Not every coach can fashion a diamond out of a lump of coal when the pressure of the game bears down on them, but Erik Spoelstra can toss another gem in his bag after chess-moving the Miami HEAT into a win over the Washington Wizards Monday night.
Few coaching moves of the last decade are remembered as fondly as what Spoelstra did in the 2012 playoffs. When Chris Bosh went down with an oblique injury in the second round against Indiana, with the team down 2-1 in the series, Miami's season was on the brink. Spoelstra made the unconventional choice of starting Shane Battier, commonly viewed as a small forward, at the four spot. The move helped Miami advance in the series, led to Bosh becoming the starting center and the HEAT went on to win two titles in consecutive years with that same frontcourt.
Years later, though the league had changed in the wake of the Battier move, Spoelstra made a similarly gutsy call in the playoffs when Hassan Whiteside went down in the second round against the Toronto Raptors (with Bosh also out). This time it was rookie swiss-army knife Justise Winslow getting the call to start at center with the team down 3-2 going into Game 6 – a game Miami won.
Of course, coaching a professional basketball team is never so scientifically straightforward as pressure+coal=diamond. Spoelstra is not beyond reproach. Nobody is. Before starting Battier, Spoelstra made the conventional move to call on seldom-used center Dexter Pittman in Bosh's first absence. After winning Game 6 last year, the magic of Winslow-at-center wore off and Miami lost the series.
The point isn't that Spoelstra always makes the right call. It's that he's willing to try something outside the box and live with the results.
A regular season game on a Monday evening in December is a galaxy away from the unforgiving postseason, but it was still an important spot for a team in search of success. The HEAT came into the contest against the Wizards sitting at 7-17 on a five-game losing streak. They had the luxury of starting a six-game homestand, but with 9-of-11 on the road looming after there remained little margin for error. However it came, the team needed a win.
Though it didn't seem much like it at the time, it was as big a spot as there has been this season.
Needing a win and down one headed into the fourth quarter against Washington, Spoelstra again made the unconventional choice. After using Willie Reed in the first half, Spoelstra tapped James Johnson, a once-career small forward who had become a Battier-esque four in Miami, to play center.
It worked.
“We went to a lineup I don't think we've ever played before,” Spoelstra said. “But guys understood it. That group gave us some momentum. We were able to take the lead and build on that lead with great energy playing JJ at the five.”
In 8.7 fourth-quarter minutes, the HEAT outscored the Wizards by six points. It might not seem like much, but in what had previously been a one-point game those six points were enough to take control headed into the final stretch.
“We've had success with guys like that over the years,” Spoelstra said. “Where you can play them in a lot of different places on the court to try and expose the opponent defense.”
We'll talk about why the lineup worked in a minute, but first we have to talk about why things got tricky for Washington. For the first three minutes of the quarter, Washington coach Scott Brooks had Jason Smith in at center. Smith is something of a perimeter-oriented big man due to the range on his jumper, but he's still a big man and far different from the versatile puzzle box that Johnson can be for opposing defenses.
Smith on Johnson, on paper, doesn't sound like a great matchup for Washington, but Brooks also didn't have a lot of options. Markieff Morris is Washington's most similar player to Johnson, but he starts and Johnson doesn't. Morris played nearly nine minutes in the third quarter and was getting what was likely his regular rest. Brooks could have either extended Morris' minutes even further (he finished over 37 minutes) or he could try to buy some time.
Forced into a choice by Spoelstra's gambit, Brooks chose the latter option. And in those three minutes with Smith on the floor to start the quarter, Washington was minus-five.
What's so tricky about Johnson is that not only can he spread the floor and defend just about any position, requirements for many big men in these post-Battier days, he can also handle the ball and make plays. Years ago Spoelstra would insert LeBron James at power forward and, instead of having him play two-man game with Bosh, Bosh would space the floor from the corner while Dwyane Wade set the screens in order to create mismatches.
Johnson and Goran Dragic aren't those same players, but the purpose is the same. Dragic screens, Johnson gets Kelly Oubre on the switch and he immediately goes to work and gets fouled.
“It just was real spread out,” Tyler Johnson said of the smaller lineup. “There's shooters out there, so you have to stay on us. And James was a mismatch problem. We were just trying to get the necessary switch so he could attack and make plays.”
The next time down the floor, Miami runs the same thing. The Wizards try to avoid the switch by containing James Johnson's attack, but Johnson finds the popping Dragic for an open three.
“On offense, it takes some pressure off me,” Dragic said. “When he's handling the ball and the point guard is setting the screen it's a unique situation. Not a lot of teams have this.”
Finally, the HEAT were able to use their advantage in speed and athleticism with Johnson – who said he couldn't remember ever being used at center in any of his previous stops – simply filling the slot on the break with his man trailing the play.
At this point, Miami led by four. Timeout Washington. Brooks then brought back Morris in addition to both John Wall and Bradley Beal. But since Spoelstra had forced his opponent to adjust, Washington was left playing a lineup of Wall-Beal-Oubre and Trey Burke for the first time all season.
“That's an advantage,” Dragic said. “As long as they're adjusting to us, that means we're doing something right. Spo did an amazing job.”
Not only did Spoelstra guide his team into the lead and force Washington to adjust, he more generally ensured his opponent was in an uncomfortable situation.
” never really dealt with the four-man or five, at the time, playing pick-and-roll and handling the ball, playing small the way they were,” Beal said.
It wasn't a rainbow road the rest of the fourth. With both teams staying small until the final minutes, all that space on the floor meant a lot of slice-and-dice for Wall. It eventually took some contested makes from just about everyone on the floor, all while Dragic (34 points) was doing his burninating-the-countryside thing, to finish things off. No matter how creative the lineup, the players still have to play. A few shots go a different way and we're having a different conversation today.
The point, again, is not that Spoelstra is always right. He's just willing to try something that could be right. Granted, injuries have a way of pushing you outside the box in the way that normal situations do not.
“This was just born out of necessity out of this game,” Spoelstra said.
But these aren't decisions you just trip into, either. You have to set yourself up in advance to be able to make them. Battier, Winslow and Johnson all were or are on the roster because the team actively seeks players that can plug-and-play into a variety of situations. Even if you never have a roster emergency, the HEAT make sure something is underneath that in-case-of glass.
That's the HEAT under Spoelstra – prepared for the moments you can't prepare for. Johnson at the five probably isn't going to have the same long-lasting impact as Battier's move did. It may end up being closer to the temporary Winslow group from the playoffs. Or it could be somewhere in between, a change-of-pace look sprinkled into the right matchups.
Spoelstra's was simply a creative decision in a time of need. Make enough of those over the course of the regular season and they'll add up to a few extra wins. This much we know, because we've already seen one of these diamonds win a title.
