Miami had a different approach to this game, no doubt about that! Their mindset was to pound Indiana down low, especially with Lebron on the post more than ever! On the first two games of the series, the Heat had just a post up volume of 3.40% and 5.00%, but on Game 3 that percentage went to 13.8% with 5-10 FG and 1.08 PPP! Indiana's defense doesn't double team anyone and Lebron James took advantage of that to pound Paul George time and time again. The big difference on the Game 3 was that Miami explore Indiana's weaknesses in an impressive way! As I've mentioned countless times this season, Indiana allows their opponents to hit mid-range jumpers and their philosophy is based upon closing the paint and the three-points line without contesting the opposing mid-range shots. The problem was that Miami almost hit almost of their mid-range jumpers, with even Udonis Haslem shooting 8-9 FG! There was clearly a merit from Miami with this approach, but there was also some luck as they hit almost all their shots from mid-range, while Indiana wasn't prepared to defend Miami playing with this new tactic.
On the other side, we have a classic game for Indiana's offense. Unlike what happened on the Spurs x Grizzlies series, where Memphis's frontcourt was unable to pound San Antonio at the paint, Roy Hibbert and David West are having a tremendous edge down low against Miami. Hibbert shot just 4-12 FG on Game 3, but he shot 12-15 FT and grabbed 7 offensive boards! The truth is that Miami's defense is simply unable to defend Indiana's frontcourt no matter what. On the second half, Indiana was much better on defense. They were more assertive, they gave less space on the down low, but the problem was that their offense was unable to outplay Miami's defense as well. As the Heat had just 5 turnovers, Indiana had a low volume of transition plays with just 6.8%! Still, the Pacers shot a really nice 8-14 (57.1%) 3pts on this game, something that shows how much they struggled down low: 21-59 (35.5%) FG on 2pts shots!
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