What is behind Heat’s drastic offensive improvement? Erik Spoelstra and players explain.
As the Heat’s coaching staff went into this past offseason, finding a way to improve the team’s offense was among the top priorities.
“It’s a priority for every staff,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the Heat set to begin a four-game homestand Friday against the Knicks. “Every team has different strengths. It’s something we wanted to focus on as a staff this summer.”
Through the first 28 games of the season, there’s no doubt that was accomplished. The Heat (20-8) entered Thursday with the league’s ninth-best offensive rating, scoring 110.1 points per 100 possessions.
In fact, the Heat’s offense is ahead of its defense this season, which is not common for the organization. Miami owns the league’s 11th-best defensive rating.
Other numbers that are representative of the Heat’s offensive growth: Miami entered Thursday with the NBA’s fourth-best team shooting percentage (47.2), second-best three-point shooting percentage (38.2), 17th-best free-throw shooting percentage (76.7) and assisting on the sixth-highest percentage of made shots in the NBA at 63.6 percent.
The Heat was below average in almost every offensive category last season: 22nd in shooting percentage (45), 21st in three-point shooting percentage (34.9), 30th in free-throw percentage (69.5) and 26th in offensive rating (106.7 points per 100 possessions).
So, what’s the difference? Players and coaches insist it’s personnel that has led to the Heat’s drastic offensive improvement, not any major schematic adjustments.
“I think a big part of the improvement of our offense is directly correlated to our personnel,” Spoelstra said. “It is. We have a max go-to player, where there’s absolute clarity about it. That’s why we pursued Jimmy [Butler] so strongly. Then the type of guys that we have around him really fit. The shooting, the playmaking and the development of Bam [Adebayo]. All of these things have helped our offense trend in a more efficient direction.”
Adebayo had a similar answer.
“It’s the same plays, different personnel,” Adebayo said. “We got a lot of guys that can put the ball in the hoop. It looks like it’s complicated, but it’s really not. It’s just simple plays that we’ve been running since I’ve been here.”
Heat center Kelly Olynyk agreed with Spoelstra and Adebayo.
“It honestly is quite similar,” Olynyk said. “There’s a little bit of different stuff. Just where you’re putting guys in different actions and stuff. But for the most part, it has been pretty similar. We just have a great group of guys who really execute it and share the ball and run the offense hard and together. We have a lot of shooting.”
While the addition of a four-time All-Star in Butler and the growth of Adebayo certainty played a large role in the Heat’s offensive efficiency this season, it’s the outside shooting that unlocks the team’s full offensive potential.
The additions of rookie guards Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn, and stretch big man Meyers Leonard, and the emergence of second-year forward Duncan Robinson immediately gave the Heat four new above-average outside shooters on its roster. Herro, Nunn, Leonard and Robinson have combined to shoot 230 of 568 (40.5 percent) on threes this season.
Herro, Nunn and Robinson are also all shooters who can also score off the dribble, which adds another layer to the Heat’s offense.
“It’s just more personnel. More spacing,” veteran forward Udonis Haslem said of the Heat’s offensive improvement. “We got a lot of shooting providing a lot of space out there for our attackers to operate. We’re doing a good job of getting into the paint, and our young guys are getting better at reading and making plays. We’re good in the paint, we’re good from three. That’s a great combination offensively in this league.”
Adebayo is finding those open shooters on the perimeter. Adebayo, 22, is averaging 4.6 assists this season, which ranks second among centers behind only Denver’s Nikola Jokic.
“That’s the thing. A lot of this is development that’s not overnight,” Spoelstra said. “Bam has been developing that for two years. We were doing that a lot last year with him. But he spent a full summer of development on all of his offensive skill sets. Then you acquire somebody like Jimmy, and Duncan and K-Nunn and Tyler that complement each other. Bam’s skill set now is able to really unlock a lot of that.”
And Butler has provided the Heat, among other things, with a player who can consistently create offense for himself and others. Butler leads the Heat in scoring (20.9) and assists (6.8), while also owning a team-high usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of 25.4 percent.
Put all of this together, and the Heat has taken a huge step forward from having the league’s fifth-worst offense last season to a top-10 offense so far this season. The last time Miami finished with a top-10 offensive rating was in the final season of the Big 3 era in 2013-14.
“Guys are complementing each other. That’s the big part,” Olynyk said. “When everybody’s skill sets complement each other, then the sum of the whole is greater than its parts. That’s what you want.”
Among the most notable departures from last season’s Heat team are center Hassan Whiteside and wing Josh Richardson, who were both traded by Miami as part of the sign-and-trade transaction made to acquire Butler. Guard Dwyane Wade retired this past offseason. Also, forward James Johnson and guard Dion Waiters have not been in the Heat’s rotation this season.
“The way it is, our plays aren’t really plays. They’re actions,” Adebayo said when asked to explain the Heat’s offensive scheme. “They’re to get you moving. Then after that, you play off instinct. So there’s no right or wrong answer to the play. You don’t have one of those types of systematic stuff where it has to go to a certain player. Like we can break off plays and make plays. That’s what coach wants us to do. He wants us to be players. He just wants to put us in an action just to get some movement.”
A lot of those actions are the same ones the Heat used last season, and even before that.
So, what’s Spoelstra’s reaction to those who say the Heat’s offense looks schematically different this season?
“That’s way overblown,” Spoelstra said. “We were doing a lot of this stuff last year, if you ask scouts around the league. It’s not the same and it’s never fully the same, but 60 percent of it is the same. And that 60 percent is the stuff that we’re doing very well this year because these guys are making that look good.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 1:05 PM.
