The Whiteboard: Things we did and did not learn from Game 1 of the NBA Finals

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It’s hard to take many insights from a game that was essentially over at halftime and saw three of the Heat’s most important players suffer injuries — Goran Dragic, Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler. Still, we’re sifting through the data points, separating signal from noise and pinning down what we did and didn’t learn in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Tyler Herro is the Heat’s secret weapon: Nope

Herro was the breakout star of the Eastern Conference Finals and his emergence seemed like a game-changing wrinkle for the Heat. His offense was a mixed-bag in Game 1 — 14 points on 18 shots, 4 assists with a couple of wild turnovers — but his defense was a disaster. The Lakers repeatedly targeted him, leveraging his shortcomings on and off the ball.

Single-game plus-minus is a noisy stat for evaluating the impact of a specific player but it’s useful as a narrative device — it states what happened even if it doesn’t say why. The Lakers outscored the Heat by 35 points in Herro’s 30 minutes, tied for the lowest single-game plus-minus in the NBA Finals in the past two decades. Woof.

The Lakers can break the Heat defense: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, Los Angeles scored at a rate of 118.4 points per 100 possessions in Game 1 but this one was all but over a few minutes into the third quarter and it’s hard to extrapolate much from all that garbage time. And, yes, the Lakers torched the Heat in the first half but that was powered by an outlier 11-of-17 performance from beyond the arc. Miami’s game plan — make LeBron a passer — accomplished that base goal. In the first half, LeBron had just six shot attempts while Rajon Rondo, Danny Green, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma, Markieff Morris and Alex Caruso combined for 22. The problem was that almost all of those shots went in.

In addition, Erik Spoelstra may have short-circuited a formula that was working by getting too cute with Bam Adebayo’s minutes. He was pulled with just over five minutes left in the first quarter and the Heat holding a 13-point lead. The Lakers had just gone small, removing both LeBron James and Dwight Howard, and Spoelstra may have been trying to match minutes. He put Adebayo back in the game three minutes later but the lead had already been cut to six. Over the next two minutes, Adebayo picked up two quick fouls and went back to the bench, with the lead down to three. When he returned three minutes into the second quarter, the Heat were down four and would never lead again. The Heat actually outscored the Lakers by three points over Adebayo’s 15 first-half minutes and the Lakers only scored 106.3 points per 100 possessions in those minutes.

The Lakers’ offense exploded because they rode a wave of outlier shooting into garbage time and because Adebayo’s minute distribution came out a little screwy because of fouls and strategy. If Adebayo’s shoulder is healthy enough for him to play effectively in Game 2 the defense could still stifle the Lakers. The problem is their offense.

The Lakers are probably on their way to a title: Yup

Set aside the probabilistic advantage of their 1-0 series lead, and whatever psychological momentum is gained with an 18-point win (that wasn’t even as close as that implies). It appears Goran Dragic’s plantar fascia tear will likely keep him out of the rest of the Finals. Even if he’s miraculously able to play, it’s hard to imagine he can be anywhere close to the shot-creator he’s been throughout the playoffs. Kendrick Nunn scored some points in his garbage time minutes and he’ll likely take Dragic’s place in the starting lineup, which was the starting group the Heat rolled with for most of the regular season.

But, as good as the Heat were with Nunn in the regular season, that team just isn’t the same. The Heat’s offense has been better by 3.1 points per 100 possessions in the postseason with Dragic on the floor — his pull-up shooting and shot creation has just given the Heat another gear. The odds of them beating the Lakers without that gear seem impossibly long.

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