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In a span of 65 seconds, the Heat drilled a trio of 3-pointers -- two by LeBron James and one by Dwyane Wade -- that brought Miami back from a 10-point deficit. When James and Wade are hitting shots unconsciously, it doesn't matter who's on the floor with them, right?

Actually it does.

Those 3-pointers will rightfully take their place in the NBA's Hall of Daggers, but the Heat mounted their comeback not just with individual shot-making, but also with a series of more nuanced plays -- smaller things that are never quantified and rarely even noticed. And how can you while Wade is notching four-point plays and James is draining 118 feet worth of jumpers in a short burst of possessions?

While all the theatrics from James and Wade were playing out, Udonis Haslem and Chris Bosh were staying busy as stage managers. On virtually every Miami defensive stop, you'll find one or both of the Heat's big men plugging holes and buying time for their teammates to recover. Offensively, they set screens and, in Bosh's case, sank two huge free throws.

A few of the little things that helped fuel the Heat's rally:

• With about 2:45 to play, the Bulls have the ball up 10. Chicago is working in the half court with Derrick Rose off the ball. Ronnie Brewer holds the ball up top as Rose cuts from the right sideline to the foul line. When James gets caught on the high side of Rose, Brewer delivers the ball to Rose, who wisely bursts left toward the hoop. But before Rose can touch paint, there's Haslem blocking his path, in perfect defensive position. Rose tries to hit Haslem's man, Taj Gibson, along the baseline with a wraparound pass, but Wade gets his hands on it. The ball lands, appropriately enough, in Haslem's hands. The Heat go the other way, where Wade finishes a layup on the break that cuts the Bulls' lead to eight points.
• There's a din of anxiety inside United Center as the Bulls bring the ball up with 1:25 to go and their lead down to three points. With Bosh and Haslem holding down the frontcourt, the Heat have a nimble and intuitive defensive tandem -- one that helped get another crucial stop to bolster the Heat's comeback. Rose and Brewer run an angle pick-and-roll on the left side, but that's merely a precursor to the featured action on the possession. Luol Deng sprints clockwise from the left corner around a stack on the right block to catch a pass from Rose at the top of the key. Wade is trailing Deng all the way, but Bosh anticipates the pass and steps out on Deng -- and almost gets his fingertips on the pass. Deng has nowhere to go, so he returns the ball to Rose. With :09 on the shot clock, Chicago has one last option -- a high pick for Rose courtesy of Kurt Thomas (Bosh's man). James and Bosh cover this screen beautifully. Rose flirts with going right but Bosh has positioned himself perfectly, so Rose heads left, where there's more daylight. That's when Haslem steps up from the baseline. Rose leans into the veteran and flings up an awkward right-handed bank shot.
• After Rose's miss, James collects the rebound and rumbles up the left sideline with Haslem in stride. Just as James reaches the 3-point arc, Haslem pastes Deng to buy LeBron space to his left to stop, square and elevate uncontested for a 3-pointer that makes it 79-79. James will forever be remembered in Miami for this shot, one taken in rhythm because Haslem provided the beat.
• With the game tied and 1:01 remaining in regulation, the Bulls still have an advantage -- possession of the ball. After the inbounds pass, the ball finds its way into Rose's hands just outside the arc on the right side. Thomas sets an angle screen for Rose, who dribbles left. It's a strong pick from Thomas, enough to obstruct LeBron for a second or two. Fortunately for the Heat, Bosh corrals Rose the entire way, with James in pursuit after he fights through Thomas. Rose can't turn the corner on Bosh and, as the point guard elevates to pass back to Thomas, LeBron deflects the ball and then picks it up. It's a huge defensive play by LeBron, but credit Bosh for doing what few big men have been able to do consistently against the MVP -- contain him more than 20 feet from the basket. It's possible Bosh might never get more than token praise for his defense, but any close examination of what the Heat have accomplished defensively this postseason will identify Bosh as the lynchpin of the Heat's system.
• When Rose misses a free throw and a chance to tie the game with 25 seconds remaining, the Bulls are forced to foul Bosh. The power forward calmly walks to the line and drains a pair. Though these are only points three and four for Bosh in the quarter, the free throws extend the Heat's lead to three with 16.8 seconds left. Bosh finishes the night with 20 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots. Once again, his pick-and-roll coverage -- as described above -- was nearly flawless and he battled the Bulls inside all night.
• When Rose gets the ball back from Kyle Korver with about five seconds remaining in the game's final possession, he dribbles left with LeBron smothering him. That's when Gibson lays out along the left side of the perimeter and stops LeBron in his tracks. With the clock ticking toward zero, Rose now has some air space moving to his left, but it quickly evaporates. Here's Haslem, toes on the arc, heels dug in and arms extended upward. Rose has no place to elevate and practically falls backward as he flings the Bulls' last hope to tie the game toward the hoop. LeBron, who has fought through Gibson, swats the ball away as time expires.

We know the Bulls annihilated the Heat on the glass in Game 1, collecting 19 offensive boards in total. The Heat secured only 58.7 percent of the available rebounds on Chicago's backboard, their worst defensive rebounding rate of the season. As Tom Haberstroh wrote, Erik Spoelstra's decision to inject speed on the court and spread the floor with smaller lineups seemed like a reasonable idea -- but the negative consequences far outweighed the benefits on Sunday night.

So how exactly did this happen? Was length the issue? Effort? Dumb luck? Were the Heat's big men out of position because they had to slide over and help, leaving the weakside glass untended? There were a ton of reasons for the Bulls' feast on the offensive glass, but when you cue up the film, a few recurring themes appear.

First, the Heat are slow to recover and rotate when the initial base defense breaks down. A perimeter player will get beaten off the dribble, prompting a big man to help. That, in turn, leaves a Bulls big man loose to crash the boards.

Second, there's a discernible lack of effort and wherewithal on several of these possessions -- guys looking to run out before a rebound is secured, or an unwillingness by Heat players to match Joakim Noah's energy. Yes, balls bounce the wrong way and bad misses have a tendency of landing at odd spots on the court. But in the vast majority of these clips, the Bulls are clearly the team who wants the ball more.

That desire showed up in the offensive rebounding column.

First quarter, 8:22
Who: Carlos Boozer
Culprit: Chris Bosh
How: Boozer slips a high angle screen for Keith Bogans on the left side. Once Boozer dives to the basket, Bosh is trailing by a step. Bosh eventually recovers, but instead of putting a body on -- or even finding -- Boozer, he drifts underneath the rim aimlessly. When Derrick Rose misfires a jumper from the left side that lands on the far side of the basket, Boozer makes the reception, fumbles the ball briefly, then goes up for the putback.

First quarter, 5:32
Who: Joakim Noah
Culprit: Chris Bosh
How: Noah's primary defender on this play is Bosh. When Noah gets a swing pass from Rose at the left elbow, he blows by Bosh with a left-handed dribble. Noah's layup doesn't fall, but without a body on him, he's able to attempt a tip-back, which also fails.

First quarter, 3:49
Who: Joakim Noah
Culprit: Chris Bosh
How: The Bulls run a Rose-Noah pick-and-roll. Bosh actually does a nice job corralling Rose and walling off the paint, buying time for Dwyane Wade to recover. Rose kicks the ball to Boozer, who launches a face-up jumper at the top of the key. While Bosh was busy with Rose, Noah established prime rebounding position underneath. Bosh finds him, but when the ball goes up, it's a "pick 'em" between Noah and Bosh. Noah has a little more length and a little more will. He tips the ball toward the baseline, then lunges to recover it. While falling out of bounds, Noah flings the ball back to the perimeter, where it finds Luol Deng wide open for a 3-pointer. Bingo.

First quarter, 1:11
Who: Joakim Noah (2), Taj Gibson (1)
Culprit: Teamwide/LeBron James
How: Off a Miami miss, Chicago pushes the ball and the Heat's players never find their primary defensive assignments. Nevertheless, they play pretty strong defense on this possession, but the Bulls' length ultimately gets the better of them. After a near steal by Wade, the ball frenetically works its way to Rose on the right-side perimeter. With Joel Anthony on him, Rose puts the ball on the floor and launches a floater with the clock ticking down. James had originally picked up Noah, but once the shot goes up, Noah flies nonstop to the rim. He tips the ball twice, keeping it alive, before Gibson eventually grabs it out of the air.

Second quarter, 8:36
Who: C.J. Watson
Culprit: Mario Chalmers
How: This isn't a picturesque possession by Chicago. Watson pounds the ball into the ground out on the left wing. When Chalmers slips after contact, Watson takes the opportunity to launch a toe-on-the-line long-2. The shot isn't close, and caroms back to the top of the key. Watson is quicker to the ball than Chalmers. He delivers a bounce back to Omer Asik for the layup and-1.

Second quarter, 4:44
Who: Carlos Boozer
Culprit: Chris Bosh
How: Anthony does very nice work recovering on a Rose-Boozer pick-and-roll on the right side after chasing Rose uphill. Rose is forced to swing the ball weakside to Kyle Korver. Noah, who is being guarded by Bosh, slips a screen for Korver. So what does Bosh do? Instead of staying with Noah, who makes a sharp basket dive, he steps out on Korver (presumably to stop a dribble-drive? From Korver?). Bosh faintly tries to deflect the pass, but the ball finds its way to Noah, who misses the layup -- thanks in large part to Anthony, who has come over to clean up Bosh's mess. Only problem for the Heat? Who's boxing out Boozer now that Anthony is contesting Noah? That would be nobody.

Second quarter, 2:59
Who: Joakim Noah
Culprit: Teamwide/Dwyane Wade
How: Wade has an unsettling habit of tumbling to the floor after botched layups in an attempt to draw a whistle. When the officials don't act, the opponent has a 5-on-4, which is what happens here. The Bulls find Korver alone on the left side for an open corner 3. He misses, but Noah, naturally, has set up shop under the basket. He has prime position over James, elevates for the ball and drops it through the net.

Second quarter, 2:08
Who: Carlos Boozer
Culprit: Primarily LeBron James
How: When a team's base defense falls apart with one mistake, it starts a domino effect. Deng attacks with a baseline drive from the left corner when he gets James to bite on a shot-fake (LeBron should know better). Bosh slides over from Noah to cut off Deng, but this leaves Noah free to dive to the hoop. Deng dishes to Noah on the move, at which point Anthony moves off Boozer on the weak side to contest Noah. Anthony does a nice job here but, again, who has Boozer? No one, which allows Boozer to rumble in for the miss and slam it home with authority.

Third quarter, 10:08
Who: Joakim Noah (2)
Culprit: Lady Luck
How: The Heat play strong defense as Deng tears down the lane and dishes the ball off to Noah, who is pinned underneath the basket by both Bosh and Anthony. Noah flings up a bad shot that doesn't draw iron. He catches the miss then, in desperation, kicks it out to Boozer at 15 feet, who nails the jumper. Note: The official scorers credited Noah for two offensive rebounds, one off a Deng miss, which clearly looks like a pass to Noah and doesn't resemble a shot attempt in the least.

Third quarter, 8:41
Who: Joakim Noah
Culprit: Chris Bosh
How: The Bulls post up Noah on the left block. He backs his way in against Bosh, spins middle, then flips a right-handed hook that doesn't fall. But Noah is relentless. The instant the ball leaves his hands, he's already muscling Bosh out of the way for a potential tip. Noah's work pays off, as he's able to tip the miss in for two points.

Third quarter, 7:16
Who: Luol Deng, Carlos Boozer
Culprit: LeBron James, then the basketball gods
How: Rose isolates against Mike Bibby on the left side. When James cheats over from the corner, where Deng is situated, Rose kicks the ball off to Deng for a 3-pointer. Deng's shot is off, but with James already shifting his weight downcourt, Deng has free rein to follow the miss, which he does. Deng hits Bogans on the right side with a skip pass for an open 3 that misses badly. There's a loose scrum for the ball off the Bogans miss, which Boozer secures. With bodies all over the place, Boozer finds Rose alone for a 3-pointer, which goes down.

