Erik Spoelstra warns Heat about downsides of adding more screens in offense

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Erik Spoelstra warns Heat about downsides of adding more screens in offense

Zachary Weinberger, ClutchPoints · ClutchPoints

Fri, Jan 16, 2026 ·

4 min read

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MIAMI – With the Miami Heat showing encouraging signs in Tuesday's win over the Phoenix Suns , like Bam Adebayo getting out of a slump and the synergy brewing between Norman Powell and Tyler Herro , there was a change in the offensive game plan. As the Heat work through the process of finding consistency in their offense, the fast-paced and free-flowing system implemented an element that has retroactively been cut down.

If there was an area that Miami drowned out, it was screens and pick-and-rolld as so far this season, they've utilized an 18 screens per 100 possessions through the first 40 games, the lowest in the NBA. This comes after last season, using 68.9 screens per 100 possessions, which was the ninth most in the league.

Looking at the win over Phoenix, which was Herro's fourth game since returning from his toe contusion, Miami ran more than 30 screens per 100 possessions. What resulted was a victory that saw its offense overpower the Suns, though once again featured a slog of a third quarter, with head coach Erik Spoelstra saying that there needs to be a balance.

"There's got to be a balance because we get to too much of that, it just slowed everything way down in the third quarter, it was just like slowing it down into mud," Spoelstra said. "If we want to just go 1,000% conventional, we know how that's going to be."

"Four quarters of playing like we do in the third quarter, that's not going to win a lot of games," Spoelstra continued. "There have to be some, certainly you get to the final six minutes, we ran a few to get involved in specific guys. But then there's some where we're just playing about our flow and creating some triggers."

Heat's Tyler Herro on the Heat incorporating more pick-and-rolls

While the Heat's win over the Suns was huge for Adebayo to get out of the slump, incorporating more screens into the offense is something that the team will work to make happen more smoothly. The team still wants to focus on that fast-paced, free-flowing offense, as it gave them major success to start the season and still leads the entire association in pace with 104.98 possessions per 48 minutes.

Still, implementing more screens couldn't hurt, especially for Herro, who capitalized on the pick-and-roll game to have an All-Star season last year. Herro would be asked about the rise of them from the team, poking fun at how pick-and-rolls are almost like a bad word.

"Should I say why we run pick-and-rolls, or that pick-and-rolls are a bad thing? I'm going to leave it."

"Pick-and-rolls are great," Herro said. "It's a part of the game. We came into the season with a motion pattern offense that we all kind of read and react off each other, and the pick-and-roll is implemented into it. We still can get to those movements and spacing on the floor with the pick and rolls. Now, I don't think it's all pick and rolls, and I don't think it's all no pick-and-rolls."

"I think it's a happy medium, and that's on us players and the coaching staff to kind of figure out where that is throughout a game," Herro continued. "And I also think it changes game to game. Some games we don't need any, and some games we do, depending on who we play."

Miami wants to find a balance with more screens added, but its main goal is to be "more consistent to our principles," saying how it's "low-level thinking" to just think they're simply adding more pick-and-rolls.

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