Whiteside puzzled as his foul shooting falls to league worst
After setting a Heat record for worst free throw shooting in a game, Hassan Whiteside sat glumly for several minutes in front of his locker at Little Caesars Arena on Friday night, seemingly at a loss.
After missing all eight of his free throws, Whiteside now stands at a leagueworst 42.8 percent from the line this season, having made just 66 of 154. He has changed his freethrow mechanics back to a jump-shot style in recent weeks but with little to show for it.
Nevertheless, he said he will stick with the same mechanics. And coach Erik Spoelstra insists there’s no need to change his technique.
“I don’t know; I don’t know,” Whiteside said of his free-throw woes. “I come in. I don’t leave the gym until I make 10 in a row on five baskets. I shoot hundreds of free throws. Just didn’t want to go in. I can’t tell you what’s going on. I’ve never been through this in my life.”
Whiteside said one factor is that he’s going to the line after hard fouls.
“I can’t duplicate the way I get fouled,” he said. “I get hard fouled every time I get sent to the freethrow line. I’m going to stick with it, keep shooting a couple hundred, couple thousand, whatever it takes.”
Spoelstra seemed empathetic toward Whiteside afterward, suggesting no need to start over with his technique.
“His technique is good,” Spoelstra said. “He really works at it. I really commend him for that, for looking for solutions. He’ll get it. It’s not the first time he went through something like that.”
Dwyane Wade said Whiteside’s free-throw issue “right now is a mental thing.”
Spoelstra said he kept Whiteside on the bench in the fourth quarter of the 98-93 loss to Detroit not because of free-throw shooting but “because of the momentum of the game; [Detroit] went small” with Bam Adebayo deemed the better option.
Overall, “we have to figure out a way to fix” the team’s free-throw deficiencies, Wade said.
THIS AND THAT
The Heat wasn’t
A pleased with the lack of a foul call on Pistons for- ward Reggie Bullock on Wade’s missed contested three-point attempt that could have tied the score with 6.3 seconds left.
“It looked like he got clipped,” Spoelstra said. “He was moving one direction very fast, and it looked like Bullock was underneath him. You have to let a shooter land. I didn’t see a replay on that, but from my vantage point that looked like a play that could have sent him to the line. We left it to chance by making it a need three situation right there instead of a need two.”
Wade’s take on that play: “It’s tough, trying to get a good look. Thought we had a great pass to Tyler [ Johnson]. He dribbled through and [we’re] trying to get to an open spot. I feel I didn’t get a clean land on my shot. That’s all you ask for to go up and come down. I felt like I didn’t get a good one, so I was very angry with that. Besides that, I thought we got as good a look as we can on that possession.”
In its daily officiating reports, the NBA said Saturday that Wade was not fouled on that play.
The Heat began Sat
A urday seventh in the East — a game behind No. 6 Brooklyn, a half game ahead of No. 8 Charlotte and just 1 1⁄ games ahead
2 of No. 9 Detroit.
Miami is 4-9 against the next five teams directly below the Heat in the standings: 0-2 against Charlotte, 1-1 against Detroit, 1-2 against Orlando, 2-1 against Washington and 0-3 against Atlanta.
That’s unacceptable against a group of teams that the Heat expects to be better than.
“Obviously, guys are going to get a little more up for teams at the top of each conference,” Justise Winslow said. “We’ve got to figure out ways as professionals to come in every day and come in like professionals and be ready, be focused, have that urgency from the jump.
“Playing the Pistons [Friday] is not the biggest game, it’s not the weekend, it’s just another game. We have to do better as professionals being locked in.”
Dion Waiters entered A
Saturday shooting just
36.6 percent (15 of 41) from the field and 29.2 percent (7 for 24) on three-pointers and 0 for 4 on free throws in six appearances since returning from ankle surgery.
He didn’t play in the second half of Friday’s game after logging 8:37 in the first half.