Mailbag: Does Dion Waiters injury open door for others?

Does Erik Spoelstra need to adjust his defense? Does the Dion Waiters injury open up the door to new possibilities? Who should Miami Heat fans watch in the NCAA tournament? Let’s open up the mailbag!

You can send future mailbag questions to LockedOnHeat@gmail.com. Thanks to those of you who have sent questions. In addition to answering them on the podcast with my co-host David Ramil, I’ll answer them in this weekly column. Let’s do it.

I rarely say this — as Spo is one of the best coaches in the entire league — but I peg the Trail Blazers loss partially on him for not hedging hard and blitzing Damian Lillard on pick and roll plays. – Taylor Monk

This has been a concern with Miami’s defense for quite a while. It’s also been a concern for Erik Spoelstra. I would ask you to turn your blame from Spo to Hassan Whiteside, who has been asked repeatedly to play up on pick-and-rolls but has been reluctant to do so consistently.

As athletic as Whiteside is, he’s slow. Like, SLOW. He also doesn’t position his body well, and relies on his length to recover near the rim.

For my Dolphins-fan friends, you all remember Zach Thomas? The amazing middle linebacker that played in Miami for over a decade? He wasn’t the most athletic or fast at all, but he anticipated where the play was going to go and was always in the right position. Whiteside is basically the opposite of that.

The Heat are mostly okay with running opposing shooters off the three-point line and leaving the mid-range open, but that doesn’t work when encountering a knock-down shooter like Damian Lillard. Someone who doesn’t need a lot of space to get their shots off and make them. There aren’t a lot of shooters like that who the Heat need to worry about, but Kyrie Irving could present similar problems in a potential Round 1 series.

Is the Dion Waiters injury a chance for Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson to grow? (paraphrased by a Tweet from Jeff Nicholas @jnicho20)

It definitely is, and I wrote about that here. The gist? Tyler Johnson most closely replaces what Dion Waiters does and Josh Richardson presents a new sort of starting lineup, but only if he can kick his three-point shooting back up (shooting 22 percent in his last 13 games).

Here’s what I left out, though. If Richardson can get his shot falling, he could provide some interesting possibilities. He’s a fine ball handler, but not a very good one like Waiters. If the Heat need to go balls out for this playoff spot, Spoelstra might think about starting James Johnson to give the starting unit a bonafide second ball handler next to Goran Dragic.

So we are drafting Harry Giles right?? Jason Tatum is awesome too but we can’t get him. Or De’Aaron Fox? … Who would u pick to draft if you were GM? – Yusuf Kiggundu

We answer this one of the podcast. Can’t give them all away!