Amid three-game skid, Heat faces familiar offensive problem. What can be learned from last season
The Miami Heat’s offense has gone from average to bad in January. How bad?
The Heat entered January with the NBA’s 16th-ranked offensive rating (scoring 115.4 points per 100 possessions) for the season behind the NBA’s third-ranked team three-point percentage (39 percent).
In January, the Heat has posted the NBA’s third-worst offensive rating (scoring 107.5 points per 100 possessions) only ahead of the struggling Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers. The Heat holds the NBA’s 26th-ranked team three-point percentage (34.2 percent) since the start of 2024.
“It definitely looks bad, feels bad,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said.
“I feel like we just get stagnant,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said.
“It’s a funky time of the year right now for us,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said.
That unfortunate trend continued in Sunday night’s 105-87 loss to the Orlando Magic at Kia Center, when the Heat (24-19) totaled a season low in points and shot a season-worst 37.5 percent from the field. The Heat has dropped three games in a row after standing eight games above .500 for the first time this season just one week ago.
The biggest reason behind the Heat’s losing skid has been the offense, as it has scored fewer than 100 points in four of the past six games.
“In December we were trending in a better direction,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the team off Monday before returning to practice Tuesday and then opening a quick two-game homestand Wednesday against the Memphis Grizzlies. “It’s just been a rough stretch for us offensively the last handful of games. You also don’t want to totally overreact. That’s what I want our group to understand.
“There are going to be some disappointing parts of a season, and you just have to rally around each other and get to work and start to find solutions, and that’s what we’ll do.”
If last season is any indication, the fastest way for the Heat to become an efficient offense is for star Jimmy Butler to take on a high-usage role and three-pointers to start going in at an elite rate again.
The Heat also ran into offensive issues last regular season, finishing with the NBA’s 25th-ranked offensive rating (scoring 112.3 points per 100 possessions) and the NBA’s 27th-ranked team three-point percentage (34.4 percent) to enter the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 8 seed through the play-in tournament. Butler closed last regular season with the third-highest usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) on the team at 24.8 percent
The Heat then made an improbable run to the NBA Finals as the East’s No. 8 seed last season while posting a quality offensive rating of 116.1 points per 100 possessions through the first three rounds of the playoffs and shooting an ultra efficient 39 percent on threes. Butler’s usage rate spiked to a team-high 29 percent during that run to the NBA Finals.
During this offensive drought in January, the Heat has been one of the league’s worst three-point shooting teams, and Butler’s usage rate is just 21 percent in the four games he has played in this month since returning from a foot injury last week.
“This is not necessarily about the lineups or the rotation right now,” Spoelstra said following Sunday’s loss in Orlando. “It’s about having the fortitude to play through rough stretches. That’s going to happen in this league, regardless of who you are. You have to develop a collective grit. I say this all the time, you can find different ways to win while you’re working through what you’re trying to work through. Your identity, how you want to play, players being in rhythm, all of that type of thing.
“That’s what we’ll get to work on. We’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves. Nobody cares about what we’re going through. It’s about getting together, rallying around each other and then come up with solutions when we get back to practice.”
The problem is the solutions to some of the Heat’s offensive issues may not be on the current roster, with this group proving over a large sample size that it produces an inefficient shot chart that’s made up of a large chunk of midrange shots and not enough rim and three-point attempts.
The Heat has attempted 28.8 percent of its shots from around the rim (28th most in the NBA) and 35.3 percent of its shots from three-point range (15th-most in the NBA) while taking 36 percent of its shots from midrange (most in the NBA) this season, according to Cleaning the Glass. This has the Heat with the NBA’s second-worst location effective field-goal percentage (a predictor of what a team’s effective field-goal percentage would be if it shot the league average at each location based on their shot selection).
This is similar to last regular season, when the Heat finished with the league’s third-worst location effective field-goal percentage because of a similar shot diet made up of too many midrange looks.
It doesn’t help that the Heat is also shooting the NBA’s fifth-worst percentage on the few shots in generates around the rim at 61.7 percent this season.
“We got to get back to our basics,” Adebayo said. “It’s a switch up, guys coming back and being healthy. So the only thing we can do is really just sacrifice and buy into winning. Everybody can worry about everything else later.”
With Adebayo, Butler and Herro playing just their 12th game together this season on Sunday because of injuries that have also forced the Heat to use 23 different starting lineups in the first 43 games, the team is still finding its footing as it gets healthier. Rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. (strained groin) was the only Heat rotation player who was unavailable for Sunday’s loss.
But Spoelstra doesn’t want the team to use that as an excuse.
“We can come up with any excuse and the excuses will only lead us to misery,” Spoelstra said. “What do we want to do? That’s not the solution, for sure. I can think of a bunch of different things that we can do starting on Tuesday at practice. That’s not one of them, for sure, because that won’t get us anywhere.”
The good news is the Heat has a top-10 defense just like last season. Miami entered Monday with the 10th-ranked defensive rating this season.
The bad news is the Heat has a below average offense just like last season. Miami entered Monday with the 20th-ranked offensive rating this season.
That profile forced the Heat to qualify for last season’s playoffs through the play-in tournament. And that profile again has the Heat in play-in territory, entering the week in sixth place in the East.
“We’re going to get through it,” Herro said. “We always do.”
Maybe this is just what this version of the Heat is in the regular season, and Butler will turn it up a notch and more threes will go in to again to lift the offense in the playoffs.
Maybe the Heat needs to make another change to the starting lineup or rotation.
Maybe the Heat needs to make a trade to upgrade its roster and revamp its offense ahead of the Feb. 8 trade deadline.
Whichever route the Heat takes, the goal will be to find solutions. Because there’s clearly a problem that needs to be solved.
“This is literally one week after we felt that our season was starting to turn, Jimmy is coming back, we’re feeling like we’re getting healthy, seven games above .500,” Spoelstra said, offering perspective. “This happens in the league and it’s all about how you respond to it.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2024 at 10:08 AM.
