The Miami Heat have managed to sneak back to .500 on the season and that is great! However, it can be argued that they shouldn’t have allowed themselves to fall that far down in the first place.
Either way it goes though, it has happened and now they are here. How they got down there isn’t as important as how they have managed to climb back up though.
Making it back to even after a win over the Suns Monday night, this allows them to reset things as they move forward. But speaking of moving forward though, there have been a few discoveries made about how they should be doing that—or at least, perhaps.
When it comes to the Miami Heat over the last few seasons, they have depended on the long ball as much as they have depended on their classic approach of defense, hard work, and intensity. Now, among all of that resides two of the most elite shooters that the league has ever seen once they get it going in Duncan Robinson and Max Strus.
The Miami Heat are back at .500 and still tweaking. One thing that seems certain though is that as long as one of, Duncan or Max, is on, they’ll be fine.
Now, we all know that Robinson struggled mightily last season, the season after he secured a near-$100 million-dollar deal from Miami.
And in that same time, Max Strus continued to bubble up, securing the starting two spot for the Miami Heat late in the season. But just like last year, Strus remains a bit inconsistent at times.
He can absolutely explode, as he did recently against the Hornets in a 31-point showing. However, he can go very cold too, as he has several times this season and as he did in the win over Phoenix.
But, that’s alright and here’s why. The Miami Heat still have Duncan Robinson and the very fact has played itself out this year.
In their wins especially, the Miami Heat are still able to secure said win, because Duncan Robinson is still effective enough to scare the dickens out of defenses and be one-man spacing if Max can’t find it. Again, it has worked out that way this season.
Max explosion games are self-explanatory, so, no need to go into great depth there. But when he doesn’t “explode, Duncan Robinson does enough to help get the Miami Heat the win.
It’s not going to look the same for them both, as Strus’s volume is just greater right now, meaning the raw figures of his outputs will be too. However, the effectiveness is still the same.
And here’s the beautiful thing, when you can get them both going, the Miami Heat will always have a chance to win, as they did against Golden State most recently. However, if they can get enough from either on a given night, they should be just fine as well.
And to be quite frank, that’s why you can’t trade Duncan Robinson either. He means too much to the fate of this team and that’s pretty evident already.