Miami Heat: Offensive Struggles Without Dion Waiters Are Concerning

Dion Waiters has missed the last three games, and the Heat have gone 1-2 in that time frame. The offense has struggled, and this is very worrying for Miami.

For the past couple of months, the Miami Heat have been one of the best teams in the league, with no one having a better record in 2017. The Heat have been a top-10 team on both ends of the floor in this time frame, and nearly every player on the roster has been contributing greatly.

However, the Heat have come across a huge hurdle, and their progress has been somewhat stunted, as Dion Waiters has missed the last three games and is set to miss many more.

According to Ira Winderman of the Sun-Sentinel, Waiters’ ankle is improving, but there is no timetable for his return. The Miami Heat can apply for an extra roster spot under the hardship exception, but this means Waiters would be forbidden to return until the 10-day period of the new player’s contract was up.

To put it simply, the Heat offense has been stagnant without Dion Waiters, and they have gone 1-2 in their week without him. Waiters can be inconsistent at times, but he has stepped up to be a reliable secondary option for the Heat, and this has eased the pressure on Goran Dragic. As of now, the Heat offense is consisting of forced up three-point shots, and Goran Dragic has had to take on a much larger load than he was already taking.

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Josh Richardson has replaced Waiters in the starting five, and he hasn’t impressed, to put it bluntly. Richardson is a fine three-point shooter and defender, but he is wholly incapable of creating offense for himself, or for others. Richardson is -28 in the Heat’s two recent losses, and his +15 against the Phoenix Suns on Mar. 21 was purely because he played a lot of garbage time minutes when the game was already won.

Richardson ranks in the 30^th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball handler, and this is gradually sliding even further as he is having to do even more work as a ball handler with the absence of Dion Waiters. Waiters is also much better at creating off-the-dribble than Richardson is, and his efficiency at driving into the paint is one of the reasons the Heat are so potent at creating open looks on the perimeter.

The Heat’s offense is almost based purely on drive-and-dish style action, and while Waiters can at times be inefficient, the threat of him being a slasher collapses the defense and opens up the perimeter. He is one of the main reasons that so many young players have come into the Miami set-up and been able to shoot so well — they don’t have to over-exert themselves because Dragic and Waiters can find them in good spots.

The only Heat player who averages more drives per game than Waiters is Dragic, and it is clear that the Slovenian is struggling with the absence of Waiters. Teams are essentially shifting extra defenders towards him, and there is no player on the Heat roster that can punish this strategy as well as Dion Waiters does.

Over the last three games, Dragic is shooting just 30 percent from the field, and he has struggled from downtown as he has shot just 27 percent on three-point attempts. When this is placed up against his 46/41 percent split over the course of the year, we can see that Dragic is not playing well without Dion Waiters.

One of the reasons that Goran Dragic makes the Heat an offensive juggernaut is because of his play off the ball as well as with the ball. He is a good spot-up shooter, and the threat of him in the corners creates driving angles for other players. The problem at the moment, is that there isn’t anyone who is really taking advantage of these situations, and Dragic really only has room to play on the ball.

Dion Waiters is not as good as Dwyane Wade, and he probably won’t ever be, but he is being missed sorely by the Miami Heat. His ability to create as an individual is something that the rest of the Heat roster lacks.

The Heat are not an isolation team, and they probably never will be, but Dion Waiters is a player who is happy to take a defender one-on-one and go at them. James Johnson is the only player outside of Dragic who can really go into isolation situations, but Johnson is probably better as the point forward for the bench unit at this point.

The play below has become too regular for the Heat. Dragic drives into oblivion, then when he kicks it out to Richardson, there is no secondary action. This has led to Miami taking too many contested threes. Dion Waiters would generally be the secondary player initiating pick-and-roll action, and in the current starting five, there isn’t anyone who does this.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a lot of threes, but the lack of ball movement to create these outside shots has become problematic. In the loss to the Raptors on Thursday night, the Heat’s strategy to get back into the game involved a lot of isolation threes. The Heat simply are not built to play in this way; they are a team that needs to collapse defenses in order to shoot well.

The absence of Dion Waiters has proven just how valuable he is, since the Heat simply cannot function without him on the offensive end. Defensively, the Heat have looked as solid as they usually are, but without a secondary shot creator, they look like a bad team that doesn’t belong in the playoffs.

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If the Heat do decide to use the hardship exception, then they will need to find a player who is capable of driving into the paint or creating through the pick-and-roll. The Heat already have good outside shooters such as Wayne Ellington and Tyler Johnson, that is not the part of the game that the Heat miss when Waiters is absent.

Goran Dragic is more than capable of running an offense, but he is someone who needs reliable secondary help. This is mainly because a lot of his value comes in his outside shooting, but he isn’t a player who will necessarily get into isolation in order to create these shots. His best years in Phoenix were when he had Eric Bledsoe and Gerald Green alongside him in the backcourt, as these players had good ability as drivers and creators.

One solution the Heat may want to try is starting Tyler Johnson in place of Josh Richardson. ESPN’s real-plus-minus ranks Johnson higher offensively and defensively than Richardson, but Johnson is a player capable of creating offense. He averages 3.3 assists per game, but this number could feasibly become higher if he was partnered alongside Dragic in the backcourt.

Even if one disagrees that Johnson should start, it is clear that the Heat have to do something. They are not collapsing the defense, and this is constricting their outside shooters. Plays like the one below cannot become the norm for the Heat, as this will see them sink from the eighth playoff spot.

The majority of the veteran options available are spot-up shooters such as Gary Neal and Caron Butler, but they wouldn’t really provide any kind of help. Better options for the Heat would be to take a second look at Marcus Georges-Hunt, or maybe even create a reunion with former point guard Mario Chalmers.

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For Miami to suddenly collapse out of a playoff spot would be heartbreaking, as they have put so much effort into gaining one. On this current trajectory, however, they will miss the playoffs, as the offense is broken. Heat commentator Eric Reid compared it to a “broken faucet” during the loss to the Raptors on Mar. 23, and this description seems apt.