The Miami Heat have shot the lights out up until this point in the season. The question at hand, can they sustain such a high level of marksmanship?
The Miami Heat have been a complete 180 of the team they were last season, ok, at least a 90-degree corner-cut. While they can sometimes still go through those offensive lulls that we have become so accustomed to hating, although, with less likelihood of occurrence among this particular version of the team, they have been a completely opposite team this year than in previous years.
As mentioned above, the biggest Miami Heat issue prior to this season was their lack of offense at times, which could be explained by the fact that they didn’t have a guy. For the umpteenth time, a guy is a player who, when all else fails, when things slow down, or when a team needs to stop the bleeding or a run from an opposing team, can go get that bucket or make that play that’s needed.
Enter Jimmy Butler. Not only has Jimmy’s production from an individual player standpoint been welcomed, needed, and quite the sight to behold, but he has emboldened everyone around him with exponentially enormous confidence, which is something you love to see from your superstar. With that guy in tow, the Miami Heat have not only treaded water offensively but have excelled.
The Numbers
They rank tied for first place in the league in team three-point percentage. They are efficient in that although they rank in the top 10 in each of field goal percentage, 3-pointers made, 3-pointers attempted, and 3-point percentage as mentioned, they are a middle of the pack team when it comes to made field goals and dead last when it comes to field goals attempted.
So, what has separated the Miami Heat this season? What has made them into contenders in a year in which Jimmy Butler was only coming to Miami for vacation?
It’s been the shooting from distance, plain and simple. With that notion in mind though, there has been a very popular question floating around.
This question asks if this shooting from deep is sustainable by the Miami Heat. The answer is yes and although it may not be as straight forward as one might like it to be, the answer remains the same.
As mentioned earlier, the Miami Heat are tied for the league lead in three-point percentage, which is on the back of two of their absolute best shooters in Goran Dragic and Duncan Robinson. For reference, Duncan Robinson is absolutely one of the best shooters in the entire league, being top five in both three-pointers made and three-point percentage. Goran Dragic is having his best deep shooting season of his career, efficiency-wise definitely but production-wise as far as impact and timeliness of shots.
Why the previous factors are important towards answering the ultimate question of sustainability is this, even if they aren’t shooting as well as a complete unit, because they have multiple guys and even beyond the two mentioned that shoot it so well from deep, they can only ever get so bad. It’s a sheer numbers game when you think about the fact that Tyler Herro, Kelly Olynyk, Jae Crowder, Meyers Leonard, Kendrick Nunn, and Andre Iguodala can all hit the long ball with regularity.
You also have to give a nudge to both Derrick Jones Jr. and Jimmy Butler. Although Jimmy’s shot comes and goes, he has hit a big one or two this year alone, one specifically to win a game in overtime earlier in the year.
Although you prefer DJJ rolling, slashing, or driving the lane, he has shown the ability to hit it in streaks this season as well. When you are not dependent on one or a few guys to do all of your snipings, the percentages and numbers bode well for sustainability, which is from an absolute perspective.
Relativity Is Key!
To look even deeper and in a more nuanced fashion from a relative perspective, the answer is still yes. Over their past five games and with four wins might I add, including the monsoon of three-balls from the most recent Orlando game, the Miami Heat Heat have shot 82-170 from distance or 48.2 percent. That is nearly 13 percentage points higher than the league average of 35.8 percent from deep.
What this means is that even if the Heat drop off from where they have been of recent, an absurd shooting number from distance but one we will take and greatly appreciate if it keeps up, they should still be above league average. What this means when looking further into the actual question is that yes they can sustain hot shooting and even with a dropoff of sorts, although the astronomical numbers they’ve been at might not sustain.
While the Miami Heat are in a good place as far as the Eastern Conference Playoff picture goes, they can still jump up in the standings with a good close to the season. Even if their hot shooting cools off a bit, they should still have a chance to make that jump and subsequently make noise in the playoffs. This is because a dropoff for them in that department isn’t a good shooting team going bad, but an astronomically absurd shooting team regressing to just being really good.