Top 10 all-time Heat shooters
MIAMI — With Wayne Ellington challenging for the franchise’s single-season record for 3-pointers, it is a reminder of how much the Miami Heat have valued outside shooting over their 30 seasons.
At the outset, Jon Sundvold was added in the 1988 expansion draft to help space the floor.
Then Glen Rice arrived as the franchise’s first lottery pick, taking up residence from beyond the arc.
In the franchise’s first sustained playoff run, it was Tim Hardaway looking down and then stepping up with critical 3-pointers that often kept the Knicks at bay.
During the run to the first championship in 2006, Antoine Walker got up on his tippy toes to launch from distance, while Jason Williams fired at will.
Then it was Mike Miller, Shane Battier and Ray Allen firing outside shots during the run through four NBA Finals alongside LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, who did his own damage from the perimeter.
What Wayne Ellington has delivered this season stands as a reminder of how much the Heat dig the long ball.
And that’s not even getting into Brian Shaw, James Jones or Mario Chalmers.
Throughout this 30th-anniversary season, the South Florida Sun Sentinel will look back at three decades of the Heat, at the men and the moments that have made this an exhausting, exhilarating and enduring ride.
Today, we look at the top 10 shooters to play for the Heat.
10. Chris Bosh
Before we move on to the long ball, it is worth considering that Bosh may stand as the Heat’s best midrange shooter over these three decades, with all due respect to Dwyane Wade and Eddie Jones. When the Big Three needed, as Erik Spoelstra called them, relief points, there were few more reliable options than Bosh from the elbow. And when the game dictated, Bosh eventually took his game to the 3-point line, where he proved equally reliable.
9. Dan Majerle
One of six players with at least 400 3-pointers with the Heat, Thunder Dan made defenses think twice when he approached the arc, which often opened the attacking element to his game. His outside threat was among the reasons that Alonzo Mourning was able to dominate in the paint during the playoff heyday of the early Pat Riley playoff years. He is one of five players to convert at least nine 3-pointers in a game as a member of the Heat.
8. Shane Battier
Often overlooked in the wake of Ray Allen saving the series with his overtimeforcing 3-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals, was that Battier then shot 6 of 8 from beyond the arc in the Game 7 victory over the Spurs that lifted the Heat to the championship. A year earlier, Battier shot 15 of 26 on 3-pointers in the Heat’s NBA Finals series victory over the Thunder, his .577 accuracy the best ever in a Finals with at least 15 conversions.
7. Mike Miller
It wasn’t necessarily the volume of the 3-pointers that puts Miller on this list, but the timing and the meaning of his Heat conversions. In Game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals against the Thunder, Miller converted seven 3-pointers, still the most by a reserve in a championship series. A year later, it was a Miller 3-pointer in the 2013 Finals against the Spurs after he lost a shoe that helped spark the Heat to a second consecutive championship.
6. Ray Allen
The Heat tenure was brief, but there is no more memorable 3-pointer in the franchise’s 30 seasons than the one that sent Game 6 of the NBA Finals into overtime against the Spurs, with the Heat going on to win the championship a game later. Along the way, he broke the career playoff record for 3-pointers while a member of the Heat, pushing past Reggie Miller.
5. Voshon Lenard
The call by late Heat television analyst Dr. Jack Ramsay still resonates, “Lenaaard!” With 473 career 3-pointers with the Heat, the stocky guard ranks fifth on the franchise’s all-time list, one of seven players to launch at least 1,000 3-point attempts during his Heat career. Only Damon Jones, Tim Hardaway, Glen Rice and, now, Wayne Ellington have made more in a season for the Heat than Lenard’s 183 in 1996-97.
4. Jason Kapono
Kapono is part of a subset of Heat 3-point shooters, a lower-volume specialist who stood as a threat any time he entered, similar to what James Jones later would provide. In addition to arguably the quickest release of any Heat 3-point shooter, he holds the highest career 3-point percentage of any Heat player with at least 100 conversions, at .490, which includes shooting 51.4 percent on 3-pointers for the Heat in 2006-07.
3. Eddie Jones
Nothing sexy with Jones’ Heat 3-point story, just consistency, second on the franchise’s all-time list to Tim Hardaway in both 3-point conversions and attempts. During his Heat tenures he had streaks of 32 and 22 consecutive games with at least one 3-point conversion. Most of those came while being the primary focus of opposing defenses during some of the franchise’s down seasons.
2. Glen Rice
The Heat’s first high-volume 3-point shooter, the team’s first-ever lottery pick stands third on the franchise’s all-time 3-point list both for conversions and attempts. Along with Hardaway, Damon Jones and Ellington, Rice is one of only four players to convert at least 185 3-pointers in a season with the Heat. His career-high 56-point performance for the Heat against the Magic on April 15, 1995, included seven 3-pointers.
1. Tim Hardaway
It all seemed so simple: dribble into the shot, look down and then step up with some of the most significant 3-pointers during the early years of Pat Riley’s Heat coaching tenure. And never shy — ever. The result? The franchise’s all-time leader in both career 3-pointers converted and attempted, including 203 conversions in 1996-97. And those numbers don’t even include the dramatics from beyond the arc in those epic playoff series against the Knicks.
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