Duncan Robinson Shooting Key to Miami Heat's Title Chances
After snapping out of his season-opening shooting slump, Duncan Robinson showed over the last two games why he is so important to the Miami Heat's championship aspirations.
It seems unfair, but the Miami Heat’s success and failure on their recent five-game trip felt tied to Duncan Robinson’s shooting performance.
Prior to the West Coast swing, the Heat were 7-2 and appeared near the top of many power rankings despite Robinson — Miami’s foremost sharpshooter — starting the season by making just 34 of 109 (31.2%) of his shots from 3-point range. His struggles were only exacerbated by an untimely injury to Jimmy Butler and a three-game skid against the Nuggets, Lakers and Clippers.
It’s perhaps only because Robinson broke through with 43 points on 11 of 23 shooting from 3-point range in his last two appearances that Miami won their last two games and are still among the top four teams in the Eastern Conference. To stay there will take Robinson shooting more as he has over the last few days than he did through the first month of the season.
Even at full health, the Heat are over-reliant on Robinson, a career 41.5% 3-point shooter, to space the floor for slashers Butler and Bam Adebayo and ball-handlers Kyle Lowry and Tyler Herro. In a league in which spacing is increasingly important, no other Heat player has shot better than 38% from 3-point range over his career.
[Miami Heat Weekly Observations: Inside Robinson’s Shooting Slump, Tyler Herro’s Improvement]
While Tucker and Lowry boast impressive percentages in recent seasons, Tucker is mostly limited to the corners while Lowry’s efficiency waxes and wanes as he juggles playmaking responsibilities. Despite Herro shooting a career-high from distance and Max Strus emerging as a rotation piece, neither has the same gravity as Robinson.
At full tilt, Robinson can pour in shots from anywhere beyond the arc. He must be respected from 30-plus feet out and that attention creates openings for others. Over the last three seasons, Miami is 29-14 in games when Robinson makes five or more 3s, including 2-1 this season. But if his shot isn’t falling, the Heat offense can get stuck in mud.
Without Butler for all but 50 minutes of that five-game trip, the Heat offense stalled as opponents crowded the paint and forced Herro, Lowry and Adebayo into tough shots. Miami was desperate for Robinson to loosen things up with his shooting.
That happened with Robinson’s 22-point performance on 6 for 11 shooting from deep in Saturday’s win over the Jazz. In Monday’s win in Oklahoma City, he finished with 21 points and shot 5 for 12 on 3s. After the Thunder took a two-point lead to start the third quarter, Robinson’s 3-pointer regained the advantage. His back-to-back 3s moments later gave Miami a nine-point cushion. When the Heat went four minutes in the fourth quarter with just one made basket, the Thunder cut the 18-point lead to single digits before Robinson’s 3-pointer with 1:18 left put the game out of reach.
“I liked the looks that he was getting before,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of Robinson breaking out of his shooting slump. “It’s not just about the final result. I know it matters to all the fans. I know it matters to him, of course. But one way or another, he creates great reactions or overreactions that help our offense.”
It’s not just the reaction from the defense that matters. Those dry spells can mean death in the playoffs, especially if an opponent catches fire from deep. Currently, the league’s top six teams in 3-point shooting percentage (Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Chicago, New York and Atlanta) are all from the Eastern Conference. Miami ranks 16th. Robinson may be the only Heat player who can keep pace with the likes of Kevin Durant, Seth Curry, Trae Young and Zach LaVine.
Maybe Miami can add another shooter before the trade deadline, or maybe Robinson rediscovering his stroke can help the Heat recapture some of that bubble magic. They ranked second in the league in 3-point shooting percentage that season in part due to Robinson, Jae Crowder, Herro and Goran Dragic shooting near or better than 40% from deep.
Two years later, Crowder and Dragic have been replaced by Tucker and Lowry, and Herro has taken a leap. The final piece is Robinson. For the Heat to return to the Finals, they’ll need him to be at his best.
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