Miami Heat head coach not perturbed by his team’s mere 37.8 percent conversion rate in the Game 3 against Oklahoma City Thunder
On Sunday, in the all important Game 3 of the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Miami Heat held their nerve down the stretch to pull off a 91-85 win. The victory was not a cakewalk and Heat had to grind their way to a 2-1series lead.
The biggest problem Miami had on the night was the scarcity of their shots falling down. The home team was able to make good on just 28 of the total 74 shots attempted, with Chris Bosh and Mario Chalmers combining to make just 4 of 20 from the floor.
When asked about the poor shooting effort from his team, Erik Spoelstra said that he was not worried;
“I think what we focus on is every game is a different challenge, and you have to find ways to put yourself in position to win, and you have to have a resourcefulness, and it's not always going to go according to play." He said as reported by newsok.com. "This playoff run that we've been on, we've been knocked down to the canvas several times. We got down by 10 tonight, but our guys furrowed their brows ... and let's get back to grinding and get this thing closer.”
To cover up for their struggles from the floor, Miami made up by going to the foul line extensively. The hosts took a total of 35 shots from the stripe in the game, converting on 31 of them. Dwyane Wade and LeBron James led the team in that regard. Wade went 9-for-11 from the free throw line including two free throws which closed out the game. James, on the other hand was 6-for-8 from the line.
Oklahoma City had a better shooting night at nearly 43 percent and also took 24 attempts from the charity, but uncharacteristically missed 9 of them. After having the best free throw conversion in the post season so far, that certainly came as a surprise. Two of the missed came from Kevin Durant late in the final quarter, clearly depicting the nerves.
Not only did OKC struggle to convert their free throws, they also gave Miami few easy trips to the line especially late in the third quarter when the Heat were trailing by as many as ten points.
Serge Ibaka and Derek Fisher fouled Shane Battier and James Jones on two consecutive Heat possessions, which resulted in six points and changed the complexion of the game.
Spoelstra also thought that those three point plays helped in Miami gaining back the momentum;
“Just staying the course. I think we got fouled on a couple 3s. We were able to get enough defensive stops to give us some confidence.”
Oklahoma City now meet the Heat in the fourth game on Tuesday night. They did a good job in containing the hosts tonight and it was their free throw shooting and fouls which eventually came back to haunt them. On Tuesday, they have to make sure to shore that hole otherwise, they will be put on the brink.
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