Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro are in their fifth season as Miami Heat teammates. But roles change, supporting casts change and individual games grow.
That has the Heat’s leading trio of Adebayo, Butler and Herro again learning how to maximize each other’s skill sets on the offensive end this season.
“The thing is nobody comes back the same, everybody comes back with something added to their repertoire, skill set, different way of taking care of their body, something,” Adebayo said to the Miami Herald. “You have guys out, you get used to the usage. And then guys get back healthy and you kind of got to not take a backseat, but basically we got to figure out how we can make these puzzle pieces fit again and get back to being on the same page.”
The problem is that process is happening amid the Heat’s longest losing skid in more than 15 years. Monday night’s 118-105 home loss to the Phoenix Suns marked the Heat’s seventh straight loss and third straight double-digit defeat.
This is the Heat’s first seven-game skid since late in the 2007-08 season — a season that Miami finished with the NBA’s worst record at 15-67. The Heat’s next opportunity to win its first game in more than two weeks will come Wednesday against the Sacramento Kings at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun).
“We’re still figuring it out,” Herro said to the Miami Herald. “During a seven-game losing streak, it’s not really easy to pinpoint what we’re going to do going into each night when we’re losing. But we’re just trying to win and figure out what works and what doesn’t.”
While the Heat has posted the NBA’s third-worst defensive rating during this seven-game skid, it has also recorded the league’s worst offensive rating during this string of consecutive losses.
The Heat is also just 5-11 in the 16 games that Adebayo, Butler and Herro have played together this season. Seven of those games have come during this skid, as injuries limited their time together earlier this season.
“Just getting reps together and playing together and trying to work through it,” Herro said.
So, what’s different about the Adebayo-Butler-Herro dynamic this season?
Adebayo and Herro have grown into bigger offensive roles. Adebayo is operating at a career-high usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of 26.1 percent this season and Herro is operating at the second-highest usage rate of his career at 27.4 percent.
Meanwhile, Butler is at a usage rate of 24.1 percent this season, which would go down as his lowest usage for a season since joining the Heat.
Also, Adebayo, Butler and Herro are each getting to the rim less and taking more midrange shots this season.
That has produced an inefficient shot chart for the Heat that’s made up of a large chunk of midrange shots and not enough rim and three-point attempts. The Heat has attempted 28.9 percent of its shots from around the rim (28th most in the NBA) and 35.5 percent of its shots from three-point range (14th-most in the NBA), while taking 35.7 percent of its shots from midrange (most in the NBA) this season, according to Cleaning the Glass.
This has the Heat with the NBA’s second-worst location effective field-goal percentage (a predictor of what a team’s effective field-goal percentage would be if it shot the league average at each location based on their shot selection).
The Heat has scored 113.3 points per 100 possessions in the 323 minutes that Adebayo, Butler and Herro have played together this season, which is only slightly better than its overall team offensive rating of 113 points scored per 100 possessions. Ideally, the Heat’s offensive rating would be significantly better with its best three players on the court.
“Just being more aggressive and then also all of us not trying to operate in the same areas – in the midrange and in the paint,” Herro said of playing alongside Adebayo and Butler. “Just being aggressive, trying to figure out ways where all three of us can be aggressive in the same game.”
The issue is that dynamic has forced them to adjust their games in an effort to complement each other.
That means Adebayo taking fewer non-paint twos, Butler generating shots closer to the rim, and Herro playing in more of an off-ball role and putting up more spot-up threes to help space the floor as the only one in the group who’s a threat from deep.
“Trying to sacrifice how I play to fit the team and try to be more of a catch-and-shoot guy to fit the offense,” said Herro, whose pick-and-roll usage is down during the losing streak while playing more frequently without the ball in his hands.
Herro, who is shooting an efficient 42.1 percent on 4.3 catch-and-shoot three-point attempts per game this season, is shooting 29.8 percent on 6.7 catch-and-shoot three-point attempts per game during the seven-game skid. The addition of guard Terry Rozier, who is at his best with the ball in his hands, has also added to the need for Herro to take on more off-ball duties.
Herro, 24, has scored fewer than 20 points in six of the last seven games. Before the losing streak, he scored fewer than 20 points in just five of his first 21 appearances of the season.
“Just trying to figure it out, honestly,” Herro said of playing as more of a spot-up shooter. “I don’t feel too comfortable just doing that because that’s not me or myself. You spend a lot of time in the summer working out and doing what you’re asked to do, and then you try to come back and implement what you’ve worked on into the team. But I’m just trying to figure it out.”
Whether it’s in more of an off-ball or on-ball role, Herro is an important part of the offense. He’s one of the only players on the roster who has the skill set to an efficient pull-up and spot-up three-pointer shooter, and can also create offense for himself and others with his ball-handling.
While there’s layers to this, the simple math shows the Heat is 8-2 this season when Herro posts a usage rate of higher than 29 percent and just 1-10 this season when his usage rate is under 26 percent.
“I feel like some people think I’m just shooting shots,” Herro said. “I feel like when I’m in attack mode and not just playing off the catch is when I’m at my best and our team is at our best. Because when I’m getting into the paint, I feel like I create a lot of overhelps and guys overreacting to me just with the ball in my hands. So we’ll see. I’m just trying to figure it out.”
Trying to figure it out during one of the roughest stretches for the Heat in nearly two decades.
“The best thing is for us to not get caught up in the outside noise, where everybody and their mom is trying to write a narrative or a story of trying to make us implode,” Adebayo said. “So the biggest thing for us is staying together and really having tough conversations amongst us so then we can move forward.”
It takes patience, but the Heat knows it needs to start producing positive results again sooner rather than later.
“It’s kind of like one of those things where you got a million keys and one lock,” Adebayo said. “You got to be patient enough to go through every key and eventually it will click, and we’ll get back to winning.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2024 3:16 PM.