Third quarter, 1:22
Who: Taj Gibson
Culprit: Small-ball/demands of Derrick Rose
How: The Bulls run a dribble-handoff with Rose and Gibson at the top of the floor. Keep in mind that the Heat have James Jones covering Gibson. Rose eventually gets a high screen from Noah, which he uses to dribble right along the arc, corralled by both Wade and Anthony. When Noah slips the screen, Jones moves over from Gibson to pick up Noah. When Rose's shot goes up and clanks off the rim, Gibson flies in completely unattended to gobble up the rebound. He then kicks the ball out to Deng for a wide-open 3-pointer that extends the Bulls' lead to nine. Should Anthony find Gibson when Rose's shot goes up? Theoretically, but I'm not certain how much of a difference it would've made at that juncture.

Fourth quarter, 9:37
Who: Luol Deng
Culprit: Jamaal Magloire
How: For the second time, Deng follows up a miss by following an open path to the rim. Magloire had switched out onto Deng and never makes a concerted effort to account for him on the shot. Deng flies in for the layup. Magloire looks surprised to see Deng in the vicinity.

Fourth quarter, 8:11
Who: C.J. Watson
Culprit: Mario Chalmers
How: This isn't a very artful set by Chicago, as the ball ends up in the hands of Deng to improvise off the dribble from the right side. His runner in the lane is way off, and the loose ball squirts over to the left side where Watson is all alone. Where's his man, Chalmers? He's leaking out, sprinting upcourt toward the Miami basket even though the rebound hasn't been secured. Watson drains the open 3-pointer.

Fourth quarter, 0:39
Who: Taj Gibson
Culprit: Juwan Howard
How: Chicago's most emphatic offensive rebound comes in garbage time, when Gibson soars above the rim to slam home a missed Watson 3-pointer. His defensive counterpart on the possession, Howard, lent help on a Korver dribble-drive (there we go again), and never made an effort to find Gibson and recover.

As bad as the situation was on the defensive glass, the Miami Heat couldn't generate a thing on the offensive end in the second half against the Chicago Bulls' stifling defense.

All that nice-looking stuff they executed against the Boston Celtics -- the pretty weakside actions for LeBron James in Games 4 and 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the reversals to James Jones in Game 1, Dwyane Wade in constant motion within confines of the Heat's elbow sets?

You'll be hard-pressed to find any of that on Miami's Game 1 film, particularly as the game swung in the Bulls' favor after halftime.

What you will uncover are poorly conceived possessions that played directly to Chicago's strengths. Here are three examples from a miserable third quarter, arguably the Heat's worst offensive period of the postseason:

The iso no-go
As they prepared in Miami for Game 1, the Heat acknowledged that they couldn't combat the Bulls' defense with isolation attacks, yet there they were in the third quarter trying to penetrate the half court with ... isolation attacks. Take the possession at the 2:30 mark with the Heat down six. James working at the top of the key, gets a screen from James Jones that yields a mismatch against Taj Gibson -- though Gibson's agility and instincts don't make him much of a downgrade.

Normally, a power driver like James would back out a big man, then take him off the dribble, and that appears to be his initial plan. LeBron makes a little progress against Gibson, but it's a deliberate drive and, before long, Luol Deng has collapsed. We're accustomed to seeing James make a smart kickout when there's a shooter behind him. Deng has helped off Jones, who stands behind the arc at about four o'clock for James. Instead, LeBron forces a left-handed floater that grazes Gibson's fingertips.

Heavy traffic in the lane
Down seven points at the 5:20 mark, James got a high screen from Joel Anthony, then encountered -- quite predictably -- two bodies at the border of the paint. LeBron pitches the ball to Wade, who has been hanging out on the right wing.

In the last series, Wade zipped up from the corner with a vengeance, at full speed. He'd collect the ball on the move, turn the corner and not stop until he found rim. But on Sunday night, he never found that corner and kept running uphill. Even as LeBron throws a body into Keith Bogans -- Wade's defender -- Wade dribbles tentatively to the top of the key where he finds Joakim Noah, who somehow manages to be everywhere at once on the floor.

Wade manages to take a couple of dribbles forward against a backpedaling Noah, but it isn't long before Deng converges. Wade is now in a traffic jam. Realizing he's not going any farther, Wade elevates for a jumper, which is swatted backward by Noah.

Killing too much of the clock
You can take it as an article of faith that, more times than not, the Bulls will eliminate your first option. That means it's imperative to have enough time to run through counters, execute triggers and manufacture secondary options. Against a defense as stingy as Chicago's, you need every second on the shot clock to work through these sequences.

That's why it's odd to see the Heat meandering across the time line at the 1:05 mark of the third quarter, trailing by nine. By the time James steps out to 25 feet to receive the first pass from Mike Bibby, there are only 14 seconds remaining on the shot clock. And by the time Anthony arrives for the angle screen on the right winG, the Heat are down to 10 seconds.

Again, the Heat have accomplished zero before the first action surfaces. Anthony's screen is B to B- work. Deng fights over it as LeBron dribbles left and elevates for a half-hearted shot fake as Deng recovers. James dips a toe inside the arc with :08 on the 24-second clock before stepping right back out. With nowhere to go, he dishes the ball off to Wade, who stands at 35 feet against a locked-in Ronnie Brewer.

So here are the Heat, with five seconds remaining on the shot clock and the ball has yet to cross the 3-point arc. If there's a longer, savvier isolation defender at the shooting guard position in the NBA than Brewer, we're taking nominations. Yet, in a crucial possession with the game slipping away, the Heat have Wade dribbling in place against Brewer with everyone on the floor in a stationary position.

Wade drives, gets as far as the elbow, then realizes the shot clock is about to expire. He tosses up a desperate, fallaway, contested jumper that clanks off the front of the iron.

Kevin Garnett looked gassed during the two games in Miami. He offered his teammates his typically reliable screens. But when the action was on the other side of the floor, Garnett spent much his time at 19 feet, hanging out on the perimeter waiting for the rock to find him for a face-up jumper. In the two games, he scored 22 points on 11-for-29 shooting, without a trip to the stripe.

Garnett is a player fueled by emotion as much as precision. While the latter was disrupted by an active defensive performance by the Heat's big men and helpers, the lack of gusto seemed uncharacteristic from a player driven by intensity.

On Saturday night in Boston, Garnett returned with a vengeance. He led all scorers with 28 points, draining 13 of 20 shot attempts from the field and doing it in a variety of ways.

Asked to assess the power forward who tormented his front line in Game 3, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra found an apt comparison.

"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar," Spoelstra said. "That’s what it reminds me of, he’s too proud of a player, talk about an MVP, one of the best players in this league, as soon as he stepped on the court as a rookie 14 years ago. For the revisionist out there, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when everyone threw dirt on him in the Final against Boston, he came out the next night and had 37 and 15. And while all this fuel was going on the last three days, I was cringing because you know this is a proud group, and you knew they would have a response which is fine."

Garnett brandished Jabaar-like authority in Game 3, and those 13 field goals can be classified in a few different groupings:

Pindown Pinball
(first quarter, 10:35)
The Heat have been trapping ball handlers aggressively since the outset of the postseason and have been successful doing so, but Garnett compromised that strategy in a number of ways on Saturday.

On the first of these two possessions -- less than two minutes into the game -- the Celtics are in motion and move the ball around the floor. When the ball ends up in the hands of Jermaine O'Neal at the top of the floor, Garnett sets a firm down screen at the right elbow for Paul Pierce, who makes a "zipper cut" from the right block up to the perimeter.

LeBron James is a big, strong dude, but he can't get around Garnett's screen. Chris Bosh wisely switches out on Pierce, but rather than stick on Garnett, LeBron decides to pursue Pierce once he fights through Garnett. By that time, KG is rolling hard to the rim. Pierce finds him there. Neither the slow-footed Mike Bibby nor Zydrunas Ilgauskas can make the rotation. Easy slam for Mr. Garnett.

(third quarter, 5:24)
The Celtics have a side-outta-bounds play, but the set has a nearly identical result with a nearly identical error by the Heat. After Pierce inbounds the ball from the right sideline, he reclaims it from O'Neal at the top of the floor. Garnett is right there to pin down LeBron, as the two-time MVP tries to fight through KG to follow Pierce from right to left along the arc.

Again, Bosh makes the right play, but again LeBron fights through the screen rather than hold back and pick up Garnett. This leaves KG wide open from 20 feet. Pierce makes the easy pass, and Garnett sinks the easy jumper.

Poor Joel Anthony
(third quarter, 7:32), (third quarter, 3:24), (third quarter, 2:47)

On a career night for Anthony, it pains us to have to highlight the only failures in his game. But in a span of five minutes, Garnett devours Anthony off the dribble three times.

There's very little variance to these three possessions. Three times, Garnett fights for and establishes position on the left block against the smaller Anthony. On the first, Garnett drives middle, then flicks in a hook shot.

On the second, Anthony is anticipating another drive to the middle and plays Garnett's left shoulder. Like any crafty vet, Garnett opts baseline. With a wicked spin move, Garnett again finishes with the right-handed hook shot.

Drive No. 3: Anthony is trying like hell to deny the entry pass from Allen in the left corner, but Allen finds the perfect angle for a bounce pass to KG, who is quite deep. A little shake, then a spin, then the hook from Garnett. Anthony doesn't have a prayer.

Thank you, Jermaine O'Neal!
(second quarter, 4:09)
Garnett hangs out deep on the left wing, practically in the corner, with O'Neal in front of him on the left block. Meanwhile, Delonte West holds the ball in the right corner, miles from Garnett. As a result, the Heat bigs have drifted toward the strong side of the floor.

The ball reverses to Rajon Rondo at the top of the floor, who doesn't hesitate darting a pass to Garnett. With the Heat's bigs cheating, O'Neal pins down not one, but both Heat big men -- Bosh and Anthony.

This leaves Garnett wide open for a baseline 18-footer. String music.

(third quarter, 11:55)
Coming out of the locker room following intermission, the wily Celtics run a stellar misdirection play. On the left side of the floor, Rondo fakes a handoff to Pierce, who's moving right to left along the arc. This prompts the Heat, again, to cheat toward the ball side of the floor.

Then, it's deja vu all over again. O'Neal pins down both Heat big men -- this time it's Bosh and Ilgauskas. Garnett fades to 20 feet, where he receives the pass from Rondo and drains the open jumper.

Exploiting the mismatch
(second quarter, 8:57)
The Celtics execute another smart side-outta-bounds play. Allen inbounds from the right sideline to Rondo at the top of the floor. Garnett darts immediately from the right side directly at Rondo's defender, Mario Chalmers. With Rondo dribbling right, Chalmers is stuck with Garnett as KG slips the screen and dives hard to the hoop.

Rondo lobs a pass over Chalmers' head that finds Garnett directly beneath the rim. James Jones rotates nicely, but Garnett takes a couple of dribbles backwards and launches a fadeaway jumper over his shorter defenders from about 9 feet.

(fourth quarter, 4:59)
The game is well in hand at this point. Garnett sets up on the right block, but moves across the floor to set a screen for West. Initially, he posts up Anthony, but then hands the ball off to West.

Then, KG and West go dancing. As West retraces his path, dribbling uphill, Garnett posts Wade, who had been guarding West.

Similar to the possession in the second quarter, Garnett seals off Wade. West lobs the pass over Wade, and Garnett finishes at close range with a bank-shot layup.

The rest
(first quarter, 6:34)
Garnett picks up a potpourri of other buckets.

Bosh defends him well in the first quarter on the right block. Garnett tries to drive baseline, but there's nowhere to go against Bosh, so KG spins middle. Bosh stays with him, but Garnett elevates and hits the contested jumper. Sound defense, tough shot -- but it's Garnett's night.

(second quarter, 3:35)
Dislocated elbow and all, Rondo finishes with 11 assists, and this one results from his dribble penetration. Rondo turns the corner courtesy of a screen from Pierce. As he does, the Heat's defense -- including Anthony -- collapses on the speedy guard. This leaves Garnett wide, wide open from 20 feet. Rondo pitches the ball to Garnett, who nails the jumper.

