Steve Clifford emphasizes belief in Hornets’ game plan in postgame sermon

12:56 AM ET

MIAMI — Steve Clifford’s news conferences this postseason have often turned into impromptu lessons on the craft of NBA coaching. Clifford loves the grind of studying game film and digging into the data. The way he perks up when talking about it, it seems reasonable to say he lives for it, too. And he isn’t shy about sharing some of the information he unearths when fielding questions in a scrum of reporters.

On Tuesday, two days after his Charlotte Hornets allowed 123 points in a Game 1 loss to the Miami Heat, he dropped nuggets about both teams’ points per possession and where they rank. A few days earlier, he said that center Cody Zeller set the third-most screens in the NBA. He knows where players from both sides like to shoot, and the spots to push them toward to take advantage of their weaknesses.

He’ll also tell you, kindly and with a smile, when he thinks your off-base. Like in the hours leading up to Game 2, when the third-year head coach had heard about possible offensive adjustments over the teams’ three-day break one too many times.

“If you really had no life and you sat there for two days watching game film over and over,” Clifford said, “it makes no sense to me whatsoever.”

He wasn’t wrong, and it showed in the follow-up performance in Game 2: Despite shooting 1-for-16 from 3-point range and getting only nine assists on 38 makes, the Hornets put up 103 points against the NBA’s No. 7 defense.

It was the Hornets’ defense, Clifford said, that was the real concern in Game 1. And Charlotte again struggled on that end of the floor. The Heat shot 57.9 percent overall, and despite finishing 24th in the regular season in 3-point percentage, made 9 of 16 attempts in a 115-103 victory at AmericanAirlines Arena. Miami also hit 16 of its 19 shots in the second quarter, including two 3s apiece from Luol Deng (34.4 percent from 3 this season) and Goran Dragic (31.2), and another from Justise Winslow (27.6).

Clifford, though, seemed content with the overall approach, saying the Heat “made a lot of shots …

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