Miami Heat: What We Learned About the Heat in Their Overtime Loss to Warriors

In a shocking turn of events, the Miami Heat lost an overtime thriller 111-106 to the struggling Golden State Warriors.  It wasn't that the Heat were outmatched or even outplayed for the entirety of the matchup, they just couldn't close out the game. 

There are a lot of reasons why the Miami Heat couldn't close out the game against the Warriors, the first of which starts with the decisions made by head coach Erik Spoelstra.

With the Heat up by 17 points, Spoelstra brought LeBron James to the bench and kept him on the bench until about six and a half minutes left in the game when the Warriors had cut the Heat's 17-point lead down to seven points.  By that time, the momentum in the game had shifted and James, who had started to heat up near the end of the third quarter, had clearly cooled off.

With James back on the court, Spoelstra continued to run the offense through Dwyane Wade in an isolation pick-and-roll offense that resulted in the Warriors doubling out on Wade, who refused to pass the ball out of the double-team.

Spoelstra did a terrible job down the stretch of running the Heat's offense by not focusing on the size mismatch of LeBron's matchup with Dorell Wright, and continuing to allow Wade to run the offense from the top of the key.  I know Wade was having a solid game from the field, but the Warriors had shut down his ability to easily get into the paint, and Spoelstra didn't recognize that apparently.

In addition to Spoelstra's lack of offensive acuity down the stretch of the fourth quarter, the Heat lost to the Warriors because Spoelstra failed to have any offensive creativity when it came to designing plays for game-winning or game-tying shot opportunities.

With the game tied in the fourth quarter and coming out of a timeout, Spoelstra had the Heat inbound the ball to Wade at the top of the key, and then the rest of the team spread the court trying to create space for Wade.  When Wade cut to the paint the Warriors collapsed on him, resulting in Wade forcing up a shot, ultimately giving the Warriors a final chance to win the game.

So what do you think Spoelstra did in overtime when the Heat were down by one point with a minute and a half left on the clock?  Yep, you guessed it: Spoelstra ran the exact same isolation offense for Wade, which resulted in a missed opportunity yet again because of the Warriors help-side defense, which locked Wade down in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Spoelstra called the exact same play with the Heat down three with less than 20 seconds left, but the defense collapsed early on Wade, forcing him to pass the ball to LeBron for a game-tying three-point attempt that ultimately fell short.

The point here is that Erik Spoelstra needs to develop some offensive creativity if the Heat are going to be able to win close games throughout the rest of the season.  Spoelstra and the Heat can't rely on Wade to hit game-winners, and their loss to the Warriors proved just that.  Spoelstra needs to create mismatches with the incredible talent he has on the roster instead of running basic isolation situations late in games.

I know the players on the court are ultimately responsible for the outcome of the game, but a coach is supposed to make changes based on observations he can see that the players can't during the game, and Spoelstra failed to do that throughout the entirety of the Heat's losing effort against the Warriors.

With LeBron, Wade, Chris Bosh and even Mario Chalmers firing on all cylinders, all Spoelstra needs to do is manage their court rotations effectively and realize when he has mismatches on offense and exploit them.  Spoelstra failed at both of those tasks, and that is one reason why the Heat gave up the game to the Warriors.

Ultimately, a loss to the Warriors with Nate Robinson dropping 24 points and Dorell Wright, who was 5-of027 from beyond the arc before the matchup with the Heat, shooting 6-of-11 for 54.5 percent from downtown doesn't mean all that much. The Heat are still the better team, as evidence by the way they outplayed the Warriors for all but 12 minutes of the game.

What the Heat can take away from this game, and something they need to improve on moving forward in the 2011-12 NBA season, is the need for creativity within their offense, and that starts with the head coach.

The good news for the Heat, though, is that if they can manage to beat the "Lob City" Clippers tonight in the Staples Center, no one will remember they lost to struggling Golden State Warriors the night before—other than Golden State, of course.