MIAMI — Duncan Robinson is a professional shooter, and he rode both those descriptors into a five-year, $90 million contract last summer. The shooting part is obvious, and we’ll get to that shortly. But the professional part is easier to overlook.
Robinson’s shooting struggles to start this season have been well chronicled. He made just 32 percent of his first 200 3-pointers of the season. But undrafted guys who have made their way in the NBA via the G League, slowly grinding out measures of respect on the stress of two-way contracts and inconsistent opportunities, guys who had to begin their college career playing at the Division III level? They don’t give in easily. And they don’t have an ego.
All Robinson has is his work ethic and the quiet confidence that if he stays the course, like he always has, the shots will eventually go in. The approach certainly paid off on Sunday, when Robinson drained a Miami postseason record eight 3-pointers as the Miami Heat blew the doors off the Atlanta Hawks, 115-91, in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
“Duncan needed that,” Kyle Lowry said of Robinson’s performance. “For us, we need that as a team. We’re happy for him and we just gotta continue to build on it. For [Duncan], just continue to fire the ball like he was. We just need him to fire the ball and shoot the ball with the confidence he did tonight, because he shot the ball extremely confident tonight. Every shot he took looked good.”
For Robinson, every shot didn’t just look good. Except for one, every shot was good. His eight 3s came on nine attempts and he was 9-for-10 overall. His 27 points are the third-highest postseason mark for a bench player in Heat history.
That “for a bench player“ qualifier is an important note. On March 28, after the Heat had lost four straight, Robinson was taken out of the starting lineup. When Twitter rumblings started that Robinson was…
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