MIAMI -- A playoff series might as well be one big research project to Steve Clifford.

The Charlotte Hornets coach has drawn high praise in NBA circles this season, his third in Charlotte, by piecing together a top-10 offense and defense without a star player. In-game adjustments and on-the-fly problem-solving in the regular season, it’s fair to say, he can do. But Clifford’s eyes lit up last week when discussing the opportunity to dive into the data and plot out the strategy necessary to best the Miami Heat four times over as many as 17 days in the postseason.

“You get to sit and just watch,” Clifford said proudly, “and try to become more of an expert on what the other team does.”

Charlotte coach Steve Clifford says the Hornets must improve their effort and basic principles after losing Game 1 to the Heat by 32 points. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

His task became harder -- and maybe, in a weird way, more satisfying? -- after his defense allowed 123 points, 57.6 percent shooting and 56 points in the paint in the Heat’s Game 1 domination.

“[Erik Spoelstra] has done -- and I’ve said this before -- an amazing job of taking advantage of their personnel and getting them to play to strengths while making up for the fact that they don’t have a lot of range shooting,” Clifford said. “So they play guys down along the baseline, which is pretty conventional in our league. But they [run pick-and-roll] with perimeter guys, post guys, which is not done a lot, and they do it randomly. It’s not always at the start of a possession where it’s a play call, where you can be organized as it becomes a read. It totally changes your pick-and-roll coverages. And they’re unique in that way. There’s not another team in the NBA that does it. They’ve done it on the fly here. It makes things different.”

The Hornets built a team good enough to tie the Heat (and the Hawks and the Celtics) in regular-season wins (48) by being different. While their stretched-out offense and versatile defense are decidedly trendy, the Hornets' star-less collective is rather unconventional in the NBA.

But even after a 32-point blowout loss, Clifford said he doesn’t want to make major changes. He shot down the idea of starting Al Jefferson to combat Miami leviathan Hassan Whiteside immediately after the Game 1 loss, and he didn’t seem too keen on the idea of going smaller, either.

“Well, we do that a lot with the way that Cody [Zeller] plays,” Clifford said. “Cody’s really a perimeter screener, so it forces [Whiteside] away from the basket a lot, actually, if you’re watching the film. He’ll drop more. The bottom line is, how would you pull a guy away from the basket? You’d do it with pick-and-rolls.”

Besides, Clifford interjected, the Charlotte offense isn’t much of a concern.

“We were 1.07 points per possession on offense,” he said. “That would be, for the year, third, fourth best in the league, against a very good defensive team. We scored 91 points because there weren’t a lot of possessions, the game is slower. Our offense was actually -- it can be better -- [but] it was really good. That’s not the problem. We couldn’t guard them at all. That’s what we got to fix.”

Clifford was asked what the Heat’s points per possession was. His response was immediate: 1.42.

“Which would be the highest points per possession of any team in any NBA game this year,” he said. “Yeah, they rocked us.”

His solution, after two days of study, was simple.

“We have to try harder, number one,” Clifford said. “We have to have more readiness to play. And a lot of it, frankly, were basic principles. We got to set a tone higher on the floor with ball pressure, we’ve got to be earlier with our talk, better with our organization, be more physical, ready to play. We’ve got to take their strengths away. We started the game closing short to [Luol] Deng twice, who’s a 37 percent 3-point [shooter] of guys that are right there [in the short corner]. Plays that have to be made every time, that we’ve been good at all year.

“We were 1.02 points per possession for the year. We were the ninth-best defensive team in the NBA. It was out of character for us, and they took full advantage of it.”

Several Hornets players agreed.

“I feel like they were more ready to play,” Jeremy Lin said. “Honestly, looking at film of the last game, I didn’t feel like I really recognize our team. We didn’t do what we normally do. Everything that’s made us or given us the success that we’ve had, we really didn’t do last game. So that’s kind of on us to figure it out.”

But for Clifford, that’s the best part.

“One of the biggest things in the playoffs is what you do game to game,” he said. “I think we put a big dent into what we have to fix defensively.

“You can’t just go out and play. You have to go out and play correctly. And that’s what we have to use [Tuesday] for.”