A brief look into Miami Heat's success, other small ball teams and why the Raptors playing small ball is a terrible idea

After watching the game between the two teams last night, it became clear to me that the Raps playing small ball would be ineffective or at the very least be inconsistent and in a way take away some of the team's strengths and exposes its weaknesses. In other words, it doesn't make any sense.

Comparing them with the Miami Heat, well you can say that it would not be fair for the Raps since they are the NBA champs but you would have to since the Heat is probably the only team in the Nba history that have made the small ball a success (aka be champs).

In all honesty, it was a stupid idea to try to beat the heat in their own game. It is pretty evident that Casey still has no idea how he would run the team. There was a lot of good things going on early and by far the best start we've had this season and a lot of it was focusing on feeding the bigs and the bigs making plays then we revert back to the same old same old.

Okay, unto the point. Playing small ball requires you to have certain things. You would need shooting (3pt shooting is key), good ball movement (offense and defense) and agility. You would then utilize all these things by spacing the floor with your shooters, driving in and kicking the ball out and moving the ball constantly in order to create good shots. All of which the raptors are terrible at and I can even say that the team overall although very athletic isn't really that agile.

The apparent strength the raptors have is rebounding, being top 3 in the offensive rebounding which is a bigger factor of why we are one of the leaders in total rebounding. Heat on the other hand is literally the worst in the nba in rebouning (oRb as well) since they are sacrificing interior presence to run this style while we on other hand is sacrificing our greatest strength to run a style we suck at.

GS warriors rebounding has been impressive and could mean great things to come for them

they make their shots count

Unto the offensive stats which is a more telling tale. Rebounding is something potentially that we could work off of but our offensive stats does not really go hand in hand with this style of basketball.  We all know we don't have any legitimate 3 pt. threat and we run a lot of iso ball and our stats says the same. 

Not a recipe for success. running iso heavy ball while having no three point threat or inside presence.

better than expected but against other small lineups, raps will likely get outscored in the perimeter

The Landry Fields dilemma.

I think Landry Fields could be good for us but having him out there in the end of games in a small ball lineup hurts us more than anything else. He does have great presence, gives the bench a good boost and rebounding along with hansborough.  In the later parts of the game, the opposing team would completely ignore him being open and would just help focus on trapping our wing players. He has not even made a single three in this season. Taking time away from JV or Amir late in games would take away rebounding, size and overall inside presence for kind of better man to man defense. 

zzzz

Looking into GS, Miami Heat, teams that run small ball effectively is that they spread the floor, move the ball and shoot higher percentages something that we have time and time again failed to do.

We really just don't have the players to run this style of basketball especially considering our wing players are not even that great perimeter shooters. The mismatch of having Rudy Gay at the PF against the opposing team's PF has not been effective since he does not take advantage of it, he just gets trapped into turnovers nor is he a great scorer. Games has been inconsistent and they should be realizing that they should have their own style utilizing their strengths so teams would adjust facing us instead of us making adjustments.