how do you defend the spurs?

[ralph_i_el]

you need a rim protector that can lock down the paint and make the right rotations. Frees up the perimeter players. So basically you need a Dwight/Chandler type defensive center.

In all honestly, there's no real way to defend perfect passing.

the heat for the last 3 years have tried to aggressively trap or "Blitz" ball handlers. This doesn't work against the spurs because they have such great offensive spacing that there is almost always a "safety valve" player who's rotating to be open to receive the pass when the ballhandler is under pressure. Heat depend on steals to get into transition and this blunts that strategy.

If you're aggressively blitzing but you can't stop the ballhandler from getting into the paint or getting rid of the ball, then you have a temporary 4 on 3 situation which the spurs exploit with ruthless efficiency. Heat have no one to wipe out their mistakes at the rim. They have been decent at running guys off the 3 point line, but then the spurs shooters have been decent in the paint/moving the ball once they've been forced off the 3-line. This really wears the heat perimeter defenders down.

The spurs are almost playing rope-a-dope in the halfcourt, calmly moving the ball and forcing the heat to wear themselves out scrambling around. It helps when you have multiple perimeter players who are good playmakers, and a big who can pass and NEVER DROPS A PASS (duncan). The fact that duncan has amazing hands is underrated. If your bigs can't be counted on to catch difficult passes it can **** up an offense based on quick-hitting passing. Good hands don't get worse with age


the spurs have been sharpening their knives all season with an eye on the heat. You bet your ass G-Pops has been tailoring this offense towards beating the heat all season. Heat don't have the personnel to execute the strategy the briefly worked for dallas in round-1 (neither did dallas really because Dalembert could only play half the game)