The Miami Heat’s offense has handed the coaching staff a pretty blunt message: the numbers say there’s a better way to use Giannis Antetokounmpo, and they’re not leaning into it.
Miami has been below average on both ends of the floor, but the offensive side looks like the bigger wasted chance. The Heat are sitting with just the 19th-best offensive rating in the league, and the clearest clue to their problem might be hiding in the pick-and-roll.
By the numbers, Miami is actually excellent when it does run that action. NBA stats show the Heat rank fifth in efficiency in the pick-and-roll, producing 0.97 points per possession. The catch is brutal: they use it at the lowest rate in the league, just 6.7 percent.
That disconnect is hard to ignore, especially with Giannis in the mix. In a tiny sample size, one the Heat have created themselves, he has been one of the more efficient roll men in the game, averaging 1.79 points per pick-and-roll possession. Yet the play type that seems to maximize him is the one Miami keeps shelving.
There was a stretch this season when it looked like Erik Spoelstra might be warming to the idea of using pick-and-roll more often. That didn’t last. The Heat have drifted back toward a pace-and-space approach, and the same offensive issues keep showing up.
Part of the hesitation could come down to personnel. Miami does not have a pure enough point guard to run the pick-and-roll with total confidence. Another part seems tied to Spoelstra’s preference for playing fast.
The problem is that the fast-paced look hasn’t delivered the same results this season. Miami has stayed among the league’s quicker teams, but the offense has still been underwhelming from the start.
What makes the whole thing even stranger is that the Heat have also been one of the better half-court offenses in the league. So if they’re efficient in the half court and efficient in pick-and-roll situations, why are they so reluctant to build around either?
At the very least, the evidence from this 10-game sample should force some hard questions. If Miami keeps passing on one of its most effective offensive tools, it may be leaving too much on the table in the early days of the Giannis era.
In Other News...
Heat Offensive Shift Under Erik Spoelstra May Explain This Turnaround
After an 0-4 start, Miami has leaned harder into a more direct offensive approach, and Davion Mitchell says the shift has centered on pick-and-rolls without abandoning the up-tempo style Erik Spoelstra wants. The Heat have pushed their pick-and-roll frequency from 29.1 to 38 per 100 possessions, while still playing with the kind of pace that has them third in the NBA at 102.8 possessions per 48 minutes.
The early results have been hard to ignore. Miami is producing 1.13 points per possession in pick-and-roll situations, which ranks second in the league by tracking data, and that kind of efficiency helps explain why the offense has looked far more settled since the slow start. If the Heat are going to keep climbing, this blend of speed and structure may be the formula that keeps carrying them. [Read more 🡒]
Heat Trade Buzz Now Comes Down To One Costly Question
The Heats search for backcourt help has reportedly led them to Dejounte Murray, with Miami weighing whether adding another proven guard is worth the price. Any deal would be built around a significant outgoing package, with Andrew Wiggins and Nikola Jovic among the names floated as the kind of return New Orleans would ask for in a swap that would also bring Herbert Jones to South Florida.
Murrays appeal is obvious for a team looking to sharpen its perimeter play, but the real issue is the risk attached to the move. He is an 11-year veteran coming off an Achilles injury and is on an expiring contract, which means Miami would have to decide whether the short-term upgrade is worth surrendering two rotation pieces for a player whose long-term fit is anything but certain. [Read more 🡒]
Heat Road Trip Showed The Identity This Team Might Be Building
The Heat just finished a road trip that felt like a snapshot of where this group is right now: uneven at times, but increasingly hard to knock off course. A blowout loss to the Lakers opened the trip on a rough note, yet Miami answered with an overtime win against the Clippers, then kept pressing through a loss to the Warriors before closing with back-to-back victories over Sacramento and Utah. It was the kind of stretch that can reveal more than a clean run of games, and Miami showed enough resilience to leave with a solid grade and a sense that the culture is trending in the right direction.
There are still obvious issues to sort through, especially on defense, and the trip also came with concern around Giannis health hanging over the bigger picture. Even so, the Heat looked like a team that can absorb setbacks without unraveling, which matters as much as any single result in November. A B grade fits the moment: progress, not perfection, with a clearer identity starting to take shape and plenty left to clean up before it becomes something more reliable. [Read more 🡒]