Read on my substack.

The Pistons fell behind by as much as 19 (at least I think that’s as large as it got) but clawed their way back to have a couple of shots to win the game but they couldn’t quite capitalize. Playing the Eastern Conference Champions down to the wire on the road sounds good but less good when you remember this Heat team was mediocre in the regular season before hitting a different gear for the playoff run. Still, some positives to take away.

Box score

Cade Cunningham:

Ask and you shall receive apparently. Coming out of the preseason my main desire was to see Cade come out firing and he did just that. 30 points on 13-27 shooting from the field and 4-9 from deep without ever getting to the line is how to emphasize that you were just in cruise control for the preseason games. In addition to the 30 points, he had 9 assists as the Heat sent extra defenders at him for nearly the entire game and while he picked up a few bad turnovers early, he cleaned up to finish with just 3 on the night. He even made a couple of nice defensive plays including an awesome block after hustling back in transition.

The fact of the matter is, this game was absurd shot-making from Cade. Constantly facing extra defenders, constantly taking difficult and contested shots. People will bring up the lack of foul calls and while Cade does not get a friendly whistle I actually didn’t feel he was that unfairly treated today. By my unofficial count, 19 of his 27 shot attempts were outright jumpers from outside the paint and even in those like 3 or 4 of his paint attempts were floaters. You are not going to draw many fouls with a shot profile like that.

So there are two ways to look at this in the big picture (and of course the easy answer is “we will see” but then we can’t talk about it and that’s boring.) On one hand, he was presented with one of the worst offensive environments a star can have with the comical lack of spacing all night, was asked to carry a herculean burden, and he came through! 30 points, 9 assists, 3 boards, a TS% of 55% on a usage rate of 34.6% are all within the normal range for genuine offensive superstars today and that’s what we all hope Cade will be.

The flip side is that asking a player, even a genuine offensive superstar, to make lemonade out of those lemons is a HUGE undertaking. Like, 5-10 on midrange jumpers and 4-9 from deep is the type of thing that prime Kevin Durant could do on the regular. In fact, since the turn of the century Kevin Durant is pretty much the only guy who can look at the night Cade had and say “yeah that’s just another Wednesday for me” and as high as I am on Cade, do we really think he is going to turn out as one of the 5 most dynamic scorers in history? I guess we will see.

Killian Hayes:

THE KILLIAN HAYES BELIEF-O-METER IS PRETTY HIGH.

The offensive numbers don’t stand out with 10 points and 3 assists on 4-12 shooting (0-6 from deep will do that to you) but it’s worth noting that he hit a few tough buckets as a small respite for the inefficiency. The real thing here though is the defense, which was brilliant. 2 steals and a block while committing just 2 fouls in 31 minutes of play while spending most of his night guarding either Tyler Herro or Jimmy Butler. He made several key defensive plays down the stretch and was generally a terror other than a couple of possessions he got screened off his man which happens. I’ll even say on offense his hoops IQ and continued ability to hit tough shots late in the clock help to bring him closer to a net neutral on that end. The dude just makes winning plays.

Obviously going 0-6 from deep isn’t going to cut it in the long-run but he is the guy on this roster who actually brings enough defense to the table to not feel so bad about it.

Ausar Thompson:

Rookies and whatnot. In 27 minutes of play Ausar had a couple of nice moments, he continued his effective rebounding with 7 on the night, had 3 assists, and 5(!!) blocks. But he also went 1-7 from the field and was a game-low -14. Despite the large block total he got beaten too easily on a number of possessions as well. And to be clear THIS IS ALL OKAY. This will not be the last time he puts up something of a stinker this season. He still played hard and fast, did a lot of the right stuff in terms of progress, just needs better final outcomes. So while this was a bit of a stinker, it was firmly in the “rookie had too many moments where he looked like a rookie”

Isaiah Stewart:

Busted out of a miserable preseason by scoring 14 points on 6-11 shooting (including 2-3 from deep) along with 14 boards. His ferocity in the offensive glass had Kevin Love genuinely give a “what the hell is wrong with this guy” look to the bench which is pretty much the best thing Isaiah Stewart does and it is hilarious. The Heat, who are old and already somewhat shorthanded, were not ready to deal with the aggression of Stewart and he took advantage, while it is very important to note that he was the most culpable guy in the “Why can’t Cade get to the hoop?” discussion, but if he capitalizes like this on how open he is then teams will have to show him some respect and that is the first step towards making him work at the 4 spot.