(third quarter, 11:19)
Off a Bosh miss, the Celtics are off to the races on the break. Big men are taught to run directly to the rim in transition and Garnett, with approximately 73 years of experience as a big man, does just that. He beats both Bosh (who is still on the floor after tumbling) and Ilgauskas down the court (go figure), seals off the Heat's starting center and awaits the pass from Rondo. Another easy 2.

MIAMI -- Sideline interviews with media outlets are typically reserved for guys named James, Wade and Bosh in Miami. But after scoring 25 points and draining five of seven 3-pointers, reserve swingman James Jones got the call on Sunday, delaying his return to the Miami Heat's locker room after the game.

After Jones was through with his postgame commitments, he walked into the locker room still in his game clothes to a crowd of waiting reporters. Although most players opt to shower and dress prior to taking questions, Jones saw the scrum and immediately -- and empathetically -- began the Q&A session.

"You all have jobs to do. You have lives," Jones said. "I'm ready."

Jones' readiness on Sunday was a key contribution to the Heat's 99-90 win over the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. On an afternoon when Chris Bosh underperformed and LeBron James was unexceptional by his standards, Jones' production was vital.

"JJ had the best game of anybody," LeBron James said of Jones. "Anytime it seemed like [the Celtics] were making a run, we penetrated and kicked to JJ and he was able to make a play."

Since Day 1, that's been the Heat's game plan. The upper tier of the Eastern Conference includes several teams that design their defensive schemes around stopping -- even overcommitting -- penetrators such as James and Dwyane Wade.

"We knew we’d have to make some plays to keep them honest," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "They’re one of the better defensive teams in the league in terms of loading up and protecting the paint."

The Heat were well-aware that opponents would try to shrink the floor and send extra bodies at Wade and James, which is why they stockpiled long-range shooters to fill out their roster. Ideally, snipers such as Jones, Mike Miller and Eddie House would be primed and ready for kickouts from Wade and James.

Under the direction of Tom Thibodeau, the Celtics built a defense that overloads the strong side, converges on the ball handler, then zones up behind that pressure. Over the past several seasons, the Celtics have nearly perfected this strategy. Even though the offense often has a 3-on-2 advantage on the weakside, the Celtics are so deft at rotating and making snap decisions, they're able to do the necessary work to keep those weakside threats at bay ... at least most games.

On Sunday, the Heat made the Celtics pay and Jones was the taxman. How was Jones able to wreak havoc against the league's second-ranked defense?

Here's how his five successful 3-pointers played out:

• [2nd quarter, 10:11] Off a Bosh steal on the defensive end, Mario Chalmers rushes the ball up the left sideline (the Heat are playing without a true point guard on the floor). Joel Anthony sets up beneath the rim while Jones and Miller fan out on the weakside perimeter -- Jones to the right of the top of the arc, Miller in the corner. The Heat initiate their offense early. Bosh sets an angle screen for Chalmers. Glen Davis shows hard, while Delonte West fights over Bosh, but trails Chalmers. Jones' man is Jeff Green, but he's serving as Boston's "extra body" at the top of the key, waiting for Chalmers. As Chalmers turns the corner and barrels down on Green, he has an easy pitch to Jones. The wide open look from beyond the arc is true.
• [2nd quarter, 9:38] The very next possession, the Heat race the ball up again, this time off a miss at close range by Paul Pierce. Most of the Celtics do a reasonably good job of pedaling back and finding their assignments, but not Jeff Green. Even though Davis picks up Anthony to prevent a direct route to the rim, Green inexplicably decides to body up on Anthony, too. In short, the Celtics have effectively doubled Joel Anthony off the ball. Know who's open? James Jones. After Miller gets Pierce to bite on a ball-fake, he penetrates from the left wing. As the entirety of the Celtics' defense converges on Miller in the paint -- including Green who has never once looked for his man -- Jones fades to the right corner. Miller slings a cross-court pass to Jones. Catch, shoot, 3. "I got some good looks," Jones said. "Mike Miller came off the bench and got me a good look."
• [2nd quarter, 7:09] The Heat operate a little more deliberately on this possession, but events still happen quickly. James brings the ball up the left sideline, then gets a pick from Bosh. Jones dashes down the gut of the lane, guarded by Ray Allen, then curls clockwise, fading to the perimeter on the right side. Allen stalls a bit, and when he realizes how much separation Jones has amassed, he tries to catch up. But there's Mr. Anthony with a strong pin-down -- and Allen doesn't have a prayer getting around it. Chalmers is also there for a stagger screen, but his presence doesn't really have an effect. James penetrates into the paint and, as if he has eyes in the back of his head, elevates, then flicks the ball behind him to a wide-open Jones. Three more for JJ.
• [2nd quarter, 3:50] The Heat have to work a bit harder this trip downcourt to get Jones a look. They run a high screen-and-roll with Wade and Anthony. The Celtics naturally trap Wade, as Anthony rolls to the hoop. Bosh replaces Anthony to the left of Wade for a potential spot-up jumper, but Kevin Garnett is there -- he's always there. Bosh dishes the ball off to Jones in the left corner, but Allen closes nicely here. The Heat try again as Jones returns the ball to Wade at the top of the floor. The Heat move into another Wade-Anthony pick-and-roll, this time in the dead middle of the floor. Wade gets penetration and Allen is busy ball-watching as Jones fades to the left corner. Wade kicks to Jones for another 3-pointer. "We moved the ball," Jones said. "Whenever you can create a trigger … we created plenty of triggers tonight. When [the Celtics] get into rotations and they try to collapse on our guys rolling toward the basket, someone’s open and it’s usually on the perimeter."
• [3rd quarter, 3:16] Spoelstra has a small lineup on the floor -- Mike Bibby, Wade, Jones, Jones and Anthony -- but Boston, with its conventional lineup, has opted to keep Pierce on James and has assigned Garnett to Jones. For the full breadth of this set, see bullet-point No. 3, because it's virtually the same play. Bibby and James orchestrate the same angle pick-and-roll that James and Bosh ran. Jones again clears, the curls clockwise trying to get some separation from Garnett. And there's Anthony again -- along with Wade -- giving Jones that space with a pin-down, this time on Garnett. Bibby dribbles to the right of the screen and hits Jones just as the marksman is spotting up on the perimeter. Another open look and another knockdown 3.

Incredibly, Jones also led the Heat in attempts at the stripe, converting all 10 of his free throw attempts. He didn't attempts more than five free throws in any single game this season.

The Celtics have committed themselves to converging on the Heat's strong-side action. That tactic has served them well for years, but there's room for exploitation if you work hard enough. It's not enough to just park a shooter in the weakside corner. Two of these 3-pointers on Sunday occurred in early offense situations before the Celtics truly set their offense. Another two came about because Jones never stopped moving. And one opportunity surfaced because the Heat were patient enough to pass up mediocre shots in search of a better one.

Boston will undoubtedly adjust, and 5-for-7 is hard to replicate. Still, the Celtics' philosophy leaves them the slightest bit vulnerable to weakside shooters. So long as Wade and James are willing passers and Jones stays on the move, the Heat should be able to find some open looks.

Triggers and options.

Those words are thrown around a lot when we're trying to make sense of what did or didn't happen on a possession. We've heard Erik Spoesltra say, for instance, that LeBron James was "the first trigger" on a play. Most basketball sets have a primary objective (i.e., LeBron catching the ball in motion off a curl, then driving to the hole) but also have a backup plan just in case the opponent defends that first goal well. If James is covered turning the corner, that might trigger the passer to swing the ball to the weak side, where a pick-and-roll ensues (option No. 2). If the defense snuffs out that action, there might be one final out -- maybe a shooter fading to the corner, or a cutter.

We can learn a lot about a team by its ability to convert on its second, third and fourth options -- in some sense, maybe even more so than just watching option No. 1. Exercising the patience and resourcefulness to pass up a contested first look in search for something better can be difficult, but it's something the Boston Celtics do routinely, and it is one reason why we hear them characterized so often as "unselfish." The Celtics make more liters of lemonade from lemons on seemingly lousy possessions than just about any team in the NBA.

The Celtics didn't have their best season with the ball, finishing the regular season ranked 17th in offensive efficiency. But when the Celtics' offense is operating smoothly, it's remarkably effective and a whole lot of fun to watch. During the 82-game regular season, the Heat's least efficient defensive game came in the blowout loss at Denver. No. 2 of 82? The 112-107 loss at home to Boston during November.

Boston has a knack for creating and capitalizing on multiple options and triggers, and it accomplishes this by running stuff on both sides of the floor. If you see a pick-and-roll on the far side, chances are there's something going down on the near side, too. In the process, the C's give themselves a series of choices. Don't like what the pick-and-roll yielded on the right side between Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett? Go ahead and reverse the ball, because Ray Allen will get himself open on the weak-side perimeter.

That kind of floor balance went missing for a little while during the closing weeks of the regular season, but the old offensive flow was back in the Celtics' sweep of the New York Knicks. In that series, Boston always seemed to have a bunch of options available to it. If the Knicks held their ground in the post, the Celtics would kick the ball out to the perimeter, where they would quickly initiate a pick-and-roll. For the first time in a long while, the Celtics looked like the Celtics -- meticulous in the half court with plenty of choices.

One possession that caught my eye came at the start of the second half of Game 3 of the series. Like "ATOs," opening possessions can tell us a lot about the composure of an offense, as a team comes out of the locker room refocused. Here's what we saw as the third quarter got underway at Madison Square Garden:


We can clearly see option No. 1 here, and that's a post-up for Paul Pierce on the left block. Pierce is able to draw a slight mismatch (Landry Fields, x2) with the help of a back screen from Allen on the right side, as Pierce rubs his primary defender (Carmelo Anthony, x3) off Allen then cuts along the baseline from right to left.

Rondo gets a high screen from Garnett, which, to nobody's surprise, his defender runs under. This is the M.O. of virtually every NBA defense -- give Rondo as much space as he wants along the perimeter.

Rondo dribbles to the left of the screen to put himself in position to make the entry pass to Pierce in the low post. Only problem? The Knicks defend it well. Toney Douglas guards the passing lane, while Fields fronts Pierce.

The Knicks have successfully taken away Option No. 1, so that triggers a counter-action from Boston:


There's a lot going on here -- a testimony to Boston's choreographic skill -- and it's all done with meticulous precision.

Rondo moves the other way, again with the aid of a screen from Garnett and -- again -- Douglas runs under that screen. Rondo has all kinds of space from 18 feet and there are plenty of point guards in the league who would (and should) launch that jump shot, but Rondo doesn't (and shouldn't).

We see Allen come off a pin-down, courtesy of Jermaine O'Neal, then zip to a spot behind the arc where he catches the pass from Rondo. This simple action has produced who knows how many thousands of points over the past dozen seasons or so, and as second options go, it's a pretty good one.

But Anthony fights through the pin-down and quickly closes out on Allen before he can rotate clockwise and square up for that lethal shot.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the floor, Pierce gets a down screen from Garnett (his third screen in about five seconds or so) to pop out to the perimeter with Fields trailing.

With no clean shot, Allen initiates Option No. 3:


Allen and O'Neal run an angle pick-and-roll, but the Knicks effectively trap Allen along the right sideline, and he has nowhere to go.

At this point, many NBA offenses would unravel. We see it every night. But the Celtics have a couple of things working for them. First, there are 11 seconds left on the shot clock -- plenty of time. The Celtics rarely futz around getting into their offense, as so many teams do, which gives them time to run through their full list of triggers.

Second, there's Garnett, who darts out to the perimeter a few feet from Allen to act as a pressure release.

