Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat’s Robinson talks perception
Heat’s Robinson says he’s always dealt with the perception he’s only a ‘white shooter’
MIAMI — It is the type of topic mostly reserved for private conversation, but one Miami Heat forward Duncan Robinson recently opened up on.
Asked recently during JJ Redick’s podcast on The Ringer about being perceived as a “white shooter,” Robinson addressed the notion of therefore also being perceived as a defensive liability.
“First and foremost defensively, people’s eyes just light up,” Robinson acknowledged to the New Orleans Pelicans guard. “And that’s something that I’ve been dealing with my whole life.”
Including during Heat practices, particularly when matched up defensively against Jimmy Butler.
“He lets me know regularly in practice or when we’re matched up that I can’t guard him,” Robinson said with a laugh, with Butler in the room as Robinson taped the interview during the Heat’s trip two weeks ago to New Orleans.
The 6-foot-7 Robinson said he can appreciate not exactly resembling the prototypical NBA player.
“I’m pretty unassuming, at least I think,” he said, in the podcast released Thursday. “I’m tall, but other than that, that’s where it stops.”
The downside, he said, is a lack of respect amid this second NBA season now put on hold by the league’s shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m getting hit on my wrist all the time,” he said.
“The thing that frustrates me right now is like the grabbing. I’ll try to leave early on a pin-down or whatever, and I just get grabbed. I also don’t get the respect.”
Because of that, he said unlike teammate Goran Dragic, he does not chase fourpoint plays.
“I’m still at the point where I won’t do like the shot fake into somebody, because what happens when they don’t call it and I just throw it?” he said. “I don’t have the moxie, or whatever, the confidence to do
that.”
He said the Heat staff has encouraged him to develop such confidence.
“The staff are, ‘We need you to learn how to do this,’ because I shoot 90 from the line,” he said. “But I don’t get to the line unless I’m getting grabbed on a cut or something like that.”
One lesson heeded is no longer stepping inside the 3-point line for a shot when closed out on 3-pointers.
“I took that shot at Michigan, the step in two,” he said, “and that’s one of the first things when I got to Miami that they said, ‘You’re not shooting that anymore.’ It’s either a sidestep or your hitting a big and chasing it.”
Of Robinson’s 613 shots this season, 543 have been 3-pointers. Of his 286 baskets, 243 have been 3-pointers, a franchise record. He is 48 of 53 from the foul line.
And, yes, he said with a laugh, there has been admonishment from coach Erik Spoelstra when he dares bring the ball inside the 3-point arc.
“That has happened occasionally,” he said. “It’s not exactly what it sounds like. But it’s more so that I pass up shooting beyond the 3-point line. He loves to point out every time that I don’t shoot and it leads to a turnover or maybe a shot-clock violation. He loves pointing that out.”
Robinson is fourth among qualified players in 3-point percentage, at .448, behind only George Hill (.480), Seth Curry (.453) and Redick (.452). He ranks third in 3-pointers made, behind only James Harden (271) and Buddy Hield (244).
He said among the greatest adjustments has been shooting 3-point attempts that would appear to be ill-advised for most players.
“There’s a learning curve with that, like anything,” he said. “I certainly went through it. It’s kind of like a foreign concept, or at least it was at the time: How is me taking what seems like a bad shot or not taking a shot selfish?”