Miami Heat: Another Top East Contender Down as Miami Puts Orlando on Lockdown

The Miami Heat have won 17 of their last 20 games, with their most recent six wins coming by double digits.

The Heat aren't just purely outscoring teams though, they're beating solid competition by an increased tenacity and toughness on the defensive side of the ball.   

The Heatle's increased toughness on the defensive side of the ball was aptly put on display Sunday afternoon when they took the court against the Orlando Magic, who average 93.6 points per game on the season.

Miami held the Magic to 78 points, which is one of their lowest point totals of the 2011-12 NBA season. The Heat smothered the Magic defensively, holding them to just 36.5 percent shooting from the field, while forcing an impressive 14 turnovers.   

The fact that Miami's been winning games isn't all that surprising, but the way they've been winning those games certainly has been.

Miami's winning games by locking teams down on the defensive side of the ball, an they're doing so by bringing help-side defense less and placing a more legitimate focus on individual defense.

Miami made the switch on defense a few games back when they took the court against the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 12th, and it worked well against teams that lacked a significant presence in the paint.

But the question was how well their isolation defense would work against teams in the East that made their money in the paint like the Orlando Magic.

We found out the answer to that question Sunday afternoon, and fortunately for the Heat, the answer is that their new defensive focus works extremely well.

When the Heat faced off against the Magic in Orlando back on Feb. 8, the Magic killed the Heat from the perimeter, hitting shooting 40.5 percent from downtown, which proved to be the difference-maker in their first matchup.

Fortunately, the Heat figured out how to maintain containment on the perimeter while not letting the Magic dominate them in the paint with Dwight Howard, and it all boils down to isolation defense. Who would have thought that it could be that simple?

By putting an end to consistent help-side defense, Miami's allowed their athleticism and physicality on the defensive side of the ball to become the foundation of their success, and that's a dangerous thing for the 29 other teams in the NBA.

Not only did Miami control the pace and set the tone on the defensive side of the ball, they also overwhelmed Orlando's defense, outscoring the Magic in the paint to the the tune of 46 points to 26 points.

Miami managed to do that by holding Dwight Howard to 12 points and 20.0 percent shooting from the line, while getting out into their fast-break offense, outscoring Orlando in transition 15 points to two points.

It didn't hurt that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade combined for 52 points on 59.5 percent shooting from the field, almost managing to beat the surging Orlando Magic by themselves.

There's no doubt that LeBron and company are the hottest team in the NBA right now, and they appear to be on a collision course for a pre-All-Star matchup with Linsanity and the New York Knicks this upcoming Thursday night in South Beach.

Miami's taking down the top playoff contenders in the Eastern Conference one by one, and as of late, they've been doing quite dominantly.

Will that dominance on the offensive and defensive side of the ball continue when Super Lintendo and the Knicks' hype train roles into South Beach?

I certainly think it will, but what about you?

Let your thoughts known in the comment section below.