It looks like such a basic movement, but it's the sort of detail that illustrates why Garnett is so good and, despite years of antisocial behavior bordering on pathological, why he's difficult to dislike as a basketball player. At every moment in every possession, Garnett intuitively knows where he's most useful on the floor. Again, that doesn't seem like much (big deal, a big man cuts to the strong side to bail out a trapped teammate), but that choice would be lost on many of the league's big men. You think Andray Blatche knows to make that cut to bail out Nick Young?

A face-up 19-footer from Garnett is likely Option No. 4, but credit the Knicks again, because Ronny Turiaf finds Garnett, taking away that space for an open jumper.

So we witness yet another trigger from Boston's offense:


Garnett has the ball just above the top of the key, when Rondo cuts from the perimeter (and, naturally, has no one in front of him as he revs up his engine).

Rondo catches the pass on the move (left-hand frame) and zips into the paint, where suddenly he becomes very, very dangerous. How dangerous? Virtually the entire Knicks defense collapses on Rondo as he reaches the foul line -- even Anthony, who is responsible for Allen.

Rondo might have the best court vision in the league, and he's watching Allen the whole way out beyond the arc, even as he drives into the lane. When Rondo sees Allen has the space he needs to launch a shot, he slings a side-arm pass to Allen, who catches and shoots before Anthony has time to recover (right-hand frame).

The result? Three points for the Celtics on a possession that was well-defended almost every step of the way.

It's vintage Celtics basketball -- patience, teamwork and synchronicity -- and the opportunism to exploit the slightest mistake by the defense.

Thanks to FastModel Sports Technology

The math is fairly straightforward. Barring quick turnovers and some intentional fouling, a six-point game with about 90 seconds to play will usually yield about three possessions per team.

At that point, it's a skins game. If the team with the lead can score on one of its three possessions, it essentially forces the team that's trailing to run the table, with at least one 3-pointer in the mix.

Conversely, get a stop on any one of those final three possessions, and chances are you can coast to the finish line with a couple of late free throws.

In short, the Miami Heat collapse at the finish of Game 4 was a failure on both ends of the floor.

LeBron James will undoubtedly shoulder the popular blame for his inability to convert on Miami's final meaningful trip downcourt, but the Heat turned in six poor possessions during the game's final minute and a half -- three offensive and three defensive.

Had the Heat executed on any one -- and certainly two -- of the six, they would have likely returned home on Sunday night with nearly a full week to prepare for the conference semifinals.

Here's what happened instead, with the Heat leading 82-76 with 1:35 remaining in the game:


Evan Turner's runner
The Heat are generally a very selective trapping team, but when they fell behind early on Sunday, they ratcheted up their defensive aggressiveness by throwing multiple bodies at the Philadelphia 76ers' ball handlers -- in the backcourt, on pick-and-rolls and particularly when the ball found its way to the sideline.

When traps work, they look unstoppable. After all, there are few human beings walking the earth who can consistently score or make sound plays when two professional basketball players are hounding them in their personal space.

But trapping presents all kinds of hazards, as well. On a pick-and-roll requires, the defense must rotate, which means defenders now have to make judgment calls and multiple decisions. If two defenders are guarding the ball, who's going to pick up the roller? And who's going to pick up the guy the picker-upper left? When the ball handler dishes it off, the second defender has to find the open man before the ball does.

This stuff requires coordination and precision, which is why many coaches (including the Heat's Erik Spoelstra and the Sixers' Doug Collins) generally prefer a strong base defense, sending help only when absolutely necessary.

For most of Sunday afternoon, though, the trap worked wonders for the Heat. So it's a cruel irony that it failed them on a defensive possession that could've sealed the game.

The Sixers have a small lineup on the floor that includes Jrue Holiday, Lou Williams, Evan Turner, Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand, while the Heat counter with Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, James, James Jones and Chris Bosh.

Williams (guarded by Wade) brings the ball up the left side of the floor, with Holiday, Philadelphia's starting point guard, playing off the ball, eventually clearing through to the right side where Brand and Iguodala are situated. Turner (Chalmers' assignment) sets a screen for Williams just to the left of the top of the key.

The Heat have been running traps at Williams regularly in this series, and do so again here. But the defense never fully recovers and Miami pays for it.

Williams is able to move right of the lane, as far as the foul line, where he meets resistance. That's when he pitches the ball off to Holiday way out on the right wing. Holiday, played by LeBron, takes one left-handed dribble toward the paint, but hits heavy traffic. He looks up to see Turner wide open on the left wing.

How wide open is Turner? If you froze the play and drew a straight line down the middle of the floor, nine players would fall to the right side of that demarcation. The 10th is Turner.

Instead of recovering promptly, Chalmers "ball watches" long after he should return to Turner. He's still hanging around the scrum in the middle of the floor once Williams dishes the ball off to Holiday.

The oddest thing, though, is that when it finally occurs to Chalmers that he might want to pick up the rookie scorer on the far side of the court, the route Chalmers takes resembles a parabola.

When Holiday finds Turner on the far side with the pass, Chalmers is so far upcourt, Turner has the baseline all to himself. He takes a single dribble and, with forward momentum, hits the runner. Bosh does an acceptable job of contesting, but it's a long distance and Turner has nothing but free space to work with.

Chalmers has his attributes as an on-ball defender, but this is an atrocious piece of team defense by the third-year guard.

Miami 82, Philadelphia 78

Mario Chalmers' missed 3-pointer
You normally like to see a team get into its offense quickly to ensure that there's a second or third trigger available should the first one fail. But you can understand why Wade takes his time dribbling the ball up the left sideline. The clock is ticking toward one minute and the Heat have possession along with a four-point lead. Why hurry?

Wade dribbles in place with Holiday in front of him. Chalmers and Bosh are down on the box, while Jones sets up on the weak side perimeter. James lingers around the top of the key, guarded by Iguodala.

It's obvious what's coming:

The vaunted Wade-James pick-and-roll. As the Heat's single most efficient half-court action, it's the right play call here.

A Wade-James pick-and-roll doesn't have a monolithic objective (other than, you know, to score two points). It can be used to get Wade a driving lane, or James on the move diving to the rim, or, as is the case here, to work a mismatch.

James clearly wants to post up Holiday and play bullyball, and the Sixers seem comfortable executing the switch. So now James backs Holiday in to the left elbow, while the lanky Iguodala harasses Wade at the top of the floor.

We sometimes forget Iguodala has a 6-foot-11 wingspan, and that length really bothers Wade here. Even though James is poised for an entry pass, Wade can't execute it over Iguodala's outstretched arms.

With the shot clock ticking down -- 7, 6, 5 -- Wade realizes he needs to cut bait, so he kicks the ball over to Jones, who has a reasonably open look. It's not an infinite look, but it's enough. Yet, Jones passes up the shot. He takes a dribble inside the line, then dishes it off to Chalmers in the right corner, who also has an open look.

With the 24-second clock expiring, Chalmers launches the 3-pointer, but the shot is short.

Jrue Holiday's 3-pointer
The Sixers finished the season as the NBA's 17th most efficient offense. As much as Philadelphia can struggle in the half court, it thrives in transition and on the secondary break. It ranks toward the top of the league in transition offense and is very proficient at early jump shots.

After the Sixers secure the rebound off Chalmers' miss, they get the ball to Holiday to push it upcourt. James has been covering Holiday, but he went to the offensive glass and is now trailing the play.

The Heat generally do a nice job of sending enough personnel back to stop a potential break and, sure enough, Wade has already reported downcourt to stop the ball. You can see him motion toward a trailing James to pick up the right sideline, where Turner is streaking down the floor.

Holiday wants to initiate something early here, but Wade meets him at the arc. Just as you think the Sixers are going to settle into a set offense ... BAM. Holiday slinks back over the line and fires a 3-pointer that falls through the net with 46.6 seconds remaining in the game.

Wade afforded Holiday a few feet. Was he right to do so?

"[Holiday] froze me," Wade said. "He got off a shot probably not many people in the arena expected him to shoot."

Holiday took a dribble perpendicular to Wade, then squared up and launched the shot.

"Holiday's was a clean look," Spoesltra said. "it was about as clean a look as you can get normally against us."

Miami 82, Philadelphia 81

Dwyane Wade's missed fadeaway
The Heat have done an admirable job in recent weeks choreographing legitimate basketball sets in big situations.

We've seen the emergence of the aforementioned Wade-James pick-and-roll. The Heat have been slaying opponents by running angle screen-and-rolls with Wade and Bosh. When the Heat beat the Sixers late in the regular season, they ran a gorgeous set that compromised Philly's stay-at-home defense. They ran multiple screen actions to get Wade that wide driving lane to beat the Los Angeles Lakers down the stretch last month.

There isn't a shortage of stuff in Spoelstra's playbook the Heat can go to in critical late-game situations. This isn't a team with a single superstar, or a unit with one guy who demands a double-team and a few specialists, when running an isolation or 1-4 flat can be justified. This team, with its diversity of skill sets, should be legally bound to make all five defenders work.

Yet what do the Heat do here?

Wade whittles down the clock opposite Holiday, a capable defender who gave up only 0.82 point per possession in isolation situations during the regular season. James, Chalmers and Jones are planted to the floor standing still counterclockwise around the arc, with Bosh hangs out on the weak side block.

Wade backs Holiday in from the 3-point line to the edge of the paint. After he tries to cross Holiday over, Wade picks up his dribble with :09 left on the shot clock:

• James is at the top of the arc with about seven feet between him and his defender, Iguodala. James isn't the most proficient 3-point shooter on his team, but a wide, wide-open 3-point look from the top of the floor is a much higher percentage play than a tightly contested Wade 2-pointer.
• Mario Chalmers is also open from 3-point range.
• James Jones is absurdly open across the floor in front of the Sixers' bench. At this point, all five Sixers defenders have packed the paint. None is in a position to close out on a 3-point shooter were one to fire up an attempt.

If there's a counterfactual of this play, it has James making a basket cut from his perch on the arc down the gut of the lane to collect a pass from Wade. We can only hypothesize how many points the Heat would score if we brought this scenario to life ten times from the frozen screen, but you'd have to think it's somewhere in the 12-15 range, with a highly probable result being a foul call.

Instead, Wade pivots with his right foot, spins left to find more space, then falls away as he launches an off-balanced jumper.

"I got a good turnaround, it just didn't go in," Wade said.

Sure, it's a shot Wade has hit a couple hundred times before and will hit a couple hundred times again before he retires. But on this team with this personnel at your disposal, you can't in good conscience classify Wade's attempt as "good."

Lou Williams' 3-pointer
With about two seconds separating the shot and the game clocks, Williams bringing the ball up the right side.

Even though this is a hold-for-the-last shot situation, the Sixers are well aware they have trouble creating shots in a half-court set. So rather than wait, Brand immediately sets a hard screen that pastes Wade and allows Williams to move left with the ball.

Bosh does tremendous work here jumping out on the perimeter, ceding no space to a gunslinger like Williams. Even though he's eager to get back to Brand, who has drifted into the paint, Bosh wisely stays with Williams until Wade, who slips while trying to recover, can get back into the play.

Williams can't find any room, so he pitches the ball off to Turner along the left sideline, about 29 feet from the basket.

Very little is materializing for the Sixers. Holiday, who is on the right side, is calling for a reversal. Williams moves in front of Turner toward Chalmers' left shoulder as if he's going to screen for him, but instead flares back to the top of the floor. Turner returns the ball to Williams as the Sixers reset.

So now it's Williams versus Wade, with everyone else at home. With Wade just inside the 3-point line, Williams takes one dribble from about 30 feet. Wade now comes out, just as Williams stops and pops a 27-footer with 10 seconds on the game clock.

He buries it.

"The [3-pointer] there with Williams, that was highly contested," Spoelstra said. "[Dwyane] got a hand-to-ball contest."

Though Wade confessed he was caught off-guard by Holiday's shot, he agreed with Spoelstra's assessment.

"I got a great contest on that shot," Wade said. "I couldn't defend it any better when it comes to playing both the drive and the shot, I got a good contest. He hit a good shot."

