Was the Heat too reliant on 3-pointers in loss to Bulls? Here’s why Spoelstra says no
Surprisingly, the Miami Heat’s game against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday had gotten out of hand early in the fourth quarter. The Bulls, who came to Miami with the third worst record in the Eastern Conference, took a double-digit lead into the final period and quickly stretched it out to blowout range.
The Heat’s offense simply folded in the final 12-plus minutes. As Chicago put the finishing touches on a 105-89 win at AmericanAirlines Arena, Miami desperately tried to fight its way back into the game by heaving up 3-pointer after 3-pointer.
Like most teams in the NBA, the Heat is heavily reliant on the three. Entering Wednesday, Miami averaged 30.9 three-point attempts per game, good for 19th most in the league. Against the Bulls, the Heat hoisted up a season-high 42 attempts and sunk only 12 of them. At 28.6 percent from three-point range, Miami hit fewer than 30 percent for the second straight game.
Coach Erik Spoelstra wouldn’t have asked his players to do much different in terms of shot selection — at least not from beyond the arc.
“A lot of them were wide open,” the coach said in his postgame press conference Wednesday at AAA. “You turn those down, you’re not guaranteed you’re going to get another one. We were pretty inefficient obviously there, but we were also inefficient in the paint — 18 for 42. Some of those I thought should’ve been better decisions, maybe to spray [to the perimeter] for a better one.”
None of the Heat’s usually reliable 3-point shooters could ever find a rhythm against Chicago. Swingman Wayne Ellington, who started in place of banged up guard Tyler Johnson, went just 3 of 11 from beyond the arc. Combo guard Josh Richardson, who leads the team in three-pointers made, went 3 of 10. Swingman Dion Waiters, who shot 31.9 percent from the arc in his first 10 games back from an ankle injury, missed all five of his attempts, including on three straight possessions in the third quarter. Only post player Kelly Olynyk hit more than a third of his attempts and he only went 2 of 2.
Miami (24-25) dug an early hole for itself through a variety of errors, but poor 3-point shooting compounded it. By the time the Heat was 3 of 13 from the perimeter, Miami trailed 31-21 early in the second quarter. The Heat then hit 4 of its last 8 in the quarter and went into halftime down 50-48 with the three-point percentage normalized to 33.3.
Once it flipped back, Miami came undone. The Heat opened the second half 4 of 9 from the arc and trailed 71-68, then Waiters missed three open looks in the last 1:38 and the Bulls pushed the lead back to double digits heading to the fourth. Miami went 1 of 9 in the final period and Chicago ran away.
“My guess is that at least 30-plus of them were really good, wide-open looks,” Spoelstra said. “You can always look for some better ones, but this is something that we’ll get better at.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2019 at 11:17 AM.