CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cavs entered the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s Game 2 at home up 13 points against the eight-seeded Miami Heat, so it should have been relatively smooth sailing.
Remember, the Cavs entered the fourth quarter of Game 1 up only 87-79 but scored a scintillating 34 points in the final quarter to close it out.
So how did Game 2 end up a one-possession game with 3 minutes left to play?
Let’s take a look at the film:
How the Heat attacked the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto special to cleveland.com
Davion Mitchell offensive explosion
While Donovan Mitchell did go off for 17 points in the fourth quarter, Miami’s D. Mitchell, Davion Mitchell, had 14 points.
He went 5 of 6 on field goals, 2 of 3 on 3-pointers to keep the Heat within striking distance. Here’s how it went down:
The first three Davion Mitchell scores in the final quarter all look similar:
His two field goals were the byproduct of a Duncan Robinson (55)–Bam Adebayo (13) pick and roll that shifted the defense.
The ball is then swung to him with 10 or fewer seconds on the shot clock, and he is able to attack and get a deep paint touch for two.
Once Miami got Mitchell into a rhythm, it gives him an Adebayo screen to work with, and he is once again able to get in the paint, this time to draw free throws.
Another Mitchell–Adebayo pick and roll resulted in another paint touch for Mitchell.
He kicks out to Tyler Herro (14) for a 3-pointer. The attempt does not fall, but Miami stays with it, grabs an offensive rebound, and in the scramble, Mitchell is able to launch a clean look from the left slot and he gets it to go.
Mitchell’s next score comes off a steal.
The Cavs’ hunting of Tyler Herro — trying to get him in a mismatch defensively — was something the Heat had scouted from Game 1.
When Ty Jerome was looking to attack Herro one on one, helping off Darius Garland is not ideally what a defense would like to do. Davion Mitchell saw an opportunity to gamble when Jerome turned his back on Herro on a spin move.
How the Heat attacked the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto special to cleveland.com
Mitchell came to dig with two hands and was able to draw free throws on the transition opportunity.
Mitchell’s final relevant bucket (his final score came on a layup with 11 seconds left on the clock) was the result of some truly confusing defensive decision-making:
A Nikola Jovic (5) post entry is just decoy action in order to get Herro coming off a pin-in screen.
How the Heat attacked the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto special to cleveland.com
The Cavs’ Max Strus jumps on the head fake as he is chasing Herro around the Jovic screen:
How the Heat attacked the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto special to cleveland.com
What’s baffling about this defensive spell is that the Cavs’ Jarrett Allen decides to help on the drive off Adebayo (who is one very short pass away) when Jerome is right there to contain.
How the Heat attacked the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto special to cleveland.com
This forces the Cavs’ De’Andre Hunter to have to close out on Adebayo (who is 1 of 5 from 3 on the night and a career 31.7% from 3), which leaves Davion Mitchell wide open. He is able to make Garland pay for choosing not to come out and contest.
The point is not that Davion Mitchell had 18 points in this game, because he also had 18 in Game 1.
The point is that too often, the Cleveland defense allowed him to get comfortable by going one on one and getting repeated paint touches, while also letting Herro go for 33 on the night.
Stagnant Cavs offense
As we described after Game 1, the Heat used zone defenses to try to throw the Cavs off their rhythm. They added a wrinkle in Game 2:
There are two possessions in the fourth where Miami went to a zone look and then shifted to a man-to-man defense:
As you can see, the Heat lined up in a 1-3-1 zone defense, with one defender high, three across the free-throw line extended, and one near the basket.
How the Heat crossed up the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto, special to cleveland.com
Then once Jerome got to the nail (free throw line), they shifted to man to man:
How the Heat crossed up the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto, special to cleveland.com
This resulted in a post entry for Evan Mobley where Miami sent a double-team and caught Mobley off-guard enough to travel.
The other possession, about 40 seconds later, had Miami show Mitchell a 2-3 zone look. Note how the top guy, Haywood Highsmith (24), is at the nail playing a zone even though Jerome is extended all the way out on the opposite side.
Donovan Mitchell beats Davion Mitchell on the drive but he has to contend with a heavy dig from Duncan Robinson and then has to finish over the outstretched Adebayo:
How the Heat crossed up the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto, special to cleveland.com
How the Heat crossed up the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto, special to cleveland.com
Minus the two zone looks, here are the rest of the Cavs’ offensive possessions in that fourth quarter until the 4-minute mark:
Every possession can be lumped into one of two categories:
- Early action that looks to create an advantage but stagnates into isolation basketball that ends in a tough shot;
- OR, early action that looks to create an advantage but stagnates into isolation basketball that ends in a tough take, but Donovan Mitchell makes it:
How the Heat crossed up the Cavs in Game 2Evin Gualberto, special to cleveland.com
Except for the first possession where Miami doubles off Sam Merrill (above) and leaves him wide open but Cleveland cannot take advantage, it was an offensive slog.
The main thing to watch for in the video is how many times the Cavaliers got a foot in the restricted area (the semi-circle under the basket). Two different times, Garland got very close, but didn’t quite get there. Also look for how many times either one of their All-Star-level big men, Allen or Mobley, got to touch the ball outside of the one Mobley travel.
The key to the success of the Cavs all season has been ball movement and man movement while getting RA (restricted area) touches to collapse the defense.
They went away from that formula some in Game 2 but were able to hold off the Heat with the heroics of one Donovan Mitchell.
Cavs fans are hoping Kenny Atkinson can get his players to rediscover what made them great as they make the trip to South Beach for Saturday afternoon’s Game 3.
Evin Gualberto is a basketball coach with more than a decade of experience. Currently, he is an assistant coach for DeMatha Catholic, a legendary high school program in the Washington, D.C. area, as well as the 16U head coach for the AAU program Virginia Elite. He is a former professional basketball video scout and has a YouTube channel where he does film breakdown and player videos.
