Three games into the 2011-12 season, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade had attempted zero three-pointers. Combined.

The season before, they'd have taken about 19 by that point. But after losing the 2011 Finals to Dallas, the Heat came out of the lockout looking like a different team. LeBron and Wade put their heads down and went at the rim, over and over, and dared defenses to stop them before they got there. Early that season LeBron was shooting 78.9 percent inside three feet. "I've cut back a lot," LeBron said at the time. He still worked on the three. It just wasn't the plan anymore.

The numbers held all season. LeBron went from 3.5 three-point attempts a game in 2010-11 to 2.4. Wade went from 2.7 to 1.1. Chris Bosh took fewer than one a game. Miami went 46-20, LeBron won MVP, and the Heat won their first championship of the Big Three era.

Fifteen years later, Erik Spoelstra has a version of that problem again, and I think the answer is the same.

Miami ranks second in the NBA in pick-and-roll efficiency at 1.13 points per possession, behind only Houston, according to Genius Sports data reported by the Miami Herald's Anthony Chiang. It also uses fewer on-ball screens than any team in the league. The Heat have one of the most effective plays in basketball and run it less than anyone else.

When they've run it more, they've won more. During the 0-4 start, Miami ran 29.1 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions. Over the next seven games, a 5-2 stretch, that jumped to 38. Spoelstra hasn't overhauled anything. "I wouldn't say massive," he said of the changes. Davion Mitchell's takeaway about his coach was simpler: "That he can adapt."

The early numbers on Giannis as a roll man are absurd: 1.79 points per possession, per NBA stats cited by All U Can Heat. It's a tiny sample and it will come down. But it tells you what happens when a 6-foot-11 downhill force catches the ball on the move with the defense already in rotation.

Now let’s compare that to what I feel that Giannis and Bam have been doing too often.

Giannis is taking 2.4 threes a game, the most he's attempted in four seasons, as Ethan Skolnick from the 5 Reasons Sports Network pointed out last week. Skolnick called it "the ultimate bail out play for a defense," and he's right. Every time Giannis settles for a three, the defense gets to skip the hardest part of its job. It's actually worse late in games. Through Miami's first eight games, Giannis was 0-for-5 in clutch situations, per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, and he's 10-for-33 on clutch threes this decade. Bam was 0-for-4 on clutch threes this season and is 7-for-37 for his career. On clutch twos, Bam was 5-for-7.

Bam's case is the more complicated case, but I want to be fair to him. He spent last season being asked to stretch the floor, and he took 5.5 threes a game, nearly double his previous career high. His two-point attempts dropped to 10.2 a game, his lowest since 2018-19, and he shot a career-worst 44.2 percent from the field. He did what the team asked, and THAT team needed it. But his team doesn't.

Next to Giannis, Bam's best version is as a screener who catches on the short roll, reads the help and either finishes or finds the open man. That's the action Miami is already second in the league at. It just needs more of it.

Bam Adebayo by play type over the first 10 games.

PnR RollMan: 1.14 PPP
Transition: 1.23 PPP
Putbacks: 1.22 PPP
Cuts: 1.63 PPP
Post Up: 1.25 PPP

Spot Up: 0.6 PPP

*10 game sample size*

— bambeliever (@134DPOY) November 10, 2026

The 2012 Heat didn't stop shooting threes. LeBron and Wade did. Mario Chalmers took 4.1 a game and made 38.8 percent. Mike Miller made 45.3 percent. Shane Battier took 2.8 a night. The threes didn't disappear, instead, they moved to the players who should have been taking them, because LeBron and Wade collapsing the defense created better looks for everyone standing outside the arc.

That's the blueprint for this team. Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Ryan Conwell, Pelle Larsson and Davion Mitchell should be taking Miami's threes, ideally off kickouts from a defense that just had to deal with Giannis rolling to the rim.

In addition to more screens, Klay also participates in a unique way that is already part of the fix: Miami's dribble handoffs have doubled from six per 100 possessions last season to 12, mostly because of how he works with Bam and Giannis. A handoff into a ball screen into a roll is the kind of action that bends a defense until it breaks.

But now that Giannis jumper is cooking Utah way too much

No more air space on the next possession, which leads to a Giannis ball reversal

Finds Klay as a quick trigger, and Klay’s defender obviously has to go over the screen

Klay knocks down the pull up 3

Things are building pic.twitter.com/SYv4mpGefN

— Brady Hawk (@BradyHawk305) November 11, 2026

There's also a physical reason this matters, and it's the part I'd stress as someone who works with athletes' bodies for a living. A three or a long two lets the defense stay in front of you. A rim attack is a shot you take after the defense has had to move, shift, rotate and decide. Giannis and Bam just flat-out score more efficiently going downhill. They also make all four teammates harder to guard against, because they force the defense to pick its poison while moving. That's what drives free throws, offensive rebounds and fouls on the other team's best big.

The league has changed since 2012. Teams shoot far more threes now than they did then, and spacing matters more than it ever has. Even that 2012 title team eventually went smaller and spaced the floor more after Bosh got hurt in the second round.

Nobody is asking Giannis to never shoot a three. A wide-open look with the shot clock running down is fine. And pick-and-roll efficiency can drop as volume rises. Some of that 1.13 comes from teams not expecting it. Run it 50 times a night and defenses will adjust. But Miami isn't anywhere near that problem. It's at the bottom of the league in on-ball screens. There's a lot of room between where it is now and too much.

Spoelstra knows this, because he's done it before. He built an offense around two stars who stopped settling, went to the rim relentlessly, and let the shooters around them feast. It won him a championship.

He doesn't need to invent anything. He just needs to remember.