Philadelphia 84, Miami 82

LeBron James' missed layup
The Heat have 8.1 seconds and a two-point deficit. James Jones is the inbounder on the left sideline, with all four teammates lined up in front of him. The ball finds its way to James at the top of the floor. His trip there was easy, as he zipped up from the low block, rubbing Iguodala off Wade.

Iguodala catches up to James at the top of the floor, and James goes to work immediately. He drives along the right edge of the lane with Iguodala squarely in front of him. Chalmers and Jones remained along the left side of the arc, while Bosh sets up underneath and Wade trails the play, looking for a potential putback.

Brand doesn't bother himself a bit with Bosh, and why should he? By virtue of making this an obvious isolation drive for James, the Heat absolve the Sixers from having to defend anyone else on the floor. Brand eagerly leaves Bosh beneath the basket and rises in unison with James, his big right hand brushing the ball, which caroms off the corner of the backboard.

The Sixers collect the miss, and Wade is forced to foul Turner, who ices the game with a couple of free throws.

"There were a couple different triggers to it," Spoesltra said of the play. "That was the first trigger. [James was] able to put the ball on the floor, but we weren't able to get anything out of it."

What if the Heat had run this with, say, Bosh setting a step-up screen? Chances are the Sixers trap LeBron in that situation, but would that double-team have presented any greater resistance to LeBron than Iguodala primed in isolation and Brand essentially acting as a goalie? Maybe Iguodala gets hung up and LeBron finds the seam he's looking for? Maybe a helper has to collapse from the perimeter and a shooter is left wide open? Maybe Bosh floats to 15 feet because Brand is trapping James and there's no one available to rotate? At this point, would you prefer LeBron against the world or a wide-open look for Bosh at the right elbow?

There are a million variables put into motion when an offense pressures a defense by moving players around on a court. I don't believe for a second that isolations for LeBron James are less than a 20 percent proposition.

But I do know that, since the 5-game losing streak ended in early March, the Heat have scored their most impressive buckets in the most critical situations when they were at their most creative.

The Heat needed to make an adjustment ahead of Game 3, because Dwyane Wade spent most of Game 2 on Monday night running uphill.

The Sixers, determined to get the ball out of Wade's hands, threw everything at Wade. They ran traps at him on pick-and-rolls and met him in the paint with extra bodies. Wade wasn't rendered completely ineffective and the Heat still managed to score a very respectable 94 points in 88 possessions, but the win was largely a function of Chris Bosh's proficiency from midrange and LeBron James' willingness to attack the rim.

On Wednesday, Erik Spoelstra praised Wade's performance as an "aggressive decoy," and undoubtedly that disproportionate attention Philadelphia devoted to Wade made life a bit easier for his teammates. But a coach never wants to capitulate to an opponent's strategy, even if that strategy proves to be a zero-sum game.

So what do you do if your star slasher is being met with that kind of resistance when he has the ball in his hands?

Put him off the ball and create opportunities for him on the move.

It's important to note that nothing the Heat did on Thursday night to accomplish that objective was new. Yes, the Heat had been using Wade in more traditional high and angle pick-and-roll sets with Bosh lately, but many of the plays that produced dividends for Wade in Game 3 were from dog-eared pages of the team's playbook.

Here's a prime example, one of the Heat's signature "elbow" sets. You're virtually guaranteed to see some variation of this play in the first 90 seconds of any Heat game.

The Heat start out in a "horns" formation. That means the point guard brings the ball up the middle of the floor. The two big men stake out the elbows and the two wing players situate themselves in the respective corners. Schematic symmetry at its finest.

In this version of the set, which occurred at about the 4:00 mark of the first quarter, Mike Bibby initiates the offense with a pass to Bosh at the right elbow, then he clears to the left corner to set a pin-down to free up James. Zydrunas Ilgauskas also lends his 7-foot-3 frame, creating another obstacle for Andre Iguodala to step around while chasing James upcourt.

After James darts around those stagger-screens from Bibby and Z, he receives the pass from Bosh:


Iguodala reads actions as well as any perimeter defender in the league (other standouts: Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Shane Battier, Ronnie Brewer and, lately I've noticed, Wilson Chandler), so he affords James very little room once he has the ball.

There are worse offensive situations than a spread floor with the ball in LeBron's hands, a knockdown shooter to his left and a couple of bigs in front of him who can drill a 17-footer (to say nothing of Wade on the weak side), but nothing meaningful has materialized for the Heat ... yet.

The Heat need another trigger, which is why Bosh -- once he passes the ball off to LeBron -- sets a down screen for Wade.

On this particular possession, Bosh doesn't give Wade a Kevin Garnett-quality screen, so much as he provides a big body off which Wade can rub Jrue Holiday. Like Iguodala, Holiday is a very intuitive defender. The Sixers point guard anticipates that Wade is going to curl, then turn the corner. Holiday figures he's far better off meeting Wade in the paint, rather than trailing him.

Though it's a very peripheral element of the play, notice Ilgauskas creeping toward the baseline to position himself beneath the weakside glass. This gives you an idea of how a guy with a two-inch vertical can collect eight offensive rebounds in a game.

As Wade flies by Bosh, he catches a pass on the move from James:


At the point Wade catches the ball at the top of the key, he takes a single dribble with his left, then bursts down the lane for a simple lay-in at the cup.

Holiday does about everything he can do on the play -- most notably shoot the gap to avoid lagging behind Wade -- but gets little help from his big men. Elton Brand offers no resistance at the basket. Meanwhile, Tony Battie has started the work of boxing out Ilgauskas to prevent either a duck-in or a potential offensive rebound and probably can't stop Wade at the rim even if he was inclined to:



Again, there's nothing new about this scheme and the Heat feature several different wrinkles. Sometimes, Bibby will stay on the move after he sets that initial pin-down, then spot up back where he started. At other times, Wade will cut baseline rather than curl. In some instances, James will play the man on the move. And against iffier defensive teams, that stagger screen will often give James or Wade enough room to attack without the aid of an additional trigger.

The set might not be novel, but the level of refinement with which the Heat run it is. When much of this stuff was installed, it was gummy and staggered. James and Wade would hold the ball rather than move it -- or break off the set and iso.

Not anymore.

The Heat are no longer just tolerating the play calls -- they're maximizing them.

MIAMI -- "The defense is all about being on a string," Dwyane Wade said after Miami shut down a Philadelphia offense that managed only 73 points on 88 possessions in Game 2.

Being on a string.

It's an expression Wade and LeBron James have used before, usually after the Heat have tightened the vise defensively on an opponent. The Heat's whiteboard and public statements are rife with battle cries, metaphors and motivational themes, and we heard "on a string" a fair amount earlier in the regular season when the Heat were routinely locking down opponents. But it had been a while since anyone brandished it in the interview room at AmericanAirlines Arena.

"On a string" strongly suggests teamwork, coordination and synchronicity. Yet catch phrases -- especially those uttered by athletes and coaches from a podium in a postgame press conference -- can gradually lose their definition if we don't fully understand their meaning.

In 2004, we had a certain familiarity with what it meant to "play the right way," but the cliché has been used so frequently since the Pistons won the title that season, that it's become gauzy.

So what does "being on a string" mean exactly?

"It’s all guys moving together," Wade explained. "Our principles are protecting the paint. If the ball skips over the top, and I have to close out on the 3-point shooter, then that opens up the drive because I have to close and chase him off the 3-point line. So ‘being on a string’ as in, the bottom man -- the next man -- has to come over to be in his position. It’s not about one person. It’s about all five doing their jobs. If the bottom man comes over, that means he’s leaving his man. So now the opposite man has to sink down on that man."

On a night when the NBA handed out its Defensive Player of the Year award, Wade's description was apt. We tend to regard defense as an individual skill in basketball. NBA rosters are stocked with stoppers and sieves, guys who can guard the ball or the post and guys who can't. It's hard to deny there are players more fluent than others at man-to-man defense. Containing a penetrator demands lateral movement and agility. Bodying up a power forward down on the block requires some brawn and resolve.

But the more NBA basketball you watch, the more evident it becomes that every defender is, first and foremost, a team defender.

There's a reason Ray Allen can go from leading one of the worst defensive teams in history in minutes played to presiding as the shooting guard in a championship defense. And why the guy who played the second-most minutes on that wretched team can become the starting power forward on the stingiest squad in basketball a couple of years later.

Are Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis good defenders or are they the product of sound defensive systems?

How about Chris Bosh? He didn't arrive in Miami with a strong defensive reputation. His 2009-10 team couldn't defend anyone. But somehow, he has served as the primary big man on one of the league's best pick-and-roll defenses this season.

Did Bosh find religion, or did he learn to play on a string?

For some insight, watch the Heat's string at the 10-minute mark of the 2nd quarter on Monday night as Philadelphia brings the ball up trailing 24-15.

The Sixers have been struggling in the half court since the first quarter of Game 1, and here they try to jump start their offense with a high pick-and-roll with Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand. James covers Iguodala, while Joel Anthony works on Brand.

Iguodala moves left, as is his tendency, and Anthony has already anticipated this. In fact, Iguodala has lost money on this transaction -- he's further away from the basket than when Brand set the screen!

"We just try to get out on pick-and-rolls and show and try to get the ball handler going uphill instead of downhill," James Jones said of the Heat's pick-and-roll coverage. " We try to make them retreat a little bit."

James positions himself to Iguodala's right, which means the Heat are essentially in a soft trap. Iguodala has nowhere to go, yet James has relinquished responsibility for Brand, who has made a hard dive to the basket.

It's here where the string comes into play.

Bosh immediately picks up Brand the instant the Philly power forward enters the paint. Remember what Wade said? Protecting the paint is principle No. 1 for Miami.

But if Bosh picks up Brand, then who's going to cover Thaddeus Young, whom Bosh has left? You don't want that guy running around without a body on him! The Heat got their fill of that on Saturday night in Game 1, when Young scored 20 points -- all of them inside of 10 feet -- and collected eight offensive rebounds.

This is where Anthony excels at this job. Iguodala has nowhere to go, so he passes the ball to Evan Turner on his left, still miles away from the hoop. Before the ball even reaches Turner's fingertips, Anthony has already sprinted to find Young or Brand -- whoever needs a body on him.

Consider this for a minute: Anthony's back has been turned to the play as he's pressured Iguodala. He can't have any idea where Young or Brand is on the floor at that moment, but he knows he better find whichever of the two is open -- and fast. After all, Anthony is aware that Brand dropped low while LeBron stayed high, which means Bosh invariably picked up Brand.

That's one of the primary jobs on the string of any big man pressuring a ball handler on a high pick-and-roll: Once your business is done and the guard is contained, you must run and find the opposing player who was left when one of your teammates picked up your original assignment.

You have to return that favor. That's how the string works.

"It’s just like a bike chain," James said. "If one of the chains gets just a little bit off, then it snaps. Now you can’t ride it anymore ... It all works together."

James was pleased with his metaphor and even recounted how he used to fix a broken chain by turning the bicycle upside down on its handlebars. The grease would get on his fingers and that was no fun.

Nobody gets his hands dirtier than Anthony when the Heat have their defensive rhythm humming. He and Bosh work beautifully together on rotations, and the numbers bear that out. The five most common lineups with those two guys in the frontcourt give up only 96.7 points per 100 possessions. That's a measurably better rating than Chicago's top-ranked defense, which yields 97.4 points per 100 possessions.

Back to the second-quarter play, where we left Anthony just as he was sprinting to the paint. He finds Brand, who is just a couple of feet away from Young. Bosh is watching carefully. He doesn't want to leave Brand too early, otherwise Turner could just fire a bullet pass for an easy dunk. But Bosh also realizes that he needs to be poised to slide back to Young the instant Anthony arrives back onto the scene.

Anthony does something else really smart. As he races back to the paint, he keeps his arms high in the air, making it tougher for Turner to fire an entry pass inside to either Brand or Young.

Is that gesture a difference-maker in the possession? It's hard to say, but we can be certain of one thing: It didn't make life any easier for Turner or his intended receivers. And if bought just a half-second of time, it might have been the difference between Young catching the ball before Bosh can reposition himself between Young and the basket, or after Bosh could set himself in prime defensive position -- feet spread apart, knees bent, hands up, fully prepared to wall off the paint.

