Mateo’s Hoop Diary: The Heat’s quest for the sixth seed and other NBA notes

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander returned to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 27 after missing nine straight games with an abdominal injury, and his squad looks like the best in the league. Keep in mind they are still missing All-Star Jalen Williams, who has been out with a right hamstring strain since Feb. 11. The San Antonio Spurs closed most of the gap with them for the first seed, but the Thunder’s proven depth gets tons of credit for maintaining it. 

The Spurs beat them four times this season, giving them the tiebreaker, and whichever team gets the first seed will have an advantage because of the extra night at home in a seven-game series.

The Thunder went into Madison Square Garden on Wednesday and showed themselves a class above their hosts. The New York Knicks weren’t concerned with guarding the arc, and their visitors turned it into target practice in the first half. On the other end, the Knicks had trouble getting the looks they wanted.

The game got tighter due to a home resurgence in the third quarter, but the Thunder prevailed because of contributions from multiple members, including the key strip by Cason Wallace on Jalen Brunson to make the last shot much harder when it was inbounded after that. And still, the Knicks got two 3-pointers off to tie in the last six seconds and the last one by OG Anunoby was a good look. 

The champs don’t hurt themselves, averaging the lowest turnover percentage in the league. Yet they aren’t some unbeatable juggernaut since their biggest weakness is allowing too many 3-pointers. Still, their physicality inside the arc permits the lowest two-point field goal percentage (49.1). Additionally, while they are only 24th in transition frequency, they are tied with New York as the most efficient team when raising the pace, scoring 1.19 points per possession. 

All of that is nice, but most importantly, SGA is the real deal. His ability to get to his spots late, as he did against Anunoby for a pull-up trey as the game hung in the balance, is what separates him from other All-Stars and All-NBA players. It’s special how he takes over a quarter (27.7) of his shots at 10-16 feet, making 59.1 percent of them, and is an above-average scorer in the in-between area (3-10 feet), logging 49.7 percent. 

He can go off like Rambo against a defense, and is good enough to make the right reads when added pressure comes. SGA and the crew have championship confidence so they’ll never be rattled. 

They are looking to be the first team to repeat since the Golden State Warriors did in 2017 and 2018.   

The Cavaliers’ front office doesn’t lack boldness, but did they make the right move?

Darius Garland was a beloved player in Cleveland. They drafted him fifth in 2019, and he made two All-Star teams. Now he’s a Los Angeles Clipper at age 26, and James Harden is a Cav. 

There’s a lot Harden does offensively that still makes him a high-impact player at age 36. Two advantages he has over Garland are his size and strength, being four inches taller and significantly heavier. 

He’s rarely gotten the credit for being the guy who took the Kevin Durant-led Warriors further than anyone, yet one questions Harden’s basketball character. He’s got a rap sheet of playoff letdowns and he wanted to leave the resurgent Clippers for guaranteed money two years from now, as if he hasn’t made a fortune already.

Combining him with Donovan Mitchell gives the Cavs two real hubs of offense. The latter being the superior player also takes pressure off Harden, but the latter can’t be a turnover machine or have games shooting in the 30s to low 40 percent range in the playoffs. 

This year has turned out favorably because they got out of the mud and now the Cavs have a solid opportunity to get back to their first Finals since 2018. They won’t catch the Detroit Pistons for the first seed, but it remains to be seen how the latter lacking a second big-time shot creator will factor in to the playoffs, presuming they vanquish the eighth seed. 

After flaming out in round two last year, it’s all or nothing for the Cavs.

The Miami Heat’s difficult quest for the sixth seed:

The Miami Heat have six games left against the league’s worst teams, and they can’t afford to lose any of them if they want the sixth seed to avoid going through their fourth Play-In Tournament. They have to be on point because the Charlotte Hornets are on their tail, and are the superior team plus the Orlando Magic have the tiebreaker after beating them four times.

They’ll need to tighten up their 3-point defense in the final regular-season stretch since they give up the most open attempts. The Heat are not good enough to get by on the strength of their offense and must commit to being the nastier team in the trenches.  If they don’t, their top-four defensive rating is not as good as it sounds.

It helps that Bam Adebayo has picked up his play since mid-January, averaging 21.7 points and 10 rebounds on 45.2% shooting. He needs to finish the year like that while keeping up his high level of defense. On top of that, Tyler Herro and Jaime Jaquez Jr. can’t fail to deliver on nights the team needs their scoring and playmaking as this will affect the defense. The more efficient they are, opponents will have to play the Heat more in the half-court because the ball will need to be checked in.

The Heat have 20 games left but two remain between them and Hornets, both being in Charlotte 11 days apart. The latter has a 19-6 record since Jan. 10,  and the Heat’s best 25-game spurt was 14-11. The Heat are one game out of the sixth seed, but are separated by 1.5 games in the standings with the Hornets.