Duncan Robinson gets extended playing time. Will it continue? And Bam on his quiet night

It was about one year ago that Duncan Robinson lost his spot in the Miami Heat’s starting lineup late last season. Since then, Robinson completely fell out of the Heat’s rotation.

But Robinson, known for his three-point shooting ability, received a rare opportunity for extended playing time in Wednesday’s 101-92 loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden after Max Strus picked up three first-quarter fouls.

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Robinson took advantage, finishing with 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from three-point range in 28 minutes off the bench. It marked the most points he has scored in a game since totaling 14 points in a March 6 win over the Atlanta Hawks, the most threes he has made in a game since also hitting four threes in a Dec. 20 loss to the Chicago Bulls and the most minutes he has logged in a game since playing 36 minutes in that Dec. 20 loss to the Bulls.

“I just try to make the most of the opportunities that present themselves,” Robinson said with the Heat in the middle of a two-day break before hosting the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday. “There’s some stuff you can control, some stuff you can’t. I’m always going to be prepared. I’ve just been working trying to be ready for moments like that.”

After Strus was called for his third first-quarter foul on Wednesday, Robinson entered with 2:57 remaining in the opening period and remained on the court for the rest of the first half to play 14:57 in the first two quarters. He then played another 12:56 in the second half to take Strus’ minutes in the loss, as Strus did not re-enter the game after heading to the bench in the first quarter with his third foul.

Wednesday’s 28-minute outing represents the third-most minutes Robinson has played in a game this season. He’s in the second season of a five-year, $90 million contract he signed with the Heat in the 2021 offseason.

“That felt very nice,” Robinson said of getting the chance to play extended minutes against the Knicks. “It’s tough when you don’t really know what it’s looking like on any given game. But this league is tough, and that’s kind of what my role has been. Just trying to wrap my mind around that, embrace it. Obviously, tonight got extended [minutes] really in both halves. So it always helps to have a little bit of rhythm, for sure.”

The question is, will Robinson get another chance to play extended minutes in the Heat’s next game on Saturday or will Wednesday continue to be the outlier because of Strus’ early foul trouble?

While Robinson is shooting just 33.7 percent on 4.5 three-point attempts per game this season, he has proven to be one of the NBA’s top three-point shooters when he’s given consistent playing time. He became the new franchise leader for the most career three-pointers made by a Heat player earlier this season.

The Heat could use Robinson’s skill set in its rotation, considering it entered Thursday with the NBA’s fourth-worst team three-point percentage at 34.1 percent and sixth-worst offensive rating with 111.6 points scored per 100 possessions this season. And Miami is desperately searching for solutions, as it faces the real possibility of having to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament with just five regular-season games left on its schedule.

But Robinson’s defensive limitations are a big reason why his playing time has dipped this season.

“There could be,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked if there will be more consistent minutes for Robinson moving forward. “Look, everything is on the table right now. That’s where we are. We have to win games. He’s kept himself ready. That’s a hard thing to do, especially when it’s not an indictment on his play. We have just had a different rotation and we’ve gone with that. We’ve been searching for some consistency in our rotation when we’ve had a lot of revolving doors. But he kept himself ready and he’s given us a spark in his minutes in the last two games. So I think that’s something we can build on.”

BAM EXPLAINS

Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo was limited to just nine points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-2 shooting from the foul line in 35 minutes in Wednesday’s loss to the Knicks.

The performance put an end to Adebayo’s career-long streak of 87 straight games with double-digit points dating back to last season, which goes down as the fourth-longest such streak in Heat history behind LeBron James’ 294-game streak and Dwyane Wade’s 148-game and 111-game streaks.

“It was definitely an off night,” Adebayo said. “But also everybody is packing the paint now. So it’s not like those comfortable shots that I got in the first half of the season. Now it’s more so, if you can throw it to me in the pocket, it’s a quick pass to my teammate.”

With teams throwing more defenders at Adebayo when he gets the ball near or inside the paint, he has averaged 18.2 points per game while shooting 52.1 percent from the field in 18 games since the All-Star break. That’s down from his pre-break output of 21.6 points per game on 54.4 percent shooting from the field in 54 games.

“Man, watching film and figuring out the best way to score is probably in transition because they can’t load,” Adebayo said of adjusting to the adjustment defenses have made when guarding him. “So yeah, just going in transition and trying to get my buckets there.”