Miami Heat Best Of 2020-21: Duncan Robinson & Tyler Herro Burst The Slump

The Miami Heat have been a team that has heavily relied on the outside shot over the last few seasons. Specifically, they’ve relied a ton on the longest shot in the game, the three-pointer.

With quite a few marksmen on the roster over the last season or so, Duncan Robinson, Goran Dragic, Tyler Herro, Jae Crowder, and Max Strus, to name a couple of them, it makes sense why they have relied on it so much as the lethal weapon that it can be. Well, what happens, though, when the shot isn’t falling?

When you can’t buy a bucket, throw a rock in the ocean, hit the broadside of a barn, or any other colorful euphemism that describes being terrible shooting the ball, who do you go to? Well, that’s a question that the Miami Heat found themselves answering this past season.

Hearing their names in trade winds and rumors leading up to the NBA All-Star Break and Trade Deadline, Herro and Robinson, two of the Heat’s deadliest snipers, suddenly forgot how to shoot it. At least, that’s the way it seemed before the Break and Deadline.

As the Miami Heat’s Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro struggled prior to the trade deadline last season, the team struggled around them.

Though not exactly congruent, with the NBA’s Trade Deadline being on March 25th of this past season and the All-Star Game being on March 7th, those dates are close enough for these and comparisons sake. If you take a look at both guys’ numbers, it reflects the point.

Prior to the break, Herro shot 43.8 percent on 13.8 attempts from the field and 34.7 percent on 5.8 attempts from deep, while he shot 44.1 percent on 12.2 attempts and 37.3 percent on 5.3 attempts from range after the break.

Though he took slightly fewer shots, with slightly fewer literally being fractions, he was more efficient and thus better fo this team. The same phenomenon occurs with Robinson.

On 9.8 attempts from the field prior to the break, he shot 42.9 percent. On 10.1 attempts after, he shot a whole two percentage points higher, at 44.9 percent.

While most of his shots tend to be threes, he made 39.1 percent of 8.3 attempts prior to the break and 42.4 percent of 8.7 attempts from range after the break. They both, simply, shot better after the pressure of being traded was off.

Not only was it good to see, from the perspective of team success but it shows character, toughness, and gumption to come out of all the muck and continue to be great. That’s what those two did after the break and it was a glorious sight to see.

That’s how this made the Miami Heat’s best moments of the 2020-21 season. Hopefully, it’s not something to deal with moving forward.