Over the summer, Spoelstra met with coaches and some players, hoping to mold a strategy that would make sense for this set of personnel. He and All-Star center Bam Adebayo convened throughout the offseason to pick each other\u2019s brains on what needed to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like head coach-star player,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cIt was colleagues saying, \u2018Hey, we need to figure this out. We need to make some changes.\u2019 None of us like being embarrassed like that. We have to evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the sport\u2019s superlative coaches, a two-time champion entering his 18th season leading the Heat, Spoelstra added guidance.<\/p>\n
He hired a consultant \u2014 longtime player development trainer Noah LaRoche, who spent last season with the Memphis Grizzlies \u2014 to help implement a similarly styled offense to what the Heat deploy today, a blueprint that worked well until it didn\u2019t. LaRoche, who has trained Victor Wembanyama, Paul George and other big NBA names, has become one of basketball\u2019s biggest advocates for a Constraints-Led Approach (CLA), allowing players the freedom to play off instincts and not be burdened by set plays.<\/p>\n
The Grizzlies outperformed expectations early but eventually combusted, in part because star point guard Ja Morant didn\u2019t like such an intense de-emphasis on pick-and-rolls. LaRoche and head coach Taylor Jenkins both lost their jobs before the playoffs began.<\/p>\n
But this offense, Spoelstra thought, \u201cmade sense\u201d for the Heat, who employed the personnel to pull it off.<\/p>\n
Instead of slowing the game down, they would speed it up. Instead of relying on dribble handoffs with Adebayo or pick-and-rolls with fellow All-Star Tyler Herro, as were once the foundation of their attack, they would open up their best players in other ways. The goal: Never stop cutting.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s December, and in spite of their current three-game skid, they are still flying.<\/p>\n
The Heat, a team that finished under .500 last season, now sits at 14-10. An offense that dipped to 21st in efficiency in 2024-25 was up to 13th entering Sunday. The Heat are running fewer pick-and-rolls and fewer dribble handoffs than anyone. They live in transition. One cut begets another.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve also done it all with Herro hurt for most of the season and Adebayo injured for some of it.\u00a0Third-year super reserve Jaime Jaquez Jr. has bounced back after a sophomore slump. Young center Kel\u2019el Ware is a rising star. Veteran wing Andrew Wiggins has morphed back into the two-way winner who helped the Golden State Warriors to a title.<\/p>\n
And Powell looks like he was in on the changes all along.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2250442077-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Miami\u2019s Norman Powell appears to have adjusted well with the Heat\u2019s style of play. (Megan Briggs \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Last season was one of the best of his career. The LA Clippers capitalized on his off-ball movement after losing star wing Paul George the previous summer. Powell would assume the George role, scrambling around screens to free himself for 3s and curls to the basket.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t do much of that anymore, but he\u2019s been even better this year.\u00a0Miami is rolling. Even more notable than the victories is the aesthetic. A transformation has taken place, and it looks a lot like one that happened seven years ago on the shore of Sebago Lake in Standish, Maine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable how much you don\u2019t know about the game you\u2019ve been playing all your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaRoche has lived this Mickey Mantle quote. As a point guard at Division III Saint Joseph\u2019s College of Maine in the early 2000s, he loved playing out of ball screens.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople thought I knew how to play because I knew how to direct people and set up offenses,\u201d LaRoche told The Athletic in September. \u201cI had no clue what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three years after graduating in 2006, LaRoche quit his finance job in Boston. He had bumped into Hank Smith, the former Emerson College coach who led both Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti and vice president of basketball operations Rob Hennigan. Smith connected LaRoche with Tim Grover, who famously trained Michael Jordan, and LaRoche landed an internship, which jump-started his career as a trainer.<\/p>\n
The other gift Smith gave LaRoche was a change in the way he saw the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s in the mind,\u201d LaRoche said. \u201cThe best players \u2014 the Gretzkys, the Birds, the Bradys \u2014 it\u2019s all their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talking basketball with LaRoche is a constant game of question and answer. He makes it seem like common sense, allowing his pupil to get to the answer.<\/p>\n
Many basketball teams run plays. Everything is diagrammed. The coach is in control. This is where LaRoche dubbed the way coaches lead as backward. A desire to control comes from not trusting players to make decisions, which is the result of a lack of understanding of how they\u2019re supposed to play.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same approach he takes today, an approach Spoelstra demonstrated while implementing Miami\u2019s new offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t teach it,\u201d LaRoche said. \u201cThey learn it through the environment you design.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaRoche starts with explaining the why.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you understand the why, now that person has understanding. Now, they don\u2019t even need a coach,\u201d LaRoche said. \u201cThey can handle these situations by themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal is to make basketball a simple game. The most efficient shots are layups and catch-and-shoot 3s. Teams need to generate advantages and space to create those shots. LaRoche structures training sessions and practices around trying to generate these situations, which he said are always set up by either a drive or a cut.