I don't think Spoelstra was the problem. Their system are fine. Their defense has terrorized the league for years. On offense, they sling it around and create a lot of good shots (they also take lots of 3s).

The problems were that the Spurs:
-are younger and faster.
-are ridiculously deep. They have 7-8 no kidding two-way players that you can trust on both sides of the court. Consider that for most of the year the starters were Parker, Duncan, Splitter, Green, and Leonard. That means that Diaw, Mills, Bellinelli, and Ginobili came off the bench. That's absurd.
-have great systems on both sides of the ball.
-rarely make mistakes.
-completely adjusted to the Heat's defense.
-were shaolin monk focused during games 3-5.


It's really, really hard to beat that team. No, the problems with the Heat are that their bench has aged and Wade's falling apart.

But Spo kept with the blitz trap defense when Miami couldn't handle it. Wade had dead legs, as did Lewis, Allen and Battier, but he still went with it. And Bron had to do that plus carry the load. Poor coaching and poor adjusting to what his team is giving him.

Agreed. He could have zones us a few times just to see if he could get us out of rhythm.

That said, our depth and balance among players would have won out. Parker and green were MIA in game 5 and that was no impact. Loved it. Epic beat down

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Agreed. He could have zones us a few times just to see if he could get us out of rhythm.

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If his best adjustment for a team that was out rebounding him and tearing him up from beyond the arc was to try a zone, that's just more evidence that they were completely outmatched. Dallas gummed up the works a few times by switching defensive game plans, but it wasn't the defenses themselves so much as the rapid switches between styles.

I think Dallas tried the best single defense, which was to switch everything. The Spurs don't like one-on-one even in mismatches, so it greatly hampered the offense as the wide open shooters weren't there. Once they settled in to attack mismatches, Dallas then did the next best thing which was to start switching things up frequently to try to stay a step ahead. It wasn't good enough, but it was a great try.

With Diaw/Splitter/Duncan available to pass out of the mid/high post or work high/low and Parker/Manu to drive and dish, the zone won't work once the Spurs realize they are doing it.

Had Spoelstra tried to do what Dallas did, I think the Spurs would have been fine. Dallas has a deeper bench with more talented and disruptive defensive bigs.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 6/19/2014 12:54p).]

I agree. He still should have tried it.

But he's far from the reason they lost. There's about 10 other reasons why the spurs would have always won.