The Miami HEAT are 17-12, No. 5 in the Eastern Conference with the seventh-best Net Rating at plus-3.1. They’ve beaten Milwaukee, Chicago and Philadelphia in the past week without Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Markieff Morris, with others also missing time. Here’s what we’ve been noting and noticing:
IN THE ZONE
You don’t need to look too much further than their zone defense to find out how Miami got their win in Philadelphia. We’ve been talking about the zone for a few weeks now, so instead of diving into the details of it – we all understand what a zone is at this point, whichever version of it Miami is playing – let’s take a look at Miami’s history with their alternate defense.