Five Questions Facing the Miami Heat At the 20-Game Point of the Season
Are the Miami Heat real NBA Finals contenders, do they need to make any roster moves and, if so, for who?
The Miami Heat’s 107-104 win over the Chicago Bulls Saturday marked the important 20-game point of the season, a milestone Pat Riley consideres an important one. “Let's get through the first 20 games and see where we are,” Riley said in October when asked about potential roster changes.
Riley, Erik Spoelstra and the Heat brass have to be happy with where the team is a quarter of the way through the season: Second-best record in the East at 13-7, a game behind the vaunted Brooklyn Nets, top-10 in offensive and defensive rating and the fourth-best net rating despite having one of the toughest opening schedules in the league.
This broad view indicates that Miami is a true Finals contender, and digging into the particulars backs that up. Typically about now, statistics begin to level off, outlier performances have a smaller impact on overall trends and front offices can more accurately assess their rosters.
Now the question becomes how Riley and Co. plan to augment a roster that still has some holes, a vacant spot and championship aspirations. Here are the biggest questions the front office must answer.
1. Is Tyler Herro’s leap for real?
Here’s a stat: Among players who have attempted as many pull-up 3s as Tyler Herro, only Trae Young, CJ McCollum and Stephen Curry are shooting a higher percentage. Herro is making 37% of such shots on 4.1 attempts per game, a big improvement from his 32.9% clip on 2.6 attempts last season. That jump represents the leap Herro has made this season, from utility scorer to bonafide bucket-getter.
Over the summer, Herro worked with skills coach Drew Hanlen to improve his shiftiness and explosiveness. Together they watched film on Curry, Young, Bradley Beal and Damian Lillard. Hanlen watched every shot Herro had taken up to that point in his career and crafted workouts aimed to improve his release, shooting base and fast-twitch muscles.
The work has paid off. Herro’s shot chart has transformed from that of a streaky, volume shooter to a player who works meticulously to get to his most efficient spots. Especially on the wing and along the baseline.
Herro is making 60.6% of his shots in the restricted area, 50% on stepback jumpers and a Mamba-like 51.1% in the mid-range. At 6-foot-5, Herro doesn’t have the length of alpha predator wings such as LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard, but he’s not as small as your typical sixth-man guard either.
Which brings us back to the pull-up 3s. Give him a little bit of room, and Herro won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
He’s big enough to get the shot off over most guards.
This kind of shot creation has been missing from the Heat for years, even during the bubble run two seasons ago. It’s the sort of thing that can break a defense. There’s a reason why Steph strikes so much fear in opponents and why LeBron has spent the better part of the last half-decade working on that shot. Jimmy Butler isn’t a 3-point shooter. Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson aren’t this kind of 3-point shooter. Mid-range mastery is rare and important — and will set Miami apart in the prickly postseason — but these shots are worth an extra point.
All of this is sustainable. By the end of the season, Herro will be in the conversation for one of the best all-around scorers in the league.
2. How good is Miami’s Big Three of Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry and Bam Adebayo?
In 257 minutes on the court together, Butler, Lowry and Adebayo are outscoring opponents by 4.5 points per 100 possessions. While the offense has posted a modest 102 rating in those minutes, that trio is also restricting opponents to just 97.6 points per 100 possessions.
Butler has been the most consistent of the bunch. His averages of 23.6 points on 51.9% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.1 steals are reminiscent of his bubble performance (22.2 points on 48.8% shooting, 6.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 2.0 steals).
Butler has always been an opportunistic offensive player, but he’s been extra mean about posting up smaller players this season. Pretty much every time a smaller player gets switched onto him, Butler will back the poor schmuck down until he can turn around for an easy jumper or kick out to an open shooter.
The Heat are scoring 1.09 points per Butler post-up, a mark better than Joel Embiid (0.99), Nikola Jokic (1.07), Kevin Durant (1.06) and Anthony Davis (1.01).
Lowry has had a tougher time finding his spots. As a facilitator and defender, he’s been as advertised, but his 12.3 point scoring average and 30.6% clip from 3-point range are his lowest since becoming a full-time starter in 2010. He could stand to drive to the hoop and pull up from 3-point range more often.
His two-man game with Adebayo has shown flashes of being a go-to option but they are still working out the bugs. Theoretically, it should be an unstoppable combination in which both players can either set the screen or handle the ball. Lowry is a punchy screener who can make plays on the roll, and Adebayo can get by any big man when the steam is pumping.
But sometimes Lowry will abort the process too early, or Adebayo will settle for a floater instead of attempting to get to the rim (he’s shooting just 45.1% on the roll this season after shooting 67% last season).
They are still working out the kinks on the defensive end, too. While the Heat remain a strong man-defense team, and Spoelstra has been known to use some gimmicks to keep opposing offenses uncomfortable, there have been noticeable mistakes in executing the switching scheme. Too often, a botched switch will reveal an open driving lane or a shooter will get loose for an open 3. A lot of times the Heat recover, but it is those sort of mistakes that could open the door for a team in the playoffs to exploit them.
