Miami Heat Have No Answers For Duncan Robinson's Shooting Slump
Duncan Robinson's season-opening shooting slump is the worst of his NBA career, and the Miami Heat are searching for answers.
No one can quite explain Duncan Robinson’s shooting slump.
As the Miami Heat march past the quarter-point of the season, Robinson is shooting 32.8% from 3-point range, which if it holds would easily be a career-low since he became a full-time rotation player. When he’ll snap out of this slump is the most vexing question hanging over the Heat this season.
It appeared briefly that Robinson’s season-opening rut was behind him, but since shooting a combined 11 for 23 (47.8%) from deep in consecutive wins in Utah on Nov. 13 and Oklahoma City on Nov. 15, Robinson is 18 for 60 from beyond the arc, including Monday night’s 1 for 9 performance in a loss to the Denver Nuggets.
“He had some good looks tonight,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after Monday’s loss without Jimmy Butler (tailbone contusion) and Tyler Herro (sick). “I thought he was assertive looking for his shots. He was creating some pretty good triggers for us when they were trapping him on his catches. He just has to stay with it.”
But this is new territory for Robinson, who signed a five-year, $90 million contract this summer. He has never shot worse than 36.7% in a given month since 2019. That is until October, when he opened the season shooting 32.1% from 3-point range. That slump rolled into November, when he shot 33.1% from distance.
That hasn’t stopped Robinson from shooting. While the makes aren't there, his 9.1 3-point attempts would be a career-high. Just as they have in the past, a large portion of his attempts come after handoffs and screens. As the Heat fold veteran point guard Kyle Lowry into the mix, more of Robinson’s shots have come from a stand-still position or from the corners than before, but those are considered easier looks.
“Duncan is a heck of a shooter,” Lowry said. “We all understand what he is, what he’s doing and how he can get the ball off and how many shots he can make.”
Added teammate Max Strus: “Duncan knows exactly what he’s doing… It’s just a slump and he’ll get out of it.”
To snap out of it, Robinson will stick to his gameday routine and trust that a breakthrough is imminent. This is someone who owns the franchise record for consecutive games with a made 3-pointer (57), is the fastest player in NBA history to reach 500 3s (he needed only 152 games) and competed in the All-Star Weekend 3-Point Contest a year ago.
Just last season, Robinson was second among players who attempted as many 3-point attempts with a 40.8% clip, behind only Stephen Curry. But through Tuesday, he hasn’t been worthy of such company.
To unlock the best version of the offense that currently ranks 17th in 3-pointers made, the Heat need Robinson to be their version of Curry. His two-man game with Bam Adebayo is the South Beach edition of the Curry-Draymond Green pick-and-roll. Among Miami’s shooters, only Robinson can mimic Curry’s ability to make contested shots on the move at a high volume. But according to Lowry, treating Robinson like Curry might be the problem.
“Right now, we don’t need to necessarily keep feeding him and pushing him to get going,” Lowry said when asked about Robinson’s shooting slump. “But we have to find more opportunities for him to get more standstill threes and threes where defenders are not as close to him. Maybe we just let him play decoy for a little bit and get him some shots, the easier ones.
“A lot of our offense is him moving and getting open and getting handoffs from Bam and getting shots off,” Lowry continued. “Who knows, we may need to just say, ‘Hey, singles-side tag. If someone helps off you, you knock it down. Who knows. It’s not my decision. Those are just thoughts.”
Lowry, like everyone else on the Heat, is searching for answers.
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