Young takes a couple of dribbles against Bosh, then rushes a contested, turnaround flip which -- go figure -- Anthony almost gets a piece of. Jones gobbles up the rebound and the Heat go the other way.

An interesting commentary on Game 2 is that, having listened to Wade's full explanation, I went looking for a half-court possession from Monday night where the Sixers moved the ball enough to force all those actions Wade mentioned -- the Sixers' making the Heat guard the paint, then the ball goes from one side to the other to a 3-point shooter, which forces a paint defender to close out, which, in turn, means a another player needs to sink low, etc.

Know what?

Of the 55 half-court possessions in which the Sixers came away with no points, I couldn't find one where they truly made all five Miami players defend.

So the tautness of the Heat's string is twofold. Miami's cooperative effort on defense has been impressive, but the Sixers should be taking a pair of industrial scissors to that string, but are working instead with a dull nail file.

Plays out of timeouts -- or "ATOs" -- can tell you a lot about a team and a coach. When those five guys emerge from the huddle, they stroll back onto the court with a designed play and a series of directives. It's set offense against set defense. The execution of that set might be up to the players, but it's the coach's job to put his team in a position to succeed. Many regard Gregg Popovich as the best "ATO" coach in the game. Earlier this season, Erik Spoelstra credited Doc Rivers' ingenuity coming out of timeouts.

On Saturday night in Game 1 versus Philadelphia, Spoelstra called a simple, but effective, set out of a timeout in the closing minutes of the third quarter. The Heat had one of their small "LeBron Time" lineups on the floor, a unit that didn't get a second of court time together this season: Mike Bibby, Mario Chalmers, James Jones, LeBron James and Joel Anthony. This group was defended man-to-man by Lou Williams, Jrue Holiday, Thaddeus Young, Andre Iguodala and Marreese Speights, respectively.

There isn't a dizzying array of screens and cuts on the possession, and the right side of the floor is essentially stagnant. But the play provides a window into how much James' role has expanded and diversified within the Heat's offense. LeBron never actually touches the ball, but he does all the grunt work on this play to create a shot for a teammate.

The play begins with a step-up screen on the left side from LeBron for Bibby. While this action is happening, Jones dives to the baseline with Young in tow:


Defenders can't afford to run under a screen for Bibby, otherwise they run the risk of having him stop and pop for a 23-footer -- something he still does better than 98 percent of the NBA. Credit Williams for sticking with him, and Iguodala for staying between LeBron and the basket.

With LeBron retreating low, Bibby dribbles to his right:


Bibby has been a boon for the Heat offensively, but you can imagine how much more lethal the Heat would be with a point guard who's a threat to burst into the paint off the dribble. That's what makes the Wade-James pick-and-roll so lethal. Wade demands a trap, but blitzing him puts a lot of pressure on the back side of the defense. Someone has to pick up LeBron, and that often means leaving a sharpshooter open along the arc.

With Bibby, Philly can play the action straight up, which the Sixers do capably here -- at least until LeBron sets his next screen:


It happens quickly: LeBron moves to the left block while Jones streaks along the baseline from right to left. In the process, he rubs his defender, Young, off LeBron. That action gives him the daylight to spot up on the left side, where Bibby passes him the ball.

So here's LeBron James -- the most brutally efficient perimeter player in basketball -- being used as a traffic cone out of a timeout. And it works seamlessly.

On Sunday, Spoelstra spoke about the process of LeBron going from a small forward to a 1-4 (point guard-power forward) hybrid. "Really what that meant was, 'guard the 4, play the 1 on offense,'" Spoelstra said.

Once James got comfortable with that role, Spoelstra pushed the envelope even further. Ironically, the injury to Chris Bosh was the event that precipitated the next step.

"Once Chris went out, that's when our dynamic changed," Spoelstra said. "I said, 'No, you're the 4. You don't bring the ball up. You don't initiate the offense. You're not the point guard. In fact, there's going to be a point guard on the floor with you.' Probably for the first time in his career, he had to learn a new position and learn new actions."

LeBron's willingness to serve as the heavy on this set results in a wide-open shot for Jones -- a sharpshooter by any measure, but one who needs help creating an open look. Iguodala, who has been guarding James, makes a valiant attempt to close out on Jones, but the 3-point shootout champ's trigger is too quick:


The adjustment has elements of commission (setting picks, posting up off the ball) but, possibly even more challenging, omission (not dominating the ball).

"It took a real open-mindedness on his part to play with the ball not in his hands, and to set a lot of screens, which he's never been asked to do before, and it's really giving us a new dimension," Spoelstra said.

Starting with the loss to Portland, the Heat have exceeded the league average in offensive efficiency in 17 of their past 20 games (the losses against Oklahoma City, Cleveland and Milwaukee are the exceptions). And they're exceeding it by a lot. That streak coincides with three main events: Bosh's commitment to move his game closer to the basket; the integration of Bibby; and the transition Spoelstra is talking about, in which LeBron isn't merely positioned as the team's nominal 4, but actually performing the duties of a traditional power forward.

The Heat are going to need contributions from players like Jones, Bibby, Chalmers and the centers. But few of them can create their own shots. James, Wade and Bosh can help them by drawing double-teams or with drive-and-kicks. But when you've got the body of LeBron James, sometimes a nice cross screen or a pin down will do just fine, thank you.

The Heat's most successful stint of their win over Detroit on Wednesday came over a 10-possession spurt during the first six minutes of the fourth quarter. Down eight points entering the period, the Heat ran off a 15-0 run. The lineup during the vast majority of that stretch? A very perimeter-heavy unit of Eddie House, Mike Miller, James Jones, LeBron James and Chris Bosh.

The Heat immediately sniffed out a mismatch they liked a lot -- LeBron James against Austin Daye. While the Heat got solid contributions from everyone on both ends of the floor during the run, this was undoubtedly LeBron Time.

Virtually every single point scored -- from free throws emanating from illegal defense calls, to James' dribble drives, to the kickouts for open 3-pointers -- came about because James was applying pressure on a defense with a limited capacity to absorb it.

This was almost a Cavs-era LeBron performance. The Heat didn't run anything particularly novel and the components on the floor definitely had their limitations. But like so many Cleveland wins during LeBron's last few years there, there was a stripped-down simplicity to each possession -- like a tight album from a really smart garage band, one track delivering you to the next.

The post-up/mismatch game
There's nothing overly inventive about what the Heat ran during these first few possessions of the quarter. You won't find any choreographed sets or a whole lot of motion. Instead, James posted up Daye four consecutive times with his Heat teammates fanned out around him.

On the first instance, James bullied his way to the rim for his first field goal of the second half. On the second, this time on the right side, Jason Maxiell thought a second too long about lending help and got called for a defensive three-second violation. On the third, James returned to the left side where he again backed down Daye. Seeing his teammate struggling to defend LeBron one-on-one, Stuckey dropped to help out but got whistled for a reach-in. Then on the fourth, we have yet another defensive three-second call when Charlie Villanueva got caught hanging out in the paint anticipating a James bulldozing job.

Right off the bat, the Heat generated four easy points over two possessions by doing nothing more than isolating LeBron against Daye, and forcing the Pistons to respond. Isolating LeBron is certainly not a blueprint the Heat want to use for 40 minutes per night, but sometimes the path of least resistance is so obvious and well-trod, you'd be a fool not to take it. In this case, the mismatch was too potentially profitable not to exploit. After this series, the Pistons ultimately adjusted. John Kuester assigned Rodney Stuckey the task of guarding James.

The mismatch worked both ways, as we saw at the 9:27 mark of the quarter when the Heat's possession broke down a bit. James and Bosh tried an angle pick-and-roll, but the Pistons defended it well (they didn't trap LeBron, but relied instead on a hard show by Maxiell). This allowed the Pistons' rotation enough time to recover. The ball worked its way around the half court, but no one was open. So with six ticks remaining on the shot clock, the rock went back up top for LeBron to make lemonade.

It was really good lemonade, too. Jones (who's guarded by Villanueva) set a screen on Stuckey's right shoulder. LeBron darted left where he encountered a backpedaling Villanueva. From there, it was all over. James blew by Villanueva and Daye offered little resistance at the rim. The Heat established their first lead since the first quarter and wouldn't trail again.

The kickouts
James Jones has been a sullen figure for the past month or so. Ever since Mike Miller has been fully integrated into the rotation and Chris Bosh returned from his leg injury, Jones hasn't played many meaningful minutes. Jones has never been a smiler, though he's a willing conversationalist and happy to share thoughts and observation -- and will even engage in a civil debate when you insist that a lineup with LeBron at the 4 is "small."

Despite being a workmanlike professional, it's obvious Jones yearns for minutes in more meaningful contexts than blowouts over Sacramento or Atlanta. On Wednesday night with the Heat trailing, he got the call to be part of Erik Spoelstra's makeshift unit. Sure enough, Jones was back in his familiar spot -- playing off one of the Heat's two superstar slashers, poised and ready for a catch-and-shoot opportunity.

The first came on a simple, efficient, middle pick-and-roll with James and Bosh. With an undersized Stuckey covering James, the Pistons elected to trap LeBron with both Stuckey and Bosh's man, Maxiell. LeBron went left around the trap, which meant that Villanueva was the lucky weakside rotator who must meet LeBron in the paint. But that left Jones wide open on the perimeter.

This is where LeBron's size and vision can create points all over the floor. Sure, it's an obvious pass to the open man on the perimeter, but LeBron hurled the ball through three defenders -- and there simply aren't a lot of people on the planet who can do that and hit the shooter with a nearly perfect pass.

LeBron did, and Jones drained the 3-pointer to bring the Heat within a point.

A little more than two minutes later, with the Heat now leading, here we go again: Another James-Bosh pick-and-roll with Jones, Miller and House spread along the arc. The Pistons trapped; Daye (now on Jones) rotated; Jones was left open; James made the pass; Jones launched. This time, the shot is off the mark, but Daye fouled Jones in the act. Jones headed to the stripe where he converted two of three.

Enabling Chris Bosh
That middle pick-and-roll between James and Bosh is working wonders, particularly when Bosh is as hungry for the rim as he is right now. The next trip down following Jones' free throw attempts, the Heat went to it again. Dwyane Wade had checked into the game for House -- so he manned the right corner on this set -- and the Pistons' starters had re-entered the game, as well.

Miller set a cross-screen for Bosh at the elbow, which released Bosh to set that screen for LeBron up top. It's a smart little wrinkle, because that interference by Miller means that Maxiell is a little behind Bosh the rest of the play. The Pistons defended the action the way they had most of the night -- trapping LeBron, then sending a rotator to pick up Bosh as he rolls to the rim. That rotator -- Tracy McGrady -- didn't have a prayer as Bosh tore down the gut of the lane and, on the move, caught the bullet from LeBron. Easy layup. Had McGrady collapsed more aggressively, chances are LeBron hits Jones (McGrady's man), who would've been all alone in the left corner.

Nearly everyone had something to say last summer when LeBron James opted to join forces with Dwyane Wade in Miami, but no one had a satisfying answer to the most compelling basketball question:

How do you defend a Dwyane Wade-LeBron James pick-and-roll?

There's no easy answer, which is why it's been surprising the Heat haven't challenged their opponents more aggressively this season to confront that proposition.

The Heat currently have the Eastern Conference's most efficient offense, and they'll throw some clever stuff at you in the half court, but there's been a nagging sense all season that we haven't really seen their true offensive showpieces.

Yet, lost amid everything swirling around the Heat following their home loss to Chicago nearly two weeks ago was a wrinkle that surfaced in Miami's offense during the final eight minutes. On four separate occasions down the stretch, James set ball screens for Wade on the left side of the floor -- and the Heat scored buckets on three of those four possessions, totaling seven points (a third of their total fourth-quarter output).

