Kyle Lowry after Heat’s 1-3 start to season: ‘We’re just trying to figure it out’

When the Miami Heat made the decision to bring back most of last season’s roster that finished just one win short of reaching the NBA Finals, continuity was expected to be a strength.

But after closing a season-opening four-game homestand with a rough 98-90 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Monday night that dropped the Heat to 1-3, veteran point guard Kyle Lowry explained why continuity from season to season should never be assumed even if a roster is filled with familiar faces.

Heat drops to 1-3 with loss to Raptors. Takeaways from defeat and what went wrong

“We’re just trying to figure it out,” Lowry said as he sat in front of his locker following Monday’s defeat, with the Heat now hitting the road to begin a three-game West Coast trip on Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers (10 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). “I mean, honestly, it’s four games in. I think we’re trying to figure it out. I know we said running it back, and I agree with that, but we still have different guys in different roles in different situations. So we have to figure it out, how to all be on the same page.”

Lowry, 36, is among those still trying to figure out how they fit within this season’s Heat mix in his 17th NBA season. He turned in his second quiet performance in the first four games with a stat line that included just seven points on 1-of-8 shooting from the field and 1-of-6 shooting on threes, three rebounds and two assists in 36 minutes in Monday’s loss.

Through the first four games, Lowry has averaged 10.8 points while shooting 28.2 percent from the field and 7 of 25 (28 percent) on threes, 3.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game to begin his second season in a Heat uniform. He recorded a usage rate of (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of just 16.4 percent in the first week of the season, which would be his lowest single-season usage rate since his rookie campaign in 2006-07 when he played in just 10 games with the Memphis Grizzlies.

“I could probably have the ball a little bit longer, keep the ball in my hands a little bit more. That could help,” Lowry said when asked how he can generate more shots for himself. “But I’m an unselfish player. So sometimes it’s called for you to kind of get off the ball and let the game come to you.”

Part of Lowry’s adjustment this season has been learning how to play as part of a new Heat starting lineup that now includes guard Tyler Herro and forward Caleb Martin. Both Herro and Martin played primarily as reserves last season.

Moving Herro into the starting lineup has added another ball-handler and high-usage player to the unit and promoting Martin to a starting role has added another attacker and slasher to the group. Those are among that factors that, so far, have required Lowry to play more of an off-ball role than last season, which is evident based on his low usage rate from the first four games.

“We got guys who can really play basketball,” said Lowry, who is the third-highest paid player on the Heat’s roster this season behind only Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler with a $28.3 million salary in the second year of a three-year, $85 million contract. “We’ve got guys who can really make plays and we’ve just got to all find ways to mix and match, not take turns, but figure out how to play off each other a little bit better, and play with each other a little bit better. Honestly, everybody has a different role this year, things are a little bit different, right? Tyler’s in the starting lineup and Bam’s more aggressive. We’ve got different lineups with this, that and the other and we’re just trying to figure it out right now.”

The Heat has been below average on both ends of the court to start the season, entering Tuesday with the NBA’s third-worst offensive rating (scoring 105.6 points per 100 possessions), 13th-worst defensive rating (allowing 110.7 points per 100 possessions) and ninth-worst net rating (being outscored by 5.1 points per 100 possessions).

“Coach [Erik Spoelstra] said we’ve got young ambitious guys and we’ve got old veteran guys and we’ve got to find a way for all of us to bring it together,” Lowry said. “It’s 15 of us. We’ve got to find a way to kind of all be on the same page.

“I think we’re a good team and we know each other well. We’ve just got to figure out how to grow and continue to grow, and not be inconsistent one game and the next game. And I’m not talking about playing wise, I’m just talking about the style of play. That’s one thing. You’re going to miss shots and shots are going to not go in, but at the same time, you can play the same exact way every day.”

At 1-3, this marks the Heat’s worst four-game start to a season since opening the 2007-08 schedule with a 0-5 record. It doesn’t get much easier for Miami on its upcoming three-game trip, with matchups against the the undefeated 4-0 Trail Blazers on Wednesday and defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors on Thursday before closing the trip against the struggling Sacramento Kings on Saturday.

“I think we’ve just got to go out there and play, at the end of the day,” Lowry said when asked how the Heat should approach the upcoming road trip. “The road is the road, a hostile environment. We’ve just got to go out there and hoop and find a way to try to win games and take it one by one and possession by possession. We can’t look at the whole trip. Look at it is as the next game is Portland and concentrate on Portland.”