Five Heat observations: Defense still a strength and offense has a new wrinkle
Four games into the regular season, the Heat stands at 2-2. Here are five observations from the first four ...
▪ It’s still very early, but the Heat’s defense has been one of the league’s best to start the season. Miami entered Friday ranked third in defensive rating, allowing 101.5 points per 100 possessions during its first four games. This will surely make coach Erik Spoelstra happy, who would like to see the Heat finish as a top five defensive team every season. Miami is also limiting its opponents to 42.1 percent shooting, which is the fifth-lowest opponent field-goal percentage in the NBA.
These are all positive numbers for the Heat. Miami finished last season with the league’s eighth-best defensive rating. And it’s obvious defense is still a strength this year.
▪ It looks like the Heat has added a new wrinkle to its offense — the threat of the pull-up shot. Miami is averaging 23.5 pull-up shots per game this season, up from 17.8 last season. Josh Richardson is a big reason for this jump, as he has taken 7.3 pull-up shots per game this season. Richardson averaged just 2.8 of these shots last year. This should help to add some diversity to the Heat’s offense.
▪ Goran Dragic is averaging 14.8 drives to the basket per game this season, according to the NBA’s tracking statistics — the most on the Heat and tied for 10th most in the NBA. That aggressiveness is expected from the Heat point guard, who has finished among the top 10 in drives to the basket in each of the past three seasons.
But the more eye-opening stat is Dragic has drawn zero fouls on his 59 drives this season. Zero. To put that into perspective, among those in the top 20 in drives, Dragic is the only player who has yet to draw a foul on one. Meanwhile, Chicago’s Zach LaVine has drawn 10 fouls on 47 drives and Minnesota’s Jimmy Butler has drawn nine fouls on 54 drives this season.
This is nothing new for Dragic, though. Among those who averaged at least 12 drives per game last season, Dragic was fouled the least. He drew a whistle on just 3.4 percent of his penetration attempts.
▪ Tyler Johnson is playing 24.5 minutes per game off Miami’s bench this season, and is averaging seven points on 36.7 percent shooting from the field and 15.4 percent shooting from three-point range to go with 1.5 assists. Johnson’s playing time has taken a bit of a hit, as he averaged 28.5 minutes last season.
The emergence of Rodney McGruder (averaging team-high 34.6 minutes this season) and the presence of Dwyane Wade (averaging 25.8 minutes) have cut into Johnson’s playing time. And that’s with guards Wayne Ellington and Dion Waiters unavailable due to injury. When those players are healthy, Spoelstra will have to decide which guards to keep in the rotation.
▪ There are many stats that represent the bigger offensive role Richardson is taking on — shot attempts, points and usage rate are a few. But how about touches? Richardson is averaging a team-high 71.3 touches per game this season, up from 57.2 touches last season.