Three of these four picks came out of the Heat's set offense, a familiar package of plays that originate with an entry pass from the point guard to a big man at the elbow. The guard then clears to the corner and sets a screen to free up a wing. This gives the big man at the elbow a couple of triggers -- hit that man coming off the wing, or just pass it over to the other wing and play a little pick-and-roll on the strong side of the floor.

Not coincidentally, James was acting as one of the Heat's two big men in these three possessions, as the Heat fielded their small-ball lineup. And on all three sets, James chose to work with Wade in a pick-and-roll rather than pass the ball to Mike Miller or Mario Chalmers on a cut. Each time, Wade rejected the screen and drove baseline, getting to the rim with mixed results.

In one instance, Wade beat the Bulls' help for an easy lay-in. On another he missed as Omer Asik changed the shot at the basket. And on yet another his shot rimmed out, but he was primed for the putback.

Wade and James hooked up again when the Heat were down three points at the 1:20 mark. The action occurred at the same spot, but on this possession the Wade-James pick-and-roll was nothing more than a contingency plan after a broken play that was defended perfectly by Chicago. The Bulls had enough of Wade's baseline drives, so they trapped him near the corner. Wade pitched the ball back to LeBron on the left wing. With the entire Chicago defense now tilted toward the Wade-James side of the floor and two defenders closing in on him, LeBron sent the ball over to Chalmers, who was wide open behind the arc on the weak side. Chalmers tied the game 84-84.

While narratives about crying and the Heat's inability to beat either Boston and Chicago dominated the media, the Heat came back two nights later and ran seven Wade-James pick-and-rolls -- the most they've orchestrated in a single game this season. The Heat lost that game to Portland -- their fifth consecutive setback -- but the defeat was far and away their most efficient offensive performance of the slump. And what was the most efficient product of this efficient outing?

The seven Wade-James pick-and-rolls generated 13 points on seven trips downcourt -- good for 185.7 points per 100 possessions.

And they were exquisitely executed. In fact, two of the possessions yielded buckets for guys other than Wade or James. On the first, the Trail Blazers converged on Wade as he turned the corner and glided into the paint, so Wade kicked the ball out to Chris Bosh, who was spotted up to the left. Two points.

A few minutes before halftime, Wade split Wes Matthews and Gerald Wallace, and delivered another kickout -- this time to Chalmers, whom Andre Miller left to help out on the Wade-James action. Three points.

Some of these sets against Portland didn't come out of the Heat's elbow action with James playing the 4, but were garden-variety top-of-the-floor numbers. A couple of others looked identical to the three left-side actions against the Bulls.

But on two possessions in the first half, the Heat went small -- and LeBron James rolled to the hoop for four of his easiest half-court points of the season. The first set was Chicago redux: Wade turned down the screen to drive baseline. Wallace shaded LeBron as he sank low to ensure Wade didn't get to the rim, so Wade shuttled the ball over to LeBron.

Ball-fake, dribble, layup.

The next LeBron James roll occurred after he pasted Matthews on the screen. With Matthews on the wrong side of LeBron after the switch, all it took was a simple bounce pass into the lane from Wade. LeBron didn't even need a dribble -- he simply collected the ball and laid it in, as Marcus Camby couldn't contest quickly enough.

Two nights later, the Heat shook the monkey off their back against the Lakers. Remember the decisive possession? A high screen from James for Wade.

Against the Spurs, one of the Heat's best-looking sets came in an ATO, or after-timeout situation (see the 1:19 mark). Wade drew Richard Jefferson on the switch, pump-faked, got Jefferson in the air, drained the shot, and-one.

All in all, the Heat have run 14 James-Wade pick-and-rolls in their past six games. They've recorded baskets on 11 of those 14 possessions for a total of 25 points. (I'm counting the Wade miss and immediate putback because his capacity to collect his own shot was a direct result of the pick-and-roll.) That's a 78.6 percent success rate and 178.6 points per 100 possessions.

It's absurd to believe the Heat would score upward of 150 points if they ran a Wade-James pick-and-roll several dozen times per game, but why does it seem more likely you'll see a porpoise swimming alongside a jet ski in Biscayne Bay than the Heat run an action that has devastating implications for the defense? Since that pivotal drive in the Lakers game, the Heat have run exactly two James ball screens for Wade in two games -- zero in a loss against the Thunder.

I threw some of those eye-popping stats at Wade.

"Really?" he replied.

Given the success, why not run it more?

"We try to give teams different looks and hit them with it at different times," Wade said. "Once you do something in this league and you keep doing it, eventually someone is going to figure out how to stop it. We like those statistics and we run it when we feel like we need it and our team is in a drought, or if the team is so consistent or comfortable with what we're doing, now we want to throw them off. I'm sure we will run it more, because now we're getting comfortable with it. But we don't want to overrun it."

This answer isn't entirely satisfying. After all, John Stockton and Karl Malone never worried about overrunning the pick-and-roll. For that matter, neither did Steve Nash or Amare Stoudemire in Phoenix. Granted, Wade and James are two perimeter players and the scheme might not surface on the floor as naturally as a small-big pick-and-roll, but I can't help but wonder if LeBron is a reluctant screener. Does LeBron clearly see the value of being a screener, say, the way Paul Pierce does?

"I think he's starting to see that," Wade said. "Coach is going to continue to drive that point home. In a lot of our drills, a guy has to come and screen -- and LeBron is in there. He's not always handling now. And he's starting to see the benefits of it. On a guy like him, sometimes [defenses] are going to switch. Think about guards -- they're not really used to showing on screens, so he might get an easy basket. Or he goes right into the paint and rolls into the post, where he can be very effective. So I think he's starting to see that this can open up his overall game, and he's going to want to do it more."

As much as we discuss how working in the post could help the expansion of LeBron's game, acting as a screener with Wade might have an even higher yield for LeBron.

That should be encouraging for the Heat, because we still haven't heard a plausible answer to the question:

How do you defend a Dwyane Wade-LeBron James pick-and-roll?

My favorite analogy for player development in sports comes from tennis. Imagine a young professional tennis player has a deadly forehand and relatively weak backhand. Should he spend the majority of his training time working on his backhand, or working on the angles and footwork that will allow him to hit his forehand more often? In other words, should he spend more time shoring up his weakness or finding ways to utilize his strength?

When LeBron James joined Dwyane Wade in Miami in the summer of 2010, both players had more or less the same reputation -- talented slashers and passers with suspect perimeter games. From day one, most NBA fans had the same question on their minds: How would James and Wade coexist in the same offense? The two certainly experienced growing pains while learning to play with one another, and the Heat's offense still isn't a finished product, but we now have a clear picture of the adjustments Wade and James have made in order to fit in with one another.

Returning to our tennis analogy, on the Heat, James has opted to improve his shortcomings, while Dwyane Wade has chosen to maximize the best features of his game.

Last season, LeBron James led the league with 5.0 made baskets at the rim per game, and his 10.2 free throw attempts per game tied him with Kevin Durant for the league lead. 33.8 percent of James' shots came at the rim, and 47 percent of those attempts were assisted. This season, LeBron has been making 4.1 baskets at the rim every game. Only 30.5 percent of his field goals have been at the rim, and he averages 1.4 fewer free throw attempts per game this season.

Most surprisingly, only 34.9 percent of LeBron's attempts at the rim have been assisted; a higher proportion of LeBron's shots at the rim were set up by passes in each of his past four seasons with the Cavaliers. While Cleveland's offense was designed to maximize LeBron's productivity, Miami's offense has been more focused on using James' versatility to make things easier for the rest of his teammates.

Of the Heat's three stars, Wade is the only one who has become significantly more aggressive with All-Star teammates around him. He has been living around the basket. He has been making almost the exact same number of shots at the rim this season as he did last season, but they represent a significantly higher proportion of his shots. This season, 39.9 percent of his attempts have come at the rim (up from 37.8 percent last season), and 56.2 percent of his field goal attempts have come from inside of 10 feet. Wade is also getting set up with shots at the rim far more often than he did before James and Bosh arrived -- a full 41.4 percent of Wade's attempts at the rim have been assisted, which is way up from last season's 31.8 percent mark.

When James first announced that he was planning to join Wade and Bosh in Miami, my first vision of the team was that Wade would play more of a point guard role while LeBron would spend more time working without the ball for dunks and layups. Clearly, the opposite has been true.

Why has this been the case? First of all, Wade is a much more versatile slasher than James is. Since before his rookie season, James has maintained that his "second step" is much more dangerous than his first step. James can drive either to his left or his right with confidence, and he's all but impossible to stop when he's taken a dribble or two to get some speed going, but he needs some room to build up a head of steam, and he has more of a point guard mentality than Wade does.

On the Cavaliers, there was room for LeBron to be the primary playmaker most of the time and have sets that were designed to get him the ball at the basket, but that isn't the case in Miami. Given the choice between having the ball in his hands most of the time or having more opportunities to be set up with easy baskets, LeBron chose the ball.



On paper, Wade's slash-slash-slash game looks somewhat one-dimensional, but that's only because he can essentially get to the rim from any angle at any time. He constantly searches for ways to get the ball near the rim, and when he does he barely needs any space to unleash his "Eurostep." When Wade picks up the ball and makes that rapid change in direction, it's nearly impossible to stop him without fouling.

The improvements in LeBron's perimeter game aren't as impressive as Wade's slashing. After all, LeBron's scoring efficiency is lower than it has been in either of the past two seasons. But he is making some strides toward becoming a more complete offensive player. James has more natural shooting range and a more efficient stroke than Wade, who shoots the ball with his torso nearly perpendicular to the basket and looks more comfortable dribbling into a 3-pointer than he does in catch-and-shoot situations.

LeBron's long-range shooting isn't much better than it has been in previous seasons. He is shooting the exact same percentage from 16-23 feet as he did in the past two seasons, and after a brief stretch in December when it looked like catch-and-shoot 3s were becoming a legitimate weapon for LeBron, he has gone back to being a mediocre 3-point shooter.

However, LeBron's setups for his midrange jumper appear to be smoother this season, and he seems to be less of a streak shooter than he was with the Cavaliers. In Cleveland, LeBron was fully capable of burying a team by making four or five long jumpers in a quarter, but he would immediately lose all confidence in it after missing one or two and, ultimately, become much easier to stop.

While LeBron's heat-checks are still inexplicably present in Miami, his jump shot seems to be a more organic part of his game than it was in Cleveland. LeBron's 41.6 percent mark from the 10-15 foot range is particularly promising; he doesn't take many shots from that range yet, but he is far more accurate from 10-15 feet than he has been before.

It used to be that LeBron was fairly dangerous from outside, deadly if he was able to get all the way to the paint, and completely helpless if he was forced to make a shot from somewhere in between. Now he's shown that he's willing to take one or two dribbles and step into an easy free-throw line jumper if his defender goes under a screen. In the past, LeBron has been shut down in the playoffs by defenses that were able to stop him from getting to his favorite spots on the floor. But LeBron's improved ability to be effective from any spot on the court could mean the difference between a championship parade and an early playoff exit.

So there you have it: 60 games into the LeBron/Wade experiment, Wade has emerged as the team's designated slasher while LeBron has made strides toward putting the finishing touches on his offensive game. Whether that is the best use of their respective talents is something we won't truly know until the Heat's playoff run is over.

When the Heat were dropping games early in the season, Erik Spoelstra would sit behind the podium in the interview room at AmericanAirlines Arena and explain that the Heat were enduring a process. In Spoelstra's estimation, his team was a living organism. All that ugliness we were witnessing on the floor -- the lack of execution, direction and performance? Those were all natural parts of the transformation a team undergoes as it learns what it is.

Spoelstra's theory seemed smart after the Heat started to pull it together. As it turned out, the Heat needed "20 games to jell," even though that seemed like coach-and athlete-speak at the time. There were still some rough edges. The Heat were having trouble beating elite teams and still had a lousy record in close games, but those shortcomings were also part of the process and would be addressed in due time.

