The Heat‘s first-round series against the Hawks could come down to the adjustments Erik Spoelstra makes on Trae Young, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel writes in his latest “Ask Ira” mailbag.
Miami will host Atlanta in Game 1 of the series on Sunday. Young led his team out of the play-in tournament by defeating Cleveland on Friday, recording 38 points and nine assists in 40 minutes.
The Heat could throw an array of options at Young in man-to-man coverage, including Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, Caleb Martin and Victor Oladipo. How Miami defends him in the pick-and-roll and whether it adapts could still determine the team’s level of success.
Here are some other notes from out of Miami:
- Joe Vardon and Chris Kirschner of The Athletic examine the Heat’s first-round series, including who might guard Young, Bam Adebayo‘s health and more. Atlanta made the Eastern Conference Finals last season and finished with a 43-39 record this season. As Vardon and Kirschner note, Game 1 will tip off less than 48 hours after the Hawks played the Cavaliers, which doesn’t give them much time to prepare for the Heat. Miami will have a full week of rest before the first game.
- Adebayo didn’t have any symptoms while he had COVID-19, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald tweets. The former All-Star center recently exited health and safety protocols and is set to play on Sunday.
- Veteran forward P.J. Tucker (strained calf) also plans to play on Sunday, Chiang notes in a separate tweet. Tucker is coming off a successful regular season, providing versatile defense and shooting 41.5% from deep. He won an NBA title with the Bucks a year ago.
Best defender on Trae that Miami has is Gabe Vincent & I’m hoping that Oladipo’s return keeps Vincent planted on the bench for most of this series. Dre is gonna do a better job of containing Butler than anybody from Miami will do trying to contain Trae. As long as O can hold his own vs Bam this series is gonna come down to who’s shooters (Trae/Bogi/Kev/Dre/Gallo vs Duncan/Lowry/Herro/Strus/Vincent) are the hottest
Still comes down to D, containing Trae, will come down to turnovers, transition, yes—3 point shooting on both sides…Also, if Capela playing, will he be effective? Olidipo will be a player off bench to watch on D, and offensive spark…
ATL will have the advantage thanks to the short turn around… a whole week off can’t be good for MIA, that’s for sure!
Collins/Gallinari and Bogdanovic, and maybe Huerter are going to be extremely important in this series, as a Heat fan. Heat might need Oladipo in this series, matchup wise, and they certainly have to knock down shots. Definitely need a lot out of Herro in this matchup, and the 4 spot is going to be really significant.