It’s levels to this …
When looking at the first level which is the usage of the zone, that issue should begin to resolve itself with more capable and outstanding to be honest, wing defenders in tow. With the additions of Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder, and Solomon Hill at worst (not even considering the possibility of a buyout market addition), the Miami Heat have dramatically upgraded their man defense capability.
This should keep them from having to go zone out of necessity as much, which should then, in turn, resolve the deployment issues. We sure hope this is the case because this last road trip before the All-Star break proved that teams can shoot us out of it. If the new additions aren’t the fix, hopefully, coach Spo has already been in the lab tinkering on how to address it.
On the second level of the defensive issues, that is a bit more complex. You can’t not have Duncan Robinson on the floor because he can flat out shoot it and him alone shifts defenses, opening up other things for everyone else, but you can’t live with his defensive shortcomings either. Teams seem to attack him constantly on defense every night, in any, every, and many different ways to be quite honest.
There are three different options here and all of them are likely. He either has to take on the challenge, get better and not allow himself to be that liability. The Miami Heat will either have to do enough in either man or zone to account for his shortcomings, or they will have to live with it and his growing pains for the rest of this season.
As mentioned, either is likely, although we hope it eventually is an outcome that best suits the Miami Heat’s title hopes. In any situation, these are the ways that Coach Spo can most help the team’s second-half title push. We sure hope it happens and we can’t wait to watch the chips fall where they may.