The Cavs aren’t just targeting Tyler Herro, they’re attacking all of Miami’s weak defenders

Kenny Atkinson is relentlessly pressing his team’s advantage.

The Cleveland Cavaliers aren’t trying to hide that they’re hunting mismatches in their first-round series against the Miami Heat. So much so that they continually brought it up unprovoked after their Game 2 victory.

“I thought we executed,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Again, a lot of that is matchup hunting and getting the right person in it.”

“I just kept finding the mismatch, find [their] miscommunication in coverages, and make a play,” Donovan Mitchell added. “That’s really it.”

“Pick on Tyler Herro and take care of the ball,” Darius Garland offered up. “Don’t play in tight spaces and pick on their weak defenders.”

The messaging couldn’t be more clear both on and off the court.

Garland called out Herro, and understandably so. They got great results when they targeted him in Game 2.

Based on NBA.com’s matchup data, the Cavs scored 27 points on 9-17 shooting (52.9%). That’s just six less points than he scored in his impressive Game 2 offensive performance.

Here’s an example of how Garland was able to attack Herro. Garland forced the switch on the Ty Jerome screen, then the rest of his teammates immediately got as far away from him as possible which set up the step-back three.

Creating time and space is your primary goal as an offensive player. Going against someone who doesn’t have great foot speed allows you to do so. Garland knew that in the clip above.

It may seem like he settled when he got the switch by taking a 29-foot jumper. But that’s a good shot if you have the room to take it.

And based on this still frame from that play, Garland certainly had space.

While Herro got called out, he wasn’t necessarily their primary target. Cleveland simply went at whoever the weakest link was at the moment. This included Pelle Larson who they relentlessly attacked in the first and second quarters.

Jerome understood that Larson was someone to go at. Just look at the way he either waved off the screen or outright ignored it.

The real benefit of attacking weaker defenders is how easily you can get the defense into rotation.

Mitchell immediately made a move to the basket when Larson was his defender. But instead of it resulting in a basket for Mitchell, it led to threes for his teammates because the defense collapsed. This was true even when Miami was in a zone, like they were in the second basket in the clip below.

Avoiding mismatches and not switching is easier said than done. NBA offenses are built on reading and reacting. If you give them the switch, they’ll attack that. If you try to hedge and recover, they’ll make the most of that as well. The next clip shows this.

Mitchell’s goal was to get a mismatch with Duncan Robinson, but he got an even better shot because Miami wanted to avoid it.

Robinson tried to tag and recover back to Max Strus on the screen. He couldn’t effectively do that because Strus and Mitchell moved so far away from each other after the screen was set.

In order to put a good contest on this, Mitchell’s original defender (Andrew Wiggins) would have had to navigate a good screen, make sure he didn’t give up an open three to Strus, and then also recover back to Mitchell who’s moving away from the screen as quickly as possible.

That’s incredibly difficult to do.

There’s a cascading effect from trying to keep an offense as good as the Cavs from targeting your poor defenders. Even when you play excellent defense and prevent the switch, you can still give up a quality look.

Here, Mitchell tried to get the switch with Herro. Davion Mitchell did a great job of doubling off of the screen, but doing so in a way that prevented the easy pass to Strus.

The defense rotated, but Mitchell still found Mobley for a cross-court pass. Mobley then drove, caused another rotation, and found Garland for an open three that he missed.

This was a great defensive possession from Miami, and it still resulted in a high-percentage look for Cleveland.

Miami chose to switch some of these same actions late and Mitchell made them pay for it. His four fourth-quarter threes came after creating the matchups he wanted with Robinson, Nikola Jovic, and finally with Herro.

There’s only so many adjustments you can make in a playoff series when you’re outgunned. Ultimately, you can’t completely adjust for the talent gap that the Heat are currently dealing with.

They don’t have the defensive pieces to stay in front of the Cavs’ best players. Atkinson and his team know that and are exploiting it every chance they get.