How the Clippers Can Use the Warriors' Blueprint to Beat the Miami Heat

The Golden State Warriors shocked the Miami Heat with an overtime victory last night. What's more surprising is that they didn't use a zone defense to beat the Heat. They used straight up man-to-man defense to do it. 

So what did they do successfully that no one else is able to do? What can tonight's opponent, the Los Angeles Clippers, duplicate to beat Miami also? There are a few keys to the game that the Clippers can look at and try to duplicate. 

First, they need to do what the Warriors did on defense. The Heat typically get a lot of their offense from cutting players or from players getting open for jump shots. About 45 percent of their points this year have come from spot ups, cut plays or off screens. 

Last night only 10 of the Heat's 39 field goals came from those types of plays, and it came on 10 of 34 shooting, good for only 29.4 percent. The Dubs consistently played their men tight, and as a result the Heat were not able to get many unchallenged shots off. 

The key here is to not let their men get away from them off the ball.  The Heat are just so quick that if you give them any space, they'll kill you. 

Second, they need to try and duplicate the "Nate Robinson" effect. Robinson exploited the Heat defense and scored 24 points off the bench. 

Miami has problems with its bench, and it's not about what the Heat produce. They score 28.6 points per game, which is only 23rd in the NBA, but that's now really the issue. The bigger problem is that defensively, the Heat are getting torn up. 

The Heat give up a league-high 40.2 points per game to opposing benches. 

The Clippers have a problem here in that they have the second-weakest scoring bench in the NBA, putting up only 23.6 points per game. 

If they want to match up with the Heat, the Clippers are going to need to let Mo Williams loose. 

The third thing they are going to need to do is stretch the court with their wings. The Warriors primarily won last night because they made their threes—nine of them to be exact. 

The Clippers aren't a particularly great three-point shooting team, but really, neither is Golden State. In fact, the Clippers average more threes per game than Golden State. Both Chauncey Billups and Caron Butler are capable three-point shooters, as is Chris Paul. 

The Clippers need to open up the court, using their wings to break down the Heat defense in the same way the Warriors did. 

Of course if beating the Heat were that easy to do, more teams would be doing it. Still, the Clippers do have the personnel to use the Golden State blueprint to beat the Heat in tonight's game at the Staple Center.