5 Changes the Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra Need to Make to Their Offense

Coming into the 2010-11 season, one of the last things we thought we'd be worrying about would be the struggles of the Miami Heat offense.

We suspected that since LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were able to score so prolifically by themselves, how could they ever have trouble scoring on the floor together? It should work out so easily since they'll be feeding off of each other and not going in one-on-five situations, as they did with their former rosters.

It was prevalent throughout last season that the team needed to work on its offense. Since scoring a mere eight points in the first quarter of last year's season opener against Boston, the Heat have greatly improved on that end of the floor and now currently rank third in points per game at 102. Only the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder can top that.

The Heat's offense has been fine this year, but they're still running into a few problems. The offense hasn't been prolific as it was earlier in the season, possibly because of the wear and tear of the season.

Here, we offer five possible solutions to how the team can improve an offense that has somewhat slowed down since the All-Star break.

More Chris Bosh

For every NBA champion, there has been at least one imposing presence at the power forward or center position that makes their influence felt.

The Dallas Mavericks had Dirk Nowitzki, the Boston Celtics had Kevin Garnett, the Los Angeles Lakers had Pau Gasol and Shaquille O'Neal and the San Antonio Spurs had Tim Duncan.

Even Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls played a key part in the team's numerous title runs. While he wasn't much of a scorer, he made up for it with his intense rebounding and defending.

If the Miami Heat want to be the next winner of an NBA championship, then they're going to need to establish their lone post presence in Chris Bosh as a big man who can strongly influence the outcome of a game.

Bosh is having another solid year with the Heat. Averaging 18 points and eight rebounds per game, Bosh represents the team as the only player who is a power forward or center that can consistently score.

Nowhere else on this roster would you find that. Not from Udonis Haslem or Dexter Pittman. Not even from Eddy Curry, Juwan Howard or newcomer Ronny Turiaf.

While we give all the credit to the slashing and facilitating that occurs when the ball is in the hands of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, we sometimes forget that Bosh is the most important player on this team, especially on the offensive end. Without Bosh, the Heat are basically a perimeter team with no inside presence to attract attention, hit from the mid-range and constantly pose a mismatch against the opposition's power forward or center.

There aren't many big men who can defend Bosh. Even the league's toughest defenders at those positions would have a hard time in defending the 6'10" All-Star. He's too high-quality of a jump shooter to give space and he's too quick off the dribble play up on.

As far as people at that size go, Bosh is probably the fastest and most creative. There are so few big men in this game who can put the ball on the floor while being able to consistently hit from 20 feet out—not like Bosh can.

However, the Heat tend to stray away from Bosh at times. They get a little too caught up in playing hero ball with LeBron or Wade attempting to make a play happen along the perimeter, and it results in Bosh being ignored.

That's no way to treat the most significant player on this team. It's unfair to for someone so versatile and talented to not even get the ball on a possession.

The Heat need to work the game inside as much as possible. You need to establish some sort of inside presence if you want to keep the defense off of the perimeter. If you allow Bosh to get looks, he'll start scoring and that means the defense will have to focus more on the jump shooting and driving ability of Bosh.

Any coincidence that the Heat are 16-2 when Bosh scores 20 points or more? Not at all.

More Post-Ups

When the other 29 teams in the league saw the Dallas Mavericks bewilder the Miami Heat with something as simple as a zone defense, it was believed to be a fundamental way of limiting the big three from what they do best.

Yet you haven't seen it as much this year. Why's that, you say?

Because the Heat broke the zone defense. Quite easily, actually.

The shooters making their jump shots and the team finding ways to work it inside without having to go through the front line of defense was all the Heat needed to do in order to break a standard 2-3 zone.

Miami couldn't find a way through that in last year's NBA Finals because of the lack of shooters on the floor, as well as the lack of the team's elite players not having post games. While Dwyane Wade already had an established post game and was able to rely on that to break through the zone, LeBron James was too reliant on jump shooting and couldn't break through because of it.

Aside from being unable to have all of their significant players successfully break through that type of defense, the Heat also noticed problems in the ball sticking along the perimeter. Defenses were wary of allowing drives to Wade and James and made it an issue to keep those two 25 feet or further from the basket.

With so much attention being focused on those two alone, drives became a lot more difficult and jump shooting was taken as the easy way out.

As a result, coach Spoelstra preached a more aggressive mentality heading into the 2011-12 season. He didn't want to see three-pointers or any type of deep jumpers from Wade or James. He wanted them to get as close to the basket as possible, whether it came off of a drive or off of posting up.

If those two were getting their shots near the basket, the offense was doing its job and being efficient.

With LeBron getting guidance over the offseason on the art of posting up, he and Wade have now formed one of the more feared duos when it comes to playing with your back to the basket.

There's still plenty of work that James could use, but it's a huge relief to see a player with his frame finally putting it to good use by posting up smaller and weaker defenders.

This method of scoring needs to be used throughout the game. Opponents can limit drives as a team, but they can't stop the post-ups of Wade and James. They're nearly impossible to guard in a one-on-one setting in that position.

What's more, it only hurts when you attempt to double-team someone with excellent court vision.

The Shooters Need to Get Open and Convert

Today, we look at Mike Miller's contract and wonder what on earth the Miami Heat were thinking.

