Writing this on the back of the Miami Heat’s loss in Milwaukee, the third straight loss in three games away from Miami. It feels like last year’s playoffs didn’t really happen and the Heat are just continuing what they were doing last regular season. Lack of offensive ideas, lack of offensive creation, a lot of *insert X player* “please save me, I don’t know what to do” shots. And it starts at the point guard position, on what they can do versus what the team needs them to do.
The Heat have a big problem at point guard, and they need to address it sooner rather than later. Either that or your playoff fairy tale will turn into a ping-pong ball watch party come May.
The current backcourt is not working and the Miami Heat find themselves in trouble early in the season. They need changes, and fast.
Every option at point guard has one or two unique traits with some glaring deficiencies attached. Kyle Lowry is clearly the best option, as he is the one who can still organize the team and put everyone in their spots. But he can’t be your point-of-attack defender at this stage of his career. But, with the starting lineup as currently constructed, he has to be.
At 37, he can’t guard elite on-ball creators. You can’t just put him on Lillard, Anthony Edwards, Cade Cunningham and expect great results. He doesn’t possess the necessary lateral mobility and can’t navigate through screens, but he has to since the other options in the starting lineup are Tyler Herro, Jimmy Butler, Kevin Love or Bam Adebayo, who has his hands full with other things at center.
That’s how Miami gives up an average of19.3 points per game from Lowry’s defensive assignment on 58% shooting (these numbers jump to 21.7 points on 69% shooting if you take away the Pistons game, where he was actually good defensively, but didn’t do anything offensively). Add the 17.3 points per game allowed by Herro and the starting backcourt is giving up 36.5 points per game while scoring only 31.3.
Switching — something that has been a strength of Lowry’s throughout his career — hasn’t been pretty. The Heat have given up 6 points per game on an astounding 12 for 13 shooting when Lowry is switched onto a big. He has created 13 turnovers through four games, with three coming when guarding bigs, and those are good numbers, but not nearly enough to compensate for what the Heat are giving up.
In terms of the other options, there isn’t a great answer.
Dru Smith seems to be the Heat’s latest development success story. He is a good on-ball defender who can put pressure on ball handlers and force turnovers, but he has no particular skill on offense. (He’s 4 of 6 from 3-point range to start the season, but has been a 23.7% shooter for his NBA career on a low number of attempts.) Plus, he’s small and teams have already noticed that and are attacking him anyway.