Due time arrived last night with the Heat leading the Knicks 84-78 with about three minutes left in the game. A six-point lead with six or seven possessions remaining in regulation gives a team a healthy margin for error. Grind out a bucket or two and you're basically requiring the opponent to run the table if they want to win or extend the game.

That being the case, we can tell a lot about a team's poise and competence by how it executes these possessions.

How did the Heat choose to approach these opportunities? Did they resort to hero ball, something they've been prone to do at their worst moments? Did LeBron James and Dwyane Wade trust their teammates, something Spoelstra preaches as gospel? Did the Heat use their superior talent and instincts to make smart basketball plays? Was each possession approached with a purpose?

With that six-point cushion, the Heat didn't need to be perfect. In fact, they didn't even need to be average. Even after Carmelo Anthony trimmed that six-point lead to four, Miami could withstand being significantly worse than New York and probably still survive.

It's one thing to say that a team has trouble closing out games, but that doesn't offer a specific diagnosis as to why.

How did the Heat manage only two points over their final seven possessions on Sunday?

Possession No. 1 (Heat up four, 2:50)
The Heat's lineup for the stretch drive includes Wade, James, Mike Miller, Chris Bosh and Joel Anthony.

Credit the Heat for a defined plan on this possession: to go to their shuffle/UCLA cut, something they've been using successfully over the past month or so. James brings the ball up the left side. Miller sets a back screen for Wade at the left elbow. If executed to perfection, Wade's man, Bill Walker, will get hung up on that screen and Wade will fly to the hole where he'll either be completely alone or, if Billups (who is assigned to Miller) makes the switch, Wade will have deep, deep post position.

Miller's screen doesn't get any space for Wade, but it's not the end of the world. This is a resourceful set with plenty of options. Once Wade clears, Miller quickly offers James an angle screen on the left wing, which gets LeBron a mismatch when the Knicks switch.

Miller is a busy dude. Once LeBron draws Billups to the top of the floor, Miller sets a pindown for Wade, who curls counterclockwise along the left sideline.

This is good stuff because there are few things more dangerous in the NBA than Dwyane Wade on the move. For months we've begged the Heat to do more work off the ball, and that's precisely what's going on here.

One problem: As Wade swings around with Walker trailing well behind him, LeBron's bounce pass is snared by Billups and we go the other way.

You can't fault the scheme whatsoever. This is a beautifully drawn play and, if LeBron can execute the simplest pass to Wade on the move, almost certainly results in a layup or at the very least a couple of free throws if a help defender can wrap Wade up in time.

Possession No. 2 (Heat up four, 2:22)
Again, it's difficult to fault what the Heat have conceived here. They want a two-man game with Miller and Bosh on the right side. When Amare Stoudemire fronts Bosh in the mid-post, Bosh offers a step-up screen for Miller in order to get open. He's successful, as Miller passes the ball to Bosh at the right foul line extended area.


It's debatable whether Bosh has sufficient room to launch an open jumper from 18 feet, but it's safe to say Bosh has attempted that shot with less daylight.

It's no matter, though, because the Heat have spaced the floor beautifully. Wade has been parked in the left corner. Once the Heat set the play in motion on the right side, Shawne Williams and Walker (Wade's man) cheat over. The moment Wade is no longer the focus of Walker's attention, he makes a sharp cut along the baseline to the basket, where Bosh tries to hit him with a pass.

Not unlike the previous possession, the Heat get Wade on the move to the hole. You can't ask for much more, except to make a clean pass. The feed from Bosh isn't horrible, but it's clunky enough to allow the Knicks to recover. By the time Wade gathers the ball, he's surrounded by a scrum of blue jerseys. Wade has to take a dribble in traffic, move from beneath the backboard, where he doesn't have a good angle, and launch the shot off-balance.

If he looks behind him, Wade would find Miller with not a soul within 10 feet of him behind the arc and Bosh wide open at his favorite spot at 17 feet. But with the ball that close to the hole and his propensity for drawing contact, Wade stays with the play.

The shot is no good.

Possession No. 3 (Heat up two, 1:41)
After Billups makes a runner, James -- unquestionably the Heat's primary point guard during this stretch drive -- brings the ball up.

Of the first three sets, this is far and away the least coherent, and it breaks down fairly quickly. After getting freed up from a down screen by Anthony, Wade received the ball from James at the top of the floor and gets a double stack high from Anthony and Chris Bosh. This is a play the Heat have run routinely and one that's also popular in Boston. Wade goes to the left of the screen, while Anthony rolls to the hoop.

Not that hitting Anthony with a pass inside is a very inspired idea, but Wade's feed is deflected slightly. Anthony is able to grab the ball but at this point he's surrounded by Knicks. Anthony manages to get the ball back to Wade along a congested baseline.

With the play disintegrating into chaos, Bosh does something smart: He streaks down a wide-open lane where Wade hits him on the move. But as he elevates for a close-range shot, Bosh has the ball slip out of his hands. The Heat get lucky, though, as the rock lands in Wade's hand on the right side at about 12 feet. With the shot clock clicking down, Wade launches a fadeaway that's short.

Sunday's night game was uncharacteristically sloppy, with plenty of poor passes and slippery execution. Place this possession into evidence.

Possession No. 4 (Heat down one, 1:01)
This possession follows Billups' enormous step-back 3-pointer.

Much of what Miami does offensively originates with the ball going into Bosh at the elbow. As is often the case, the nominal point guard (on this possession that's Wade) lobs an entry pass into Bosh, then moves to the corner to set a screen for his teammate on the wing. That's what Wade does, but Bosh senses a one-on-one advantage against Stoudemire at the elbow.

We often criticize Bosh for not being more willing to put the ball on the floor and attack, yet that's what he does here. As he drives middle, Williams moves off Anthony (and why not?) to help, which prompts Bosh to kick the ball out to the perimeter. Unfortunately, Bosh performs one of the cardinal sins of basketball and elevates before he knows where he's going with the pass. Bosh's intended receiver is Miller ... but the actual one is Billups.

Possession No. 5 (Heat down three, 0:43.2)
When the Heat get jittery, they often go back to the most rudimentary solution: put the ball in the hands of LeBron James.

James wants a high screen and, more importantly, a mismatch against a Knicks' big man. That's what he gets when Bosh screens Anthony at the floor. James promptly puts his head down and drives to the rack, beating Stoudemire and drawing the foul on the attack.

There's something almost poetic -- and somewhat ironic -- about the Heat's only two points in the final three minutes of the game coming from a set with the utmost simplicity. The Heat probably can't win a seven-game series running 3-4 and 3-5 pick-and-rolls for James more than a couple dozen times per game, but there are few things more reliable in basketball than James devouring a backpedaling big man on a dribble-drive.

Possession No. 6 (Heat down one, 0:12.7)
Eddie House is now in the game for Joel Anthony. Miller inbounds the ball to James who this time doesn't get a screen. The Heat spread the floor wide for James for a one-on-one drive against Melo in isolation. James attacks left and Carmelo does a solid job walling off the paint. James never gets the kind of space he wants, but still manages to get off a shot at close range.

But that's when Stoudemire darts over from the right side to challenge James at the rim. Stoudemire swats the ball away into the hands of Williams.

Whoever had the tandem of Anthony and Stoudemire stopping James on a decisive drive to the basket can claim clairvoyance. The defensive stand by the Knicks was as incredible as it was improbable.

Possession No. 7 (Heat down three, 0:06.7)
The Heat confronted this same scenario exactly two weeks earlier in Boston.This time, Miller inbounds from the right sideline into the half court.

Rather than rely on one of his 3-point shooters (and the Heat's best one, James Jones, is sitting on the bench), Spoelstra opts for the ball to be inbounded to James. LeBron gets open up top, courtesy of a sturdy pindown from Bosh at the top of the arc. Bosh pastes Carmelo Anthony as James darts to the top of the floor to receive the inbounds pass.

James has a reasonably clean look at about the 5.7-second mark, but as Carmelo eventually frees himself from Bosh to close out, James buys a little more time and space with a quick ball fake as Anthony approaches. LeBron then takes a single dribble to his left.

With 4.7 seconds remaining, James has another look, but he also has Wade open to his left. Wade has gotten himself free, like James, thanks to a down screen from Bosh.

Wade is a less proficient 3-point shooter (33.8 percent for James, 31.3 percent for Wade), but a more open one at this instant.

James takes the shot, and it misses. Game over.

Down three, does Spoelstra give his team a better shot at the win if he designs a play for Jones (again, not in the game), Miller or House? Does he give the ball to his superstar in this situation, irrespective of probabilities? How much of this decision is informed by Miller's inability to drain the shot in Boston?

After the game, Wade was asked by Brian Windhorst why the Heat have had trouble executing in late-game situations. Wade challenged the premise:

"I would disagree with you," Wade said. "I think we got good offensive execution, but all our shots haven't gone down all the time. We got what we wanted at the end of the game, with LeBron driving to the basket, and they made a very athletic play. I think we've executed pretty well. We get the shots that we want, that our coach draws up for us, that we as players want. A lot of times they just don't go in. But we don't win 43 games without being able to execute."

It's not so much the 43 wins as it is the 17 losses, including several games in recent weeks against the kind of Eastern Conference competition the Heat will encounter this spring. These seven possessions suggest that the Heat have the talent and schemes to generate points in pivotal situations, whether they're running a UCLA cut, crafty off-ball action or just relying on LeBron James to be LeBron James.

But even the best talent and most creative sets require sharp passes and smart decision-making and getting the ball to the right guys at the right spots at the right moments.

Can the Heat, with a straight face, say they accomplished what they wanted to last night?

Down three points with 6.3 seconds remaining is about as binary as an NBA situation gets.

The objective is simple: find your best 3-point shooters some space and deliver them the ball.

Sounds simple, but the task is a little like trying to deactivate a bomb. Every movement must be precise and there's virtually no margin for error.

With that goal in mind, Erik Spoelstra inserts a lineup of Eddie House, Dwyane Wade, Mike Miller, LeBron James and Chris Bosh -- with Miller as the trigger man on the inbounds. The Heat line up against the Celtics like this:


With more than six seconds -- an eternity in the half court -- the Heat don't necessarily need to inbound the ball to the shooter. But the Heat must get the ball into someone, because they have no timeouts remaining.

The Heat have four potential recipients for Miller inside the lines. Not surprisingly, Spoelstra uses two of those four players to free up the remaining two. House lays a back screen on Paul Pierce, which allows James to dart to the sideline to get the pass from Miller. Simultaneously, Bosh sets a flare screen along the arc, which allows Wade to find space on the far side just in case James can't find daylight:


Accounting for the inbounds passer is one of the cardinal rules of defending a decisive side-out-of-bounds play in basketball. But once Miller gets the ball to James and dashes across the sideline, Glen "Big Baby" Davis gravitates toward James. Rarely can a defender go wrong by lending too much attention to James, but in this case -- up three with about five seconds left on the game clock -- blanketing the Heat's shooters should be the priority. Yet there's Miller alone along the arc.

Although Davis has left Miller with a little too much room, the rest of the Celtics have recovered on the initial action. The Celtics are among the most responsive defenses in the league, so if the Heat want any additional looks, they have to start again. That's why Bosh sets another screen for Wade coming back toward the ball.

We see both Miller and Wade move to get open:


Open space is the most precious commodity on a basketball court, but like most precious goods, it's very hard to preserve. Once James kicks the ball over to a wide-open Miller at the very top of the 3-point line, Wade pancakes Davis, who desperately tries to close out on the man he left open.

The Wade-Davis collision is visually amusing, but it might not have been a laughing matter for Boston had Miller's uncontested look not clanked off the left heel of the basket:


Process versus results is one of the most excruciating realities of sports. Sometimes your team gets exactly what it wants on a possession, yet can't capitalize. Other times, a busted play with zero execution will produce a desperate heave that falls through the net. On Sunday, the Heat bench drew up a well-orchestrated set against a stingy defense. Chances are that if you offered Spoelstra and Miller another open, straightaway 24-footer to tie the game, they'd snatch it.