As fascinating as Miami's regular season was to follow, the playoffs will truly be the main course of their first year together. 

The Vitals for the Miami Heat

Offensive Areas of Strength: Miami is as explosive and dominant as any team in the NBA when it comes to scoring off the dribble and in transition. The palpability of their vastly superior athleticism is never on display more than when they are clicking with their movement off the dribble.

LeBron James has been much more efficient in his isolation possessions than Dwyane Wade, something I wouldn’t have expected when watching the Heat in late November/early December. I still trust Wade to take and make the late game shots instead of James, so it will be fascinating to see that dynamic evolve throughout these playoffs.

James has also become strong in the post, with Chris Bosh and Wade being less efficient depending on the matchup.

Defensive Areas of Strength: The Heat play excellent team defense in the halfcourt. They do a good job defending shooters, especially beyond the arc.

James and Wade are of course never overmatched athletically on ISOs, though they allowed a little bit more in this area during the regular season than they are capable. One area where we can expect these two players to take their games to another gear during the postseason is here.

As a whole, they defend the post well, though Bosh is a liability against more physical bigs.

Miami’s collection of veteran bigs are all sound and don’t make a ton of mistakes, though Joel Anthony is the only one occasionally capable of locking someone down entirely.

Offensive Areas of Weakness: Packing the paint as much as possible and forcing Miami to settle for jumpers is quite obviously the best plan possible in slowing down their offense.

If James Jones, Mike Miller and Mario Chalmers hit those open jumpers teams are more willing to concede, then there is nothing a team can do to counter that since the counter would involve freeing up the Larger Two for wide open lanes to the bucket.

To give a little more nuance to the defense, I would force the James and Wade to give up the ball as much as possible by way of double-teams and crowded space when they begin to put the ball on the floor, particularly when receiving a screen. This forces the ball into the hands of their lesser players and even Bosh has been far from thriving in these situations.

In enhancing the offensive weaknesses of the Heat, it is all about forcing James and Wade to decrease their usage and handcuff their athleticism as much as possible. They will either take fewer shots, or higher degree of difficulty shots.

Defensive Areas of Weakness: The Heat has had struggles in their transition defense. By a wide margin, this is where teams have had the most success offensively.

Hitting the big on screen and rolls is also something offenses can do successfully against Miami.

While the Heat unquestionably defend the perimeter shot extremely well, dribble drives and kick outs to open shooters has presented an occasional problem. It is always prudent to make the extra pass, but especially against the Heats since you need to work a little bit harder against them to open up your shooters.

Offensive Areas of Strength: The biggest strength for the Sixers offensively, transition offense, is Miami’s biggest weakness. As we’ll see with their play defensively, the Sixers are one of the NBA’s only teams that can begin to match Miami with their perimeter athleticism. That also translates to running the break at every opportunity.

Philadelphia runs in transition about as often as Denver and I’d expect Erik Spoelstra to make adjustments here, which should have the causal effect of fewer second chance points for Miami.

Elton Brand, along with Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young to a lesser extent, are effective post scorers. They will be needed to establish the interior and begin to force double-teams that eventually open up shooters.

Both Jrue Holiday and Lou Williams are capable of being very difficult to stop off the dribble, particularly the pick and roll.

Unlike the Heat, Philadelphia is anything but top-heavy with their scoring talent and that has to be considered a distinct possible advantage.

Defensive Areas of Strength: The Sixers are a strong defensive team that matches up well against Miami. Perhaps most importantly, they are very good in preventing easy buckets in transition. We have seen the Heat at their best when James and Wade are running the break together and I expect Philadelphia to limit these situations as well as any team is capable.

They also defend perimeter shooters extremely well, though they occasionally overcommit and let the midrange become available.

The Vitals for the Philadelphia 76ers

Offensive Areas of Weakness: While the Sixers do a few core things well in the halfcourt, they are very ordinary jump shooters as a whole. If the Heat are able to contain the post and dribble penetration, this could become a quick series for the Sixers in how likely they are to die by the jumper.

Jodie Meeks can shoot it and Iguodala has made strides, but forcing Philadelphia into shooting more jumpers than they would prefer is greatly advantageous. 

The Sixers of course can’t match Miami when it comes to late game ISOs. Ball movement and transition does become difficult when the game tightens late, so it will be interesting to see who takes the late game shots off the dribble for the Sixers. Holiday and Williams have generally been better throughout the season in ISOs and one of those two will have a more favorable matchup than Iguodala, who will almost assuredly be guarded by James.

Defensive Areas of Weakness: Philadelphia struggles against the pick and roll, an obvious issue against the caliber of James and Wade.

Their ISO defense is fairly ordinary as a whole, though Iguodala will carry a huge load here against James and is outstanding.

Brand may have some struggles against Bosh in the post, as that is one of the more favorable matchups in the NBA on paper for the Miami power forward. 

Matchup Advantages

PG: Holiday over Chalmers
SG: Wade over Meeks
SF: James over Iguodala
PF: Bosh over Brand
C: Even
Bench: Philadelphia  

The Rundown: While I would stop short of labeling this a nightmare matchup for the Heat, they are facing a team that knows it has nothing to lose and can mirror many of the things they do best. I expect the Heat to have a few more struggles offensively than they would against a team like the Pacers or Knicks, but that may benefit them in the long-run as they still need to learn how to close tight games. 

Ultimately, I don't believe Philadelphia has enough individual offensive firepower to pull out more than two wins in the series. 

Series Prediction: Heat in Six Games