Miami Heat: Duncan Robinson Was A Top Defender In Bucks Series

The Miami Heat needed more, but Duncan Robinson showed a ton in this latest series.

In this series, Robinson held all of his Milwaukee matchups to just 19-42 shooting from the field. Most notably, he kept Bucks standout guard, Jrue Holiday, to just 1-for-8 while being defended in 3:14 minutes of the series.

Even further, Duncan finished with a 116 Defensive Rating in the first-round, ranked third-best for the Heat, and even tied All-Star teammate, Jimmy Butler. Of course, there shouldn’t be scenarios where Duncan should be confused for Jimmy on the defensive end but for the Heat to have a poor series of not being able to stop anyone, this one should be considered fair-game.

He’s defended just as well as a player who’s been a four-time mention of an NBA All Defensive Team. Though the exercise is still more relative than absolute.

Specifically and in the last two years, teams have recognized Robinson as the Heat’s biggest defensively liability and have rightfully exploited ways to attack him. However, an undervalued testimony of Duncan’s improvement has been his awareness.

Throughout the 2021 season and further into the postseason, he’s shown enhanced awareness, knowledge of the rotation, good switching, and more simply, the ability get a hand in the face of shooters. Albeit, there were plenty of sequences in this series where Duncan gave minimal space for matchups that still managed to hit shots over him.