By: Giancarlo Navas

Welcome to Give-and-Go! This is a new series where I’ll be pointing out some interesting numbers for the Heat in an easy, visual and digestible way. So, lots of pretty graphs and gifs. Yay, technology!

It’s always going to be short, so think of this as something you’d read when grabbing a coffee or waiting in line. Credit to @Heat_CM for coming up with the awesome name.

Miami has fallen in love with their new son, Josh Richardson, a six-foot-six guard out of Tennessee who is shooting at an unprecedented pace over the past four weeks.

He has been an absolute godsend for the Heat, who struggled mightily throughout the first half of the season to create any sort of spacing in their offense.

Through February, Miami was shooting a league-worst 31.7 percent from three. However, in the most unusual way, the Heat have shifted their largest weakness into an area of strength and are currently leading the NBA in three-point efficiency by shooting 45 percent in the month of March.

One key component has been Richardson’s (Rook 2) dynamic rise since the All-Star break. He’s currently averaging 64.4 percent from three (29 of 45) on 2.8 attempts per game in 26 minutes. But perhaps the craziest number of all is how Richardson is averaging an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 93.5 percent on catch-and-shoot jumpers in 16 games.

That leads the entire sport with a minimum of two attempts per game since Feb. 14. Any wild guesses on who’s number two in that same span?

If you guessed Joe Johnson, then you’re correct. He’s currently shooting at an eFG% of 84 percent in 14 games (11 with Miami).

[infogram id=”efg_catch_and_shoot_leaders_since_all_star_break_2015_16″ prefix=”YG7″]

Honestly, it doesn’t make any sense why Richardson has become the NBA’s best in-game shooter all of a sudden, especially considering that pre-All-Star break he was shooting roughly 20 percent from three on just a single attempt per game in 10 minutes. He played in 23 total games during that span.

The underlying question has become: How sustainable is this from Richardson? To answer this, we need to examine what exactly he is doing from the floor.

Below is a graph showing Richardson’s shot distribution post-All-Star break, ranging from “wide open” (closest defender, six-plus feet away), “open” (closest defender, four-to-six feet away), “tight” (closest defender, two-to-four feet away) and very tight (closest defender, less than two feet away).

[infogram id=”jrich_shooting-98″]

About 75 percent of his shots range from open to wide open, and he is hitting them at a decent clip – shooting over 60 percent on open threes. Simply put, Richardson is capitalizing on his wide open looks. So, what happens when teams start stapling a defender to him, will the offense continue to get him open shots?

That’s where his versatility comes. Richardson isn’t Steve Novak/Jason Kapono/James Jones, players who are pinned to shooting threes because that’s their only skill. He’s shooting 60 percent on shots less than 10 feet from the rim and has a high success rate when he dribbles the ball more than seven times, indicating that he can create his own offense and finish in transition. He’s currently shooting 59 percent in those scenarios.

Below is a play where Richardson uses his threat as a shooter in order to create his own shot:

Denver closes out on the long pass to Richardson (poorly), he realizes this and darts to the rim, seeing how there is a clear path and Hassan Whiteside is there to seal the help man (Kenneth Faried) off. What ensues is a ferocious dunk and a four-point lead.

Altogether, we still have to keep in mind that this is only a 16 game stretch, and as mentioned above, the majority of Richardson’s shots have been open. There are qualifiers to this and I do expect a bit of a regression, however, I don’t see it regressing to a place where his shooting is even league average (35.3 percent from three).

His dirty little secret is that he isn’t a very good free throw shooter. Richardson is shooting better from 3 (64 percent) than he does at the free throw line (63 percent), but as a shooter, you expect a progression to the mean for his free throws, just like a regression to the mean for his unconscious shooting.

Nevertheless, Richardson has obviously shown strides and improvement in his shooting ability, and luckily he isn’t limited by it with other elements in his game that help him.