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not against ball screens, but \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the ball screen is, is a combination of that,\u201d he said. \u201cSomeone\u2019s going to cut off that screen, or someone\u2019s going to drive off that screen. So, what\u2019s more efficient: To just drive the ball to the paint or cut to the paint, or to screen and then get a drive or cut to the paint?<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what does the screen give the defense? It gives you more time. I\u2019m dribbling the ball, waiting, giving two, three seconds for a screen to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CLA teaches principles over plays, concepts over scripts. If one player cuts from the corner to the baseline, a teammate knows to go fill in for that guy. If a driver sprays a pass to a teammate on the perimeter, the receiver must either shoot or swing the ball around the perimeter. Back-to-back drives clog up the middle of the floor too much.<\/p>\n
The Heat have emphasized dribbling players into cuts, accelerating to a new spot on the court instead of just swinging the ball to the opposite side to begin a possession.<\/p>\n
\u201cI initially thought we were eventually gonna have to set a screen at some point,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cBut I guess you don\u2019t really need to if you just constantly play fast and get stops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spoelstra has redefined the purpose of cutting for some players. Often, the reason to do it isn\u2019t to free yourself but to cause a reaction that will open up a teammate. Powell will bolt from the corner into the lane, understanding that his man will stick with him, but also that if he does so, it will clear out the corner for his teammate on the wing to replace him there. And because of the way the defense is positioned, that guy might end up with an uncontested jumper.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all spacing cuts,\u201d Powell said. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re sacrificing yourself for your teammate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Heat aren\u2019t the only NBA team to try the CLA approach, nor were the Grizzlies last season. Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson brought the philosophy with him to Cleveland last season. The Toronto Raptors have exceeded expectations this year, ripping off many of these cuts.<\/p>\n
But no one is as extreme as the Heat. Only 24 games into the season, Miami is guaranteed to make history.<\/p>\n
The Heat have run only 15 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions this season, according to Second Spectrum. Twenty-ninth in the NBA is the Utah Jazz, who go into pick-and-roll more than three times as often as Miami does.<\/p>\n
Second Spectrum began tracking these stats in 2013. Entering this season, the record for fewest pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions belonged to the 2018-19 Philadelphia 76ers \u2014 at 39.3.<\/p>\n
Miami is about to shatter that standard.<\/p>\n
The return of Herro, a career-long pick-and-roll fiend, two weeks ago didn\u2019t cause an uptick in ball screens. Last week, during a blowout win over the Clippers, Miami laid only seven pick-and-rolls all game. Herro didn\u2019t run any of them.<\/p>\n
All screens have gone by the wayside.\u00a0Those dribble handoffs that were turnovers in training camp, even the ones once so prevalent with Adebayo, have vanished. The Heat are also pacing to break the record for fewest dribble handoffs per 100 possessions in a single season. Additionally, they\u2019re 26th in the NBA in off-ball screens.<\/p>\n
Their pace can overwhelm. Miami turns 18 percent of its possessions into transition opportunities, the NBA\u2019s second-highest rate, per Second Spectrum. It hunts 3s in the open court. All the while, the defense is swarming opposing scorers, which helps spur those fast breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to learn how to be in the best shape of your life, really,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cYou just have to be really well-conditioned.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Heat haven\u2019t stopped moving, not even to impede a defender\u2019s path.<\/p>\n
On any given night, Herro could go off. Or Adebayo. Or Wiggins. Or Powell. The point of the offense isn\u2019t to cater to one guy; it\u2019s to emphasize the open man.<\/p>\n
LaRoche said many of the players he has trained wish their teams would play this way. It\u2019s more inclusive, he insists, and doesn\u2019t predetermine who will shoot.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It\u2019s a) little different than when you\u2019re coming down and running a play,\u201d Powell said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a lot of fun seeing the growth of everybody getting their opportunity to show what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early in his career, LaRoche was able to test his beliefs by coaching youth teams and consulting with high school coaches. His principles started to garner attention during the 2018-19 season, when his old coach at Saint Joseph\u2019s, Rob Sanicola, brought him in during the preseason to work with his team.<\/p>\n
The Monks had ranked 250th in offensive efficiency the previous season. Using the principles LaRoche gave them, they improved to fourth nationally. A majority of their shots were layups or 3s, almost all out of transition, spot-ups or off cuts.\u00a0A video breaking down how those Monks played<\/a> has 1.9 million views.<\/p>\n When this kind of transformation happens, it inevitably leads to copycats. The first prominent coach to try LaRoche\u2019s approach was University of Virginia\u2019s Tony Bennett during the 2020-21 season. But the team lost its second game of the season to San Francisco, and Bennett returned to his traditional offensive approach.<\/p>\n \u201cYou got to get to the dip,\u201d LaRoche said. \u201cThe big key is if you can get through that, that\u2019s such a major competitive advantage because that\u2019s where most people stop, that little dip-down before you take a non-linear skip up. Most people stop there. And Coach Sanicola freaking pushed through.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, an NBA coach took notice.<\/p>\n