With win vs Charlotte, the Miami Heat are just a half-game out of the playoffs

With win vs Charlotte, the Miami Heat are just a half-game out of the playoffs by Wes Goldberg

Miles Bridges could be an ideal fit in the Miami Heat front court by Richard Nurse

The Miami Heat have certainly turned things around lately, much of that having to do with their ability to play three-ball.

The Miami Heat are only half a game out of the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference.

At 31-34, the team is this close to surpassing the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons, something that many people would not have imagined in their wildest dreams to be possible. Not after they had such a turbulent start to their 2016-17 season.

But with only 17 games left this year, the Heat are not letting anyone or anything, get in their way.

Now there are certainly a lot of factors that had to come together in order to make such a resurgence possible.

For one, getting the team as healthy as possible.

At one point, Miami only had three guys available to come off of the bench, making for not just fatigued play but very interesting rotations to boot. And although since then, sophomore Justise Winslow has been ruled out indefinitely, the Heat have stayed more or less in tip-top shape. At least compared to what they had to deal with previously.

Yes, Josh Richardson only recently returned to action. And sure, James Johnson and Tyler Johnson just missed a game this week. But low-level injuries are a part of the deal. For every team.

What not all organizations have the ability of doing, however, is staying confident even throughout the most horrific of slumps.

Miami has never given up. Not when it housed a record of 11-30. Not when fans wanted the team to tank. From the front office all the way down to the roster itself, everyone stayed positive. And just kept on, keeping on. Putting in the work, seeing that light at the end of the tunnel.

Because that is what Miami Heat Basketball is all about.

The grind. The mindset. The culture.

That is what breeds success.

Of course, it takes a little more than just health and motivation to win games.

Talent and execution play a role too.

And lately, the Heat have shown a new side of their offense: shooting that three-ball.

Having tied the franchise record for most double-digit three-point games in a single season with 31, Miami over the course of this 20-4 run leads the league in three-point shooting percentage with 41.0 percent, comes fifth in three-pointers made with 11.8 and ninth in three-pointers attempted with 28.8.

Not to mention the franchise record for three’s in a season is 717 in 2012-13, with the current team already having made 637 thus far.

To say three-ball is working for the Heat, would be an understatement.

“We have great three-point shooters that really work at it diligently,” said head coach Erik Spoelstra. “They spend a lot of time in the gym on their craft. It may just be three, four or five shots that they get, but they have to shoot hundreds of shots to prepare themselves for that and do it on a run and build their bodies up with conditioning. You see that in Wayne [Ellington] and Luke [Babbitt] and Goran [Dragic], who has really improved his three-point shooting. [James Johnson] has really worked at it. If we’re consistent to our game, that can be a byproduct of it. But we’re not just coming down and jacking threes off the dribble. We’re getting to something specific.”

“We have spots on the floor,” Johnson explained. “There’s three spots that have to be filled on every play. You’ve got the pull behind. You’ve got the guy in the slot, who can cut. And you have the corner guy. They’re marked. That’s something that we’ve stressed since training camp, that if a guy drives middle, make sure the corners are filled and then there’s an outlet. That’s why sometimes you’ll see someone throw it just instinctively to the corner, thinking somebody is going to be there and nobody is there. Somebody is supposed to be there.” Well, of course they are. Because this team never leaves anything up to chance.

Obviously, not every Miami Mafia member has repurposed their game to include skillful shooting from downtown.

Take big man Hassan Whiteside, for example.

But he has given his teammates the green light to ignore him when necessary, and do their thing.

“It’s all good. It’s philly cheese steak good.”

While Babbitt leads the team in three-point shooting percentage at 42.7 percent, Ellington averages the most three’s per matchup with 2.4 three-pointers made. However, both Dragic and Dion Waiters have been exceptional beyond the arc this season too, with Dragic shooting 42.1 percent a contest and Waiters with 39.3.

So here is to all those pretty strokes, and to the Heat continuing to excel in playing that three-ball. Splash.