Should returning Duncan Robinson shot lead to return in 3PA for Miami Heat?

The Miami Heat are coming off a tough defeat in Ball Arena on Friday night.

Able to hold their own and even impose themselves, at times, on the tough Denver Nuggets in the Nuggets’ home building, a place where they are nearly flawless on the year, the Miami Heat wouldn’t be able to close the deal as they would falter late in the game with their defense.

Though you can take away quite a few real positives from the game, the end result was as it is and it’s always just about wins and losses in the grand scheme of it all. However, one of the positives that wasn’t a result of the result of the game came during the game, of course.

Creeping up to this accolade all season long now, though a true creep with his, relatively, small batch of attempts, Duncan Robinson has finally done it! Robinson is now the Miami Heat’s all-time leader in three-pointers made after sinking his 807th career triple.

With all of that comes questions though. Well, at least they should.

And that question is a simple one. Should Robinson begin to see increased minutes and thus, attempts from three?

Absolutely. And here is why.

Should Returning Duncan Robinson Shot Lead To Return in 3PA For Miami Heat?

What you have seen in the last several weeks is the returning prowess of Duncan Robinson as a shooter. In limited opportunity, he is, again, one of the Miami Heat’s most effective and efficient shooters.

A career 40 percent shooter on nearly eight attempts per contest, Robinson is only shooting 34 percent on five attempts at the moment. However, he is doing that in just 18.3 minutes per game.

Now, there are those out there that will point to the other parts of his game as being too deficient to have him in there, but that isn’t authentic either, as he’s shown improvement in all of the areas of his game. That includes his offensive diversity, his defense, and his penchant for fouling most notably.

And though he’ll never be confused with Bam Adebayo or Jimmy Butler on that side of the ball, working to improve is worth something. Some will also point to Max Strus being a better option, which isn’t necessarily true either.

Let’s chat about that.

With The Miami Heat Range Struggle, More Duncan Robinson Can Certainly Help

Neither of them are above the other defensively, if you’re being honest with yourself. Duncan struggles more as an on-ball defender, but Max struggles as much as an off-ball defender.

And where Max Strus is an amazing outside shooter, he doesn’t do it like Duncan does it with movement, which is an approach to outside shooting that also massively helps the whole team. Nobody—and that means nobody outside of Stepehen Curry, tilts and bends defenses like Duncan Robinson still does because they are scared he is going to rain threes on them.

And for clarity, this isn’t saying he should be playing over Strus. They should actually share the floor more together but at worst, have a better minute distribution between them.

With Strus struggling a bit recently, with the aforementioned facts about defense and the types of shooters they are, with the Miami Heat being a bottom-of-the-league team as far as three point percentage goes, and with Duncan still being the best range shooter on the team, from an output to opportunity ratio, they should again and at least, be more evenly splitting the minutes.

Needless the say, that’s why the headline stands as it is. Duncan Robinson’s returning confidence and prowess as an outside shooter should be leading to more opportunities and pronto, as the Heat are struggling to produce points and he will only make more if he’s allowed to take more.

Outside of the , hopeful, anomaly that was last season, that’s how it’s always gone with him.