Robinson a key weapon in Heat’s arsenal
Opponents are trying to limit Heat sharpshooter Duncan Robinson by isolating him on top guards or keeping the ball out of his hands. So far, it’s been a difficult task.
The Miami Heat has learned an important lesson during its 73-game regular season: Opposing teams will try pretty much anything in an effort to slow Heat sharpshooter Duncan Robinson.
During the Heat’s eightgame seeding schedule at Disney, that included deploying smaller guards to defend Robinson and using ball screens on the other end to try to take advantage of his perceived defensive weaknesses.
The 6-7 Robinson was primarily defended by guards during seeding play like the Toronto’s Kyle Lowry (6-0), Boston’s Kemba Walker (6-0), Milwaukee’s Wesley Matthews (6-4), Indiana’s Victor Oladipo (6-4) and Oklahoma City’s Luguentz Dort (6-3).
“I’ve seen it at different times,” Robinson said. “They like to put guards on me that can maneuver screens and make it difficult and stay attached. It’s just finding ways to be creative, sacrificing and maybe getting somebody else open and still running my cuts hard. Also, still being aggressive and just flying off of actions, creating switches, overreactions, whatever it is.”
During Wednesday’s loss to the Thunder, Oklahoma City’s All-Star guard Chris Paul repeatedly called for ball screens in the first quarter to force Robinson
to switch onto him before working on him in isolation sets. The thinking: Paul has the speed advantage and can dribble past him on most possessions or it’ll work to get Robinson in foul trouble and out of the game.
The Heat can expect all of this and more when it opens the playoffs with Game 1 of its first-round series against the Pacers on Tuesday at 4 p.m., with Indiana surely devising a plan that it hopes will limit Robinson.
Not much has worked so far.
The Heat has been a much better team this season when Robinson is on the court making threes, with the help of continuous off-ball actions and dribble handoffs. The 26-year-old forward recorded a teambest plus/minus of plus-351 during the regular season, well ahead of second-place Jimmy Butler at plus-257.
With Robinson making threes at a historic rate and serving as the ultimate floor spacer, Miami’s offense posted a quality offensive rating of 113.8 when he was on the court during the regular season.
No current Heat player has had a more positive impact in terms of offensive rating.
“All of this is born out of respect for his game and how efficient he has become coming off screens and putting pressure on the defense all the way to 2526 feet,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Robinson. “He has earned that and then he has developed counters and more persistence as game plans become more sophisticated to try to stop his off-theball movement game.”
Robinson finished the regular season tied with Portland’s Damian Lillard for the third-most made threes in the NBA at 270. Only Houston’s James Harden (299 threes) and Sacramento’s Buddy Hield (271) finished with more.
Robinson averaged 13.5 points and 3.2 rebounds in 29.7 minutes per game in 73 games (68 starts) this season. That’s a big improvement from last season, when he made just 10 threes in 15 NBA games as a rookie.
Among the 28 players who averaged seven or more three-point shot attempts per game this season, Robinson finished with the league’s top threepoint shooting percentage at 44.6 percent.
Also, among those who played in at least 40 games this season and attempted more than one three per game, Robinson finished with the league’s top effective field-goal percentage at 66.7 percent.
Robinson, who is in his first full NBA season after going undrafted in 2018 and spending most of last season in the G League, is also only the second player in league history to finish a season with 270 or more made threes while shooting better than 44 percent from deep. The other? Golden State’s Stephen Curry.
These are all reasons Robinson is at the top, or really close to the top, of scouting reports.
Robinson struggled to get going when the Raptors used Lowry to defend him in Miami’s second seeding game. He finished with just three points on 1-of-4 shooting on threes and two rebounds in 22 minutes in an Aug. 3 loss to Toronto.
“It’s a threat. We can’t have our best shooter on the team only taking four shots,” Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo said. “Like it doesn’t make sense. That’s like D-Wade taking six shots and that’s it. It just doesn’t make sense.”
But Robinson responded the next day by scoring 21 points on 5-of-11 shooting on threes in an Aug. 4 win over Boston, with Walker defending him for most of the game.
Robinson has also developed different counters for opponents aggressively denying him at the threepoint line. While most of his threes are of the catchand-shoot variety, he can take advantage of teams overplaying him by driving past players who run by him behind the arc or by making timely cuts to the basket against defenders assuming he’s working to get a three-point shot.
Robinson was an efficient 44 of 54 (81.5 percent) from inside the restricted area this season and a perfect 10 of 10 from inside the paint during seeding play.
The playoffs will present a new challenge for Robinson and the Heat to continue finding ways to generate offense against different defenses, and avoid opposing teams working to isolate him on the other end of the court. It’s important because Miami needs an effective and efficient Robinson to be at its best.
“If we were starting that process right now, I think we would be in trouble,” Spoelstra said of finding different offensive actions to keep Robinson involved. “We started this process probably seven months ago with him. Teams were already starting to play him differently by the time we got to the new year.”