Andre Iguodala reveals key to Miami Heat’s success. And Herro dishes on Le Batard show.
In back-to-back years, the Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors have achieved something that hadn’t been done for at least 10 years previously:
Making an NBA Finals without a top eight draft pick on the roster.
Andre Iguodala, who was the highest-drafted player on the Heat’s roster (ninth), said one reason for the Heat’s organizational success is not simply basing evaluations on a players’ stats.
“That’s an issue we’re having in the game, [judging off] peoples’ numbers,” he said. “There’s a feel to it as well. That’s why the Heat is having success with the players they drafted, acquired. They have their own formula of what winning is.”
Iguodala made the point that though Bam Adebayo put up big numbers in the Eastern finals, he’s a good example of a player whose “numbers aren’t crazy but he had an imprint on the game.”
Incidentally, Iguodala is now joining former Heat players LeBron James and James Jones as the only non-Celtics in history to appear in at least six consecutive NBA Finals. He appeared in five in a row with Golden State.
“I’ve been blessed throughout my career,” Iguodala said after the Heat advanced on Sunday night. “Just feeling appreciation. It’s been a tough ride, up and downs. Really got close to a few guys on the team” on the Orlando campus.
According to ESPN, Iguodala has held James to 44 percent shooting on 139 field goal attempts when guarding LeBron since 2015. He’ll likely be among a handful of players asked to defend James in these NBA Finals.
Igoudala had been 7 for 27 on threes in the playoffs before making all four of his three-point attempts on Sunday night.
“It’s funny I was called a non-shooter my entire career,” he said. “I didn’t even know I had 1000 threes in my career until some guy was talking about it. I’ve got some good people in my corner I’ve been working with. [Heat shooting coach] Rob Fodor has simplified one thing that’s really made a difference.”
Iguodala has made 1003 three-pointers in the regular season on 33.3 percent shooting.
HERRO WEIGHS IN
During a Monday morning radio appearance on ESPN’s “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz” in advance of Game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, Heat rookie Tyler Herro was asked what he would have said if somebody would have told him he would be playing in the Finals in his first NBA season.
“I would probably say you’re out of your mind,” Herro said with a laugh. “Just because obviously I know how hard it is. Coach Spo has been just reiterating that to us every game, every day that it’s not easy to get to where we are. So to not take anything for granted. But it’s just crazy to be here and playing LeBron in a couple days for the world championship.”
Herro, 20, is coming off his best series of the playoffs. He averaged 19.2 points on 52.3 percent shooting, 6.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists in the conference finals.
But during an ESPN pregame broadcast last week, former Boston Celtics forward Paul Pierce said he did not want to call Herro a ‘bucket.”
“I can’t call nobody a bucket if you ain’t averaging at least 20 [over the course of a season],” Pierce said. “If you average 11, I can’t give you ‘I’m a bucket.’ You know what I’m saying? I can’t give you ‘I’m a bucket’ just because you get a couple of buckets on the big stage.”
When Le Batard told Herro about Pierce’s comment, Herro said: “I averaged more than 11, first of all. And I think I just averaged about 20 in the Eastern Conference finals.”
HEAT FEATS
Some interesting Heat feats, courtesy of a combination of ESPN’s Stats and Information, StatHead, HoopHabit’s Simon Sperling, StatMuse’s Jason Kubatko and Heat.com’s Cooper Moorhead:
▪ The Heat is the fifth NBA finalist to have a different leading scorer in each of the first three rounds of the playoffs: Goran Dragic (first round), Jimmy Butler (second) and Adebayo (third). Each of the previous four teams went on to win the title.
▪ Adebayo and Wilt Chamberlain are the only players in history to average at least 18.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.2 steals and shoot at least 57.1 percent through 15 games of a single NBA playoff run.
And Adebayo and James are the only players in NBA conference finals game history to achieve the numbers that Adebayo posted Sunday: 32 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists and shoot 73 percent or better.
What’s more, Adebayo is the first player in a single conference finals to average at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists on 60 percent shooting. He’s also the youngest player to average 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a conference finals.
▪ Among guards age 34 or older, Dragic is the first since Michael Jordan to average at least 20 points, four rebounds and four assists in an NBA postseason and reach an NBA Finals.
▪ Herro’s 11 points in the fourth quarter of Game 6 on Sunday were the second-most points by a rookie in the fourth quarter of a series-clinching win over the last 20 years.
He only trails Daniel Gibson, who had 19 in the fourth quarter in 2007 against the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals.
▪ No player in NBA playoff history had ever had 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the fourth quarter of a conference finals game before Adebayo did it Sunday night.
▪ Duncan Robinson’s 44 threes are the most ever by a player in his first 15 playoff games, eclipsing Matt Maloney’s 43, Stephen Curry’s 42 and Antoine Walker’s 41.