Hold up, Stew is the one starter other than Cade who actually hits a couple of threes and its his fault??

Well the guys sagging off of him are much larger guys than the defenders sagging off of Killian or Ausar and Duren is enough of a vertical threat that you can’t ignore him at the hoop. So yeah.

Regardless, while I remain FIRMLY in the skeptic camp with regards to Stewart at the 4, if it is going to work, the way he approached this game is how it will happen. And I want to emphasize that it isn’t just as simple as him hitting threes, but taking advantage of how ignored he is in other ways as well. When teams sag way off of him no one is boxing him out for instance, which gave him a huge leg up to his 6 offensive boards. If teams ignore him like the Heat did, he MUST be aggressive. So far, so good.

Jalen Duren:

Joined Stewart in having a big night except Duren’s was much better. 17 points on 8-11 shooting (just 1-3 from the line), along with 13 boards, 4 assists, and 4 blocks. He did tack on 4 turnovers as well and his defense had some real issues at times but on the whole, he held up alright. His size and athleticism gave the Heat fits all night long and he joined Isaiah Stewart in simply overwhelming them with size on multiple possessions. He remains one of the least questionable guys on the roster, we know the role he is destined for in the long run and he is already on a great track to be there.

Marvin Bagley:

Not a bad first showing for Bagley as the backup center. In 16 minutes of play he scored 8 points on 3-3 shooting from the field (and 2-2 from the line) along with 8 boards and he somehow even got 3 assists! Once again I’m not sure exactly how this will turn out but I like the idea of Bagley a lot more when he’s in small doses and getting to dunk on opponents backups.

Alec Burks:

Played 25 minutes and he was on the floor with the starters in place of Ausar down the stretch, but he didn’t exactly have a great game. 7 points on 2-8 shooting with 5 boards doesn’t jump off the page but he was a team-high +9 on the night. I think that has more to do with Miami deciding to guard Cade with Tyler Herro for a while in the 4th quarter than the spacing Burks provided but the Heat having at least one other guy they actually wanted to guard occasionally certainly didn’t hurt anything. I wouldn’t do it after just 1 game but I wonder if Monty will look at the lineup data from the game and start Burks over Ausar next time out.

Jaden Ivey:

Very bad. 4 points on 1-7 shooting. Only played 17 minutes.

Joe Harris:

Played 12 minutes and did not record any stats beyond 2 missed shots and 2 fouls.

Marcus Sasser:

Got 10 quick minutes and produced with 8 points and an assist for a tidy debut for the rookie. He remains a fearless shooter and that’s something the team desperately needs right now.

General:

Once again want to remind people that this same Heat team had a negative point differential last season which included the league’s 25th ranked offensive efficiency so you should probably ignore the inevitable “They nearly beat the team that went to the finals last year!” takes. The Heat will probably be decent at best again this season before Jimmy Butler makes his bi-annual transformation into Michael Jordan when the playoffs come around.

That said, as frustrating as the Ivey situation is (and that remains VERY frustrating) I will say that starting Killian makes the current starting lineup more coherent. And not because Killian is some secret key (although he unironically does lots of winning things on the floor). But rather, it is hard for me to buy into a philosophy of “Pour on the defense damn the offense” when you don’t start your best defender (which Killian is by a mile). Starting Killian and the lineup they went with is actually in line with the idea of “let just put all our best defenders on the floor, be huge, and hope Cade can be Superman on offense” which… isn’t great but at least its more coherent than keeping Ivey on the bench so you can play Bojan and Stewart out of position. In addition as much as Killian’s offense is a problem he at least has a smidgeon of self-creation to take some heat off of Cade that no one else in that starting lineup does.

So you’re coming around on the two-bigs lineup???

No. No I am not at all. The starting lineup was still negative in this game. I’m saying that unless Stewart is still hitting threes come Christmas (which is when teams would probably start to guard him) the spacing is going to be very bad either way. At that point, I guess whatever just lean in and play your best defensive player. Perhaps more accurately, with the rest of the starting lineup being what it is, the Pistons are already well past the critical point of how much shooting/spacing you need to have a functional NBA offense. Whether its Killian or Alec Burks isn’t going to change that, so at that point give me Killian because he’s a game-wrecker on defense and can actually handle the ball.