Heat’s Kyle Lowry gearing up for playoffs with more shots: ‘It just makes us more dynamic’
After playing with a pass-first mentality for most of the season, Miami Heat point guard Kyle Lowry recently promised he would take a more assertive offensive approach in big moments as the playoffs neared.
Lowry lived up to his word to help lead the Heat to one of its biggest wins of the season, a 106-98 victory over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night at TD Garden. The win strengthened the Heat’s hold on the top spot in the Eastern Conference with only five games remaining in its regular season, as it entered Thursday one game ahead of the second-place Milwaukee Bucks, and two games ahead of the third-place Philadelphia 76ers and fourth-place Celtics.
Lowry, 36, finished with 23 points while shooting 8 of 16 from the field and 6 of 12 on threes, eight assists and just one turnover. It marked just the sixth game that Lowry has attempted at least 16 shots and the third game that Lowry has taken at least 12 threes this season.
“I’m shooting more, shooting them and just making them,” Lowry said with the Heat now in the middle of a two-day break before continuing its three-game trip on Saturday against the Chicago Bulls. “Just getting ready to prepare for the moments that I know are going to be big for us and just playing. All season I’ve been passing first. Lately I’ve been looking for my shot a little bit more.”
Lowry is averaging 10 shots per game this season, down from 13 last season and his lowest since averaging 9.2 shots per game in 2012-13. He’s also averaging 6.2 three-point attempts per game, which is his lowest since the 2014-15 season.
But those numbers are slowly starting to tick up, as he has averaged 11.2 shots and 8.7 three-point attempts in the past six games. Lowry is also making threes at a higher rate lately, too, shooting 43.8 percent on 6.4 three-point attempts per game since the All-Star break.
Lowry’s three-point percentage since the break ranks sixth best in the NBA among those who have attempted at least six three per game and have played in more than 10 games during that span behind only Minnesota’s Malik Beasley, Memphis’ Desmond Bane, Brooklyn’s Seth Curry, Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton and Memphis’ De’Anthony Melton.
“I think having like a real-life point guard that’s a pass-first guy who as of lately said, ‘Screw pass-first, I’m going to score first. It’s good,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said of Lowry.
Heat center Bam Adebayo believes Lowry’s aggressiveness from three-point range helps the offense function better because of what it opens up for others. Like when Lowry shoots the pull-up three coming off of Adebayo’s screens, which forces the opponent to make a decision between playing the action straight up but risk giving up a quality look to Lowry, blitzing Lowry or having Adebayo’s defender step up to contest the shot as Lowry’s defender recovers back to him.
“It just makes us more dynamic,” Adebayo said of those sequences. “Because at that point, the big might have to step up. Me and Kyle been working on the two-man game between me and him. So anytime a big steps up and I get the pocket, that’s when I get to make plays and be myself, get in the gaps, finish and find shooters.”
Lowry’s value to the Heat’s offense was especially clear Wednesday.
The Heat posted a solid offensive rating of 111.7 points scored per 100 possessions in the 36 minutes that Lowry played against the Celtics. But in the 12 minutes that Lowry wasn’t on the court, Miami’s offense struggled to generate quality looks and scored only 76.9 points per 100 possessions.
This is what the Heat envisioned when it acquired Lowry from the Toronto Raptors last offseason in sign-and-trade deal in exchange for Goran Dragic and Precious Achiuwa.
“I miss Goran like hell. I like handling the ball, Tyler [Herro] likes handling the ball,” Butler said. “But having Kyle that’s telling everybody where to go, knowing how to get everybody the ball, he can read when people want the ball. Yes, we needed Kyle Lowry.”
The Heat knows what it’s like to play against Lowry in the postseason, which is one of the many reasons the organization had so much respect for him before it even landed him. Lowry’s Raptors eliminated the Heat in an ultra-competitive seven-game series during the second round of the 2016 playoffs.
Lowry averaged 23.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.9 assists, and the Raptors outscored the Heat by 74 points with him on the court during that series.
“Look, we’ve been on the other side of it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “There were many years that I just really did not like Kyle Lowry because he was such a thorn in our side. Going back to 2016 when we really thought we had a chance to go to the conference finals. He was just brilliant. As that series got deeper, the better he played in clutch moments. You can’t define it by an analytic or a number or a play call. He just knows how to make winning plays.”
Lowry has made winning plays all season, as the Heat has been 2.6 points better per 100 possessions with him on the court. But Lowry knows in order to win in the playoffs that he must become a bigger part of the Heat’s offense, and he’s preparing for those moments as the regular season winds down.
“For me, it’s just trying to make winning basketball plays,” Lowry said. “That’s all that really matters.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 11:45 AM.
