NBA Finals Game 2: Heat’s Postseason Run Being Bolstered by 3-Point Shooting, Especially From Undrafted Guys

Miami Heat guard Gabe Vincent set a pindown screen for teammate Duncan Robinson two minutes into the fourth quarter of Game 2 of the NBA Finals, and both defenders, Denver Nuggets reserves Christian Braun and Bruce Brown, followed Robinson, formerly and currently one of the deadliest shooters in the game.

With Miami’s star player, Jimmy Butler, on the bench, Vincent was able to get open for a 3-pointer that started a 17-4 run that gave the Heat their first lead since the opening minutes of the second quarter.

The scouting report better not instruct you to leave me that open, Vincent signaled to Braun. The Heat never trailed in the second half of their 111-108 road victory, evening a series that appeared hopeless at the break.

Michael Malone, coach of the losing Denver Nuggets, blamed “miscommunication, game plan breakdowns, personnel breakdowns” for the defeat. You can count on people like Max Strus, who went 0-for-9 in the opening game, to start making shots. He’s off to a sizzling start so far tonight. Become a little bit cooler.

He makes 10 three-pointers, compared to 6 for Gabe Vincent, 6 for Kevin Love, 6 for Duncan Robinson, and 3 for Robinson. We need to be on the lookout for those types of men. I was worried after Game 1 when they made 16 open 3-pointers. In the first game, we got lucky since they didn’t make them. They finished them tonight.

Vincent, not Butler or All-Star teammate Bam Adebayo, was Miami’s top scorer on Sunday, as he paced the Heat with 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting (4-of-6 from 3-point range).

The Heat nearly set a record by making at least half of their 35 3-point shots during a single playoff run. Vincent, Robinson, Strus, and Caleb Martin, all of whom were undrafted, went a combined 11 for 21 from long range.

“I would say that old saying we use a lot: People severely overestimate what you can get accomplished in a day and they grossly underestimate what you can get accomplished in a matter of months, years, when no one is paying attention,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, referring to Vincent. “And he exemplifies that perfectly.”

Despite what people say about the Heat’s “Culture” and “Toughness,” it is the team’s shooting that has put Miami in this position.

The improvement of Vincent, Robinson, and Martin from the regular season to the playoffs at the 3-point line is the key to understanding how the eighth-seeded Heat went from being minutes away from elimination in the play-in tournament to being tied two games into the NBA Finals.
During the regular season, the trio shot 33.9% on an average of 13 3-point attempts per game. In the regular season, just 23 players averaged more than 4.5 3-point attempts per game while shooting below 34%.

Two of them were Vincent and Robinson (the other two were Kevin Love and Victor Oladipo, both of the Heat). According to reports, Memphis Grizzlies guard Dillon Brooks’ terrible shooting from the regular season carried over to the playoffs, prompting the team to tell him “he will not be brought back under any circumstances.”

Vincent, Robinson, and Martin have combined to shoot 43% on 16.3 3-point attempts per game in 20 playoff games. During the regular season, only Al Horford and Luke Kennard averaged more than 4.5 3-point attempts per game and shot better than 44% from deep.

Both Vincent and Martin have reached the minimum required to advance to the postseason. (It’s also worth noting that Robinson’s shooting accuracy has steadily decreased from 44.6% on 8.3 3-point attempts per game in 2019-20 to 32.8% this season. He was capable of it.
Vincent, Martin, and Robinson are three of just eight players in this year’s playoffs to average shooting 40% or higher on at least four 3-point tries per game through multiple rounds. The other five are Denver’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Tyrese Maxey, Austin Reaves, Derrick White, and Devin Booker.

In the 82 games they played together, Vincent, Martin, and Robinson each had 18 games in which they made four or more three-pointers.

With Vincent’s help in Game 2, they have now accomplished this feat 16 times in 20 postseason games. We could go on and on about how absurd it is that these three undrafted players are making shots at this level.

Love, who scored two more threes in his return to the starting lineup, praised his teammates for taking more shots. “I love seeing Max, Gabe, Duncan, and Caleb, all of those guys stepping up and shooting the ball with confidence,” he said. “It’s a sight to behold.”
Consider the following: Vincent, Martin, and Robinson (135-314 3P, 43%) are on pace to surpass them if the Heat do the unthinkable and win rings as a team that finished the regular season with a negative point differential.

Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson made 151 of 364 3-point attempts (41.5%) for the Golden State Warriors, arguably the greatest team in NBA history, on their way to the 2017 title.

Spoelstra has no better words for the evolution of his team’s 3-point shooting than “more intentional.”

After his team increased its lead over Denver for the greatest 3-point percentage in the playoffs, Spoelstra remarked, “And that doesn’t guarantee you anything either, but at least you give yourself the best chance.”

That everyone is on the same page and working toward the same goals, and that the ball is getting where it needs to go.

Then faith is the only option. You must have mutual trust. Cuts and extra passes, as well as ball movement that resulted in open shots, earned us some much-needed bonus points. Sure, it’s nicer to see the ball go in, but our men are fierce competitors. They get a kick out of experiences like that.

Perhaps the level of competition during the regular season was not intense enough.
It’s tough to put Miami’s red-hot shooting in context. The Heat’s 34.5 percent 3-point shooting percentage was the lowest of any playoff team this year.

(The other two were the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs, making up three of the four worst teams, along with the Charlotte Hornets and the Toronto Raptors.) Since 2016-17, when teams began averaging over 25 3-point attempts per game, seven squads have shot 34.4% or worse from deep while still qualifying for the postseason.

The first Heat team to advance past the first round was this year’s. Only Miami had more than two victories in the playoffs. Three more wins and the Heat will be NBA champs.

Averaged over a full season, the 4.8-point disparity between the Heat’s 25th-ranked offense (112.3 pp100) and the league’s third-best offense, just ahead of the Nuggets (116.8 pp100), can be attributed to the Heat’s improved 3-point shooting in the postseason (13.9-for-35.5, 39.2%, first of 16).
In addition to the 17 triples the Heat made, two devastating 3-point shooting fouls late in the shot clock were committed by Caldwell-Pope because of Denver’s inability to respect anyone other than Adebayo from distance.

The first, on Strus, helped Miami cut into a 15-point deficit before halftime, and the second, on Kyle Lowry, gave the Heat an 8-point advantage with 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

“If you’re guarding a Duncan Robinson, a Gabe Vincent, a Kevin Love, or a Max Strus, you have to guard them at the 4-point line,” stated Malone. You have to have the discipline to compete without fouling, whether it’s by getting a hand up, giving them a place to land, or something else, and I think we fouled at least three jump shooters tonight, so talk about a lack of discipline.

The three-point line is a major area of concern. By the metrics, the best 3-point shooting team in these playoffs did a respectable job in Game 1, but they absolutely pummeled us tonight.

Just chalk it up to good fortune. Clutch is the word for it. Identify it as a transitional state. The Heat’s 45% 3-point shooting performance against the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks and 43.4% performance against the second-seeded Boston Celtics seemed unsustainable, but it is no longer necessary for them to advance. In this series, they need to find it only three more times.

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