Erik Spoelstra warns Miami about the downsides of adding more screens

MIAMI – With The Miami Heat are showing encouraging signs in Tuesday’s win over the Phoenix Suns, as Bam Adebayo the exit from the crisis and the synergy that arises in between Norman Powell and Tyler Herrothere was a change in the offensive game plan. As it is Heat work through the process of finding consistency in its attack, the fast and free system implemented an element that was retroactively cut off.

If there’s one area Miami has stifled, it’s been screens and the pick-and-roll, as so far this season they’ve used 18 screens per 100 possessions through the first 40 games, an NBA-low. This comes after last season, using 68.9 screens per 100 possessions, which was ninth most in the league.

Heading into the win over Phoenix, which was Hero’s fourth game since returning from a toe injury, Miami had more than 30 screens on 100 possessions. What resulted was a win in which his offense overpowered the Suns, though he once again displayed a third-quarter composure with the head coach Erik Spoelstra saying that there must be a balance.

“There’s got to be a balance because we got to too much, it just kind of slowed down in the third quarter, it kind of slowed down into the mud,” Spoelstra said. “If we just want to go 1,000% conventional, we know what it’s going to be like.”

“Four quarters of playing like we do in the third quarter, it’s not going to make a lot of plays,” Spoelstra continued. “There’s got to be some, you definitely get to the last six minutes, we’ve run a few to get on certain guys. But then there’s some where we’re just playing about our flow and creating some triggers.”

Erik Spoelstra on how there has to be a balance between screens and fast-paced play. #HeatNation pic.twitter.com/pfoTaNKBdZ

— Zachary Weinberger (@ZachWeinberger) January 14, 2026

The Heat is Tyler Herro on the Heat involving more pick-and-rolls

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

Still, implementing more screens couldn’t hurt, especially for Herr, who used the pick-and-roll game to have an All-Star season last year. Herro would be asked about their rise from the team, mocking 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’ll leave it at that.”

“Pick-and-rolls are great,” Herro said. “It’s part of the game. We came into the season with a movement pattern offense that we all kind of read and react to each other, and the pick-and-roll is implemented into that. We can still get those moves and space the floor with the pick-and-roll. Now, I don’t think it’s all pick-and-roll, and I don’t think it’s all pick-and-roll.”

“I think it’s a happy medium, and it’s up to us players and the coaching staff to figure out where that is during the game,” Herro continued. “And I also think it changes game to game. Some plays we don’t need and some we do, depending on who we’re playing.”

Miami wants to find a balance with more screens, but its main goal is to be “more consistent with our principles,” saying how it “low level thinking” only to think they’re simply adding more pick-and-rolls.