$30 million over five years for a shooter? The absurdity of that seems proven at this point, but it didn't seem that way in July of 2010 after the Heat had just signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh to play alongside Dwyane Wade.

Pat Riley and the rest of the organization had a vision with Miller. They knew that as long as they had Wade, James and Bosh on the floor together, defenses were going to focus all of their attention upon them.

If defenses were going to focus more on the drives of Wade and James and Bosh's killer mid-range game, there would obviously be less time to focus on the role players.

Mike Miller was supposed to be the role player that would thrive the most off of those three, which is why they gave him $6 million per year.

Miller, not Kyle Korver, was the cream of the crop when it came to shooters during the 2010 free-agency period. He had just shot 48 percent from deep with Washington and was a career 40 percent shooter from beyond the arc. He was a guy that made open shots.

Unfortunately, the deal is seeming more and more like a bust because of how injury prone Miller has been. Even though he's leading the league in three-point percentage at 49 percent, it's misleading when you note that he's still hesitant to take shots and isn't that knock-down shooter the Heat envisioned him to be.

Yes, the Heat rank near the top of the league in three-point percentage, but the shooters have been dreadful over the past few games. They only had one three-pointer against Phoenix, two against Orlando, four against Philadelphia, six against Chicago and only three against Indiana two games before.

Obviously, this is a bit of a problem. If the shooters aren't making their shots, then where do you expect the defense to begin focusing their attention? If Shane Battier and Mario Chalmers are slumping while Mike Miller continues to sit on the bench, then the defense has no reason to focus any of their attention on any of those guys.

James Jones? A great shooter, but a tremendous liability on defense, even if he does take charges. The Heat value defense and athleticism too much to have Jones on the floor for extended periods of time.

Miami's offense hasn't been as high octane as it should be because the Heat shooters aren't making opposing defenses pay for relaxing on them while they go out to defend a member of the big three.

Battier, Chalmers and Miller need to begin making their contributions consistently felt on offense.

More LeBron and Wade Together

How do you get better at a particular activity? With practice.

In the NBA this year, practice doesn't come as often as it usually does. The schedule is too daunting and compact for organizations to hold regular practices in between games. Any time the players get to rest is when they are either traveling to their next game or during a rare two-day break.

Thus the reason why the Heat need to continue having Dwyane Wade and LeBron James on the floor together. They're arguably the two best players in the league—when Wade is healthy at least—and they make this team exponentially better when they're both on the floor.

Both players having equivalent games has not mattered either, as chemistry and talent has risen above.

The two just know how to work together in the correct synchronization. They're friendly with each other, willing to make adjustments for the betterment of the team, are not afraid to criticize each other and are smart enough to know each other's tendencies and where they are comfortable on the offensive end.

When these two are on the floor together, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Heat are a better team.

However, the Heat rotations implemented by Erik Spoelstra prohibit the two from playing together as much as they should be. Wade and James are on the floor together for the majority of the first quarter, near the end of the second and it repeats in the third and fourth.

It's understood that the schedule requires more rest for certain players, but it would also be wise to have these two get the practice they need on the court together in order to get ready for the looming postseason.

Instead of taking Wade and Bosh out at the end of the first, maybe Spoelstra should just take Bosh out and then take Wade out once the second quarter begins. Have LeBron go for a few more minutes in the second, then bring Bosh in to run the offense, then Wade a few minutes later and finally have LeBron come back in with five or six minutes left in the half.

First off, this team needs to have more confidence in Bosh running an offense. It was only a month ago when he led a lineup composed of Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier and Terrel Harris to a win over a playoff-contending Atlanta Hawks team. Allow him to run the offense for an extended period of time so that he can have confidence and get his points.

That way, he won't be completely ignored when Wade and James come back in.

Then again, I'm not a coach. I'm just the guy making observations on what's best for the team. What I see as best is LeBron James and Dwyane Wade getting more playing time together so that they continue to work out any sort of chemistry or system issues when they take on teams like Boston, Chicago or New York in the playoffs.

Movement

In order for any offense to work, there needs to be some sort of movement amongst the players.

No NBA offense is going to be successful if there are five players simply standing around and passing the ball to one another until someone hopefully gets open. It's never been like that and it never will be like that.

The players and the ball must always be moving in order for someone to get an open shot.

NBA defenses are too skilled, quick and advanced to allow players to get open off of simple plays. Therefore, offenses need to create ways in order to beat the defense. They must out-skill and outrun the defense by being quicker with their decisions and making the smart plays.

Even against the worst NBA defense, the offense still needs rhythm, flow and movement amongst all five players, as well as the ball being passed to everyone on the offense.

Offenses see most of their success derived from constant ball movement. If you constantly have the ball move along the perimeter or inside to outside and vice versa, defenses will eventually tire out from having to chase the ball.

Defenses don't like when an offense is inconsistent in their decision-making. They don't like seeing the opposition attempt to best them by passing the ball.

This needs to happen whenever Dwyane Wade, LeBron James or Chris Bosh are on the floor. They can't be subject to isolations anymore.

This isn't the Miami Heat of old, neither is it James' Cavaliers or Bosh's Raptors. This is a complete team effort where every single player on the floor at that time needs to be involved. Every player needs to be working together in order to accomplish their momentary goal of scoring two or three points.

For that to happen, the ball and the players need to keep moving. Even if LeBron James is scoring absurd three-pointers off of isolation, it's not something that's going to work for the entire game.