“We still have a lot of defensive lapses,” Adebayo said. “I feel like we recover because we have a lot of intelligent players and some of us are very athletic. We just always rotate and cover for each other, so that’s why it looks like we are playing intense defense. But a lot of the time, we’re out there figuring it out.”
There is too much talent and smarts between this group not to figure it out, and it’s not as if they haven’t played well together (like a certain big three in Los Angeles), but they will get better. These are positive early signs in a natural gelling process.
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3. Will the 3-point shooting come around?
A year after ranking 14th in 3-pointers made per game (12.9) and shooting 36.2% on 3s, the Heat rank 21st in 3-pointers made (11.7) and are shooting 34.7% from deep. Despite Herro’s improvement and P.J. Tucker being lights-out from 3-point range (46%), the Heat’s overall shooting efficiency has been dragged by Lowry and Duncan Robinson.
I get into Robinson’s struggles in depth here, but there’s reason to believe he’s already begun the process of progressing to the mean. He’s made 37.8% of his 3s over his last seven games. Lowry will eventually start shooting better, too.
But the bigger takeaway here is that Miami’s spacing relies on just three players: Robinson, Lowry and Herro. When even one of them isn’t shooting well, it’s noticeable and can cramp the offense. The odds of the Heat being an elite 3-point shooting team are slim.
In today's game, it’s not impossible to win a title with this formula, but it is difficult. Six of the last seven NBA champions ranked in the top 10 in 3-pointers made during the regular season. The only one that didn’t? The 2019-20 Lakers, who finished the season ranked 23rd in 3-pointers made and ranked 11th in the playoffs.
But those Lakers compensated for a lack of 3-point shooting by rebounding the snot out of the ball (51.2 rebounding percentage), pressuring the paint and playing elite defense (third in defensive rating). The Heat, who lost to those Lakers in those Finals, are adhering to that same formula.
4. Is the bench deep enough?
There’s an awful lot of Caleb Martin, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent minutes these days. All have been feel-good stories, and Vincent in particular has come on strong, but none have playoff experience and are too inconsistent to be relied on for meaningful postseason minutes.
Markieff Morris’ return should help curb some of those pockets in the game when two or all three of the Martin-Strus-Vicent trio are on the court together, and Victor Oladipo is expected back at some point.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Miami is an injury away from having to go deeper into a shallow bench. After all, three spots (Udonis Haslem, Omer Yurtseven and KZ Okpala) are occupied by players who can’t contribute every night, and one is still vacant. A tweaked ankle to Adebayo or Dedmon leaves the Heat glaringly thin at center. If Butler misses a game, suddenly they’re playing most of the game with three-guard lineups. Injuries always hurt, but there are things teams can do to make them hurt less.
Spoelstra will likely only go nine deep in the postseason, but right now, can he be comfortable in his top nine?
There’s Lowry, Butler, Robinson, Tucker, Adebayo, Herro and Dedmon. That’s seven. The other two logical options — Oladipo and Morris — haven’t been healthy. The Heat can use a couple of extra bodies…
5. What roster moves will be made?
Aha, this is what you’re really here for. Will the Heat make a move? Well, as Riley said in October, they first need to decide if this is a group worth investing extra money in.
“I think you have to prove first that you’re the kind of team that can play at that level and then you can make that investment,” Riley said of filling the 15th roster spot and paying the luxury tax. “We've talked a lot about it, and we'd be ready to make a move if we have to. But let's get through the first 20 games and see where we are."
The Heat are a contender. Owner Micky Arison has shown a willingness to pay the tax in the past, and even though the severe repeater tax looms, this is the deal when you own an NBA franchise. If you have a chance, you’re expected to pay the tax. Not filling the 15th roster spot now would be malpractice.
The question is: On who? Recent reports indicate that John Wall may not be happy with how things are playing out in Houston. A buyout could end up being the best compromise, and the Heat are interested in adding him if that's the case.
Other potential buyout candidates include Kevin Love, Thaddeus Young and Derrick Favors. Maybe even someone like Houston’s Eric Gordon or Orlando’s Terrence Ross could navigate their way to a new team. Love, Young and Favors could bolster the frontcourt, while Wall, Gordon and Ross would provide ball-handling and/or shooting on the wing.
There’s also the case of Martin, who can play in a maximum 50 games before being restricted to the G League as per his two-way contract. He has already played in 17 games and the Heat could convert his deal to a standard contract if his NBA time expires. That remains a strong possibility with the 15th roster spot. But the Heat can also clear another spot (by trading Okpala with cash to another team) if a buyout option becomes feasible.
It’s clear the Heat have a path to the Finals, and that the organization should explore any opportunity to improve it before the Feb. 10 trade deadline.