that those last six minutes."īall in the air. "The deciding factors," Spoelstra said, were the loose balls the Knicks retrieved down the stretch. His answer said a lot about Heat culture. The Heat extended the lead to nine on the ensuing possession and the Knicks didn't get closer than seven the rest of the game.įollowing their only loss of this series, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was asked about his team's disappointing performance in a postgame news conference. Randle's night was done, and for all intents and purposes, so was the Knicks'. It was an offensive foul - Randle's sixth - and a turnover. The undrafted Heat forward anticipated Randle's path, rotated over to help, and took a vicious charge in the middle of the paint. But instead of an open lane, Randle found Max Strus. Their All-Star forward, Julius Randle, blew past Bam Adebayo and drove toward the rim looking to cut the lead to five, or even four if he could make the basket and draw a foul. The Knicks were trying to stage a late-game comeback, down seven points with just over three minutes left. One big play from the Heat's 109-101 win over the Knicks in Game 4 Monday perfectly encapsulates the key to Miami's postseason run. But what's their secret? How have the Heat gone from a team on the brink of elimination in the play-in tournament to the team with the best record in the playoffs? The Miami Heat are one win away from becoming the first 8-seed to reach the NBA conference finals since the 1998-99 New York Knicks. NBA playoffs 2023: Heat culture is real, and here are the stats that prove it You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]()
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