Miami Heat: Is Dwyane Wade this team’s biggest crutch?

Are the Miami Heat relying on Dwyane Wade too much?

The Miami Heat were faced with a familiar sight last Sunday.

Against the Utah Jazz, the Heat were entrenched in a relative pool of molasses.

Both Miami and Utah only managed to break the 100-point mark late in the fourth. The combined rebounding efforts of Hassan Whiteside and Utah’s Rudy Gobert shut down second chance opportunities like the physical embodiment of the “no take, only throw” meme.

All night the score flipflopped, save for that 19-point Jazz lead in the first quarter. As was the case when Miami met Utah last season, the Heat’s victory came down to the final possessions.

In November 2017, victory road on the shoelaces of Dion Waiters—currently in absentia—who tallied a 12-point fourth quarter in what ended up a lowball, 84-74 Heat victory.

Until the fourth, Waiters had made just three of his 15 attempts. His only highlight was inadvertently tackling and sidelining Gobert for much of the contest.

By no means should Waiters have had the gusto, the chutzpah (Happy Hanukkah, by the way) to strut into a 3 and hold a three-second squat as he watched it sail through the hoop. But he did it anyway, and it put the stamp on Miami’s victory.

The same held true when Miami hosted Utah in January 2018.

Then Josh Richardson, recipient of a Goran Dragic—currently also in absentia—inbound pass, charged the rim after steering Mitchell into a Kelly Olynyk screen and laid up the game winner.

These two sequences bare similarity to Sunday’s final play. On each occasion, the Heat’s first option was guarded by Mitchell. And each time, Mitchell’s defense was stifled by Miami’s end-of-game coordination.

Sunday’s final play, however, still stands out among the bunch. And it all has to do with the No. 3 on the back of a Heat Jersey.

The exchange that led to Dwyane Wade attacking the basket and drawing the game-sealing Rudy Gobert foul, was an exercise in muscle memory. Justise Winslow secures the rebound and immediately pitches it ahead to Wade.

After Wade runs down the clock a bit, he calls for the Olynyk screen—which he doesn’t use—beats Mitchell to the rim, and the rest is history.

There’s nothing explicitly wrong with the way Wade won the game, except for the fact that it all came down to him.

Again.

In Wade’s last season with Miami, he leads the team in single game scoring, having dropped 35 against the Toronto Raptors last month. The 16-year veteran is third in scoring per game, second in assists and leads the team in usage percentage through his 15 games played.

Wade is also filling in for Dragic, Miami’s leading distributor. In the last seven games that Dragic has missed, Wade is averaging 4.5 assists, a team-best.

When he’s not taking the final shot, he’s creating it for his teammates.

Against the Atlanta Hawks last month, it was Wade’s hard sell on his pump fake that gave Richardson time to get free for the potentially game-winning attempt.

By no means should Wade’s last season be a ceremonial one. He shouldn’t be propped up on the end of the bench, like he’s posing for his eventual American Airlines Arena statue.

Still, it’s concerning that Wade is consistently Miami’s first option when the going gets tough.

This season, fans have watched Richardson step into the spotlight and seen Rodney McGruder push the notion of how useful a player on a minimum deal should be. Even the trio of Richardson, Winslow and Bam Adebayo has impressed, posting a plus-10.4 net rating when the three share the court.

But everything is coming up Wade.

As the franchise’s single most important player of all time, seeing him excel in his final year is a blessing, that comes with the caveat of being a crutch for this team’s future.

Remove Wade from this lineup and Miami is once again left without that centerpiece that can get things going when the going gets tough. This season alone, Wade has filled in as a lead distributor in Dragic’s absence.

Though the jury is still out on whether the 2018-19 season is just a super-secret form of taking on Miami’s part, Wade’s heavy involvement in this team’s deciding moments is concerning.

Wade’s shining moments are always a blast from the past, but his final season might leave the Heat with more questions than answers.