What would Tyler Herro’s injury-related comeback entail for the Heat in the 2023 NBA Finals?
In the opening playoff game, Herro injured his right hand.
With just over a minute remaining in the first half of the Miami Heat’s first round match, Tyler Herro lunged for a loose ball. He took some time to stand up, and when he did, he originally bolted for the locker room after leaving the floor. He positioned himself in the corner, grasping at his right hand and wincing in pain, when he noticed that the Heat were in the midst of an attacking possession. Gabe Vincent nonetheless passed the ball to him, and he took the opportunity to shoot, but he dreadfully missed.
Herro remained on the pitch for the rest of the half before being done for the contest and, most likely, the year. He fractured his right hand, according to the Heat. The Milwaukee Bucks, the top-seeded team, had tied the series at one game apiece with Giannis Antetokounmpo missing Game 2 by the time they revealed he had undergone surgery and was anticipated to miss at least six weeks.
Miami had a 44-38 record at the end of the regular season, a poor point differential, and the NBA’s 25th-best offence. Herro slightly outperformed Jimmy Butler in terms of usage rate (25%) and scoring average (20.1, 56.6% of the time on true shots). The Heat appeared to need both his shotmaking (he made 36.9% of his pull-up threes with solid volume) and his two-man game alongside Bam Adebayo. His departure appeared to be a setback for their already precarious hopes versus Milwaukee.
The Heat then easily defeated the Bucks in Game 3, with Duncan Robinson scoring 20 points in 23 minutes despite not appearing at all in the first half of Game 1. Butler’s 56 points and a few big shots from Caleb Martin helped them win Game 4 as well. In Game 5, Butler scored 42 points, and they outlasted the Bucks in a come-from-behind, overtime victory because to Vincent’s 22 points and Kevin Love’s 5-for-11 performance from outside the arc. This is similar to how they stunned the Bucks in the 2020 bubble.
Miami has eliminated the New York Knicks and stunned the No. 2 seeded Boston Celtics to advance to the NBA Finals, much like the bubble team did previously. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Herro might make a comeback as soon as Game 2 on Sunday, marking six weeks since his surgery. The Heat are in a difficult position to determine how much their starting shooting guard, who just recently signed a four-year, $120 million contract, will help and how much it will hurt given how they got here and the strengths of their Finals opponent.
Even while it’s awkward, this isn’t necessarily Tom and Shiv in the limo awkward. Miami’s coaching staff was able to balance the rotation thanks to Herro’s absence, which also made room for Martin, Vincent, Robinson, and Max Strus to get more comfortable on offence and increased Butler’s usage. The Heat went from an above-average defensive club to an exceptional one by completely eliminating a high-minute, offense-only player. Brad Stevens, the president of the Boston Celtics, said during his team’s final press conference of the regular season on Thursday that his team “had trouble getting by that first line of defence with all the helping hands and activity” and that the ball pressure forced Boston to initiate its offence later than it wanted to and become stagnant in the final minutes of games.
Could Herro’s scoring against the Denver Nuggets be helpful? Yes, provided that less than two months have passed since he broke his shooting hand and that he is able to immediately enter the most demanding setting imaginable. As the Nuggets racked up victories during the regular season, the only reason to be wary of their chances of winning the championship was the possibility that they would face a team that can spread them out in the postseason. Even with healthy Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Bruce Brown on the roster, they are theoretically exposed to offences like those of the Golden State Warriors from last season and the Phoenix Suns from the year before, which combined precise spacing with pull-up shooting and pinpoint passing.
Adebayo and Herro’s two-man game might actually be a big concern.
The 104-93 defeat Miami suffered in Game 1 on Thursday would seem to indicate that Herro is in a prime position to save the day. The Heat managed just 93.3 points per 100 possessions in the halfcourt, according to Cleaning The Glass, and scored a pitiful 100 points per 100 possessions overall. Butler didn’t attempt a free throw but still managed to score 13 points on 14 attempts. Since Denver was also incredibly inefficient by its norms and Miami had their least efficient game of the playoffs, one may draw the conclusion that Miami could afford to forgo some defence in exchange for points.
It would be risky to draw that conclusion. Despite the statistics, I was much more worried about the Heat’s defence than their offence after the first game. They appeared small in comparison to the Nuggets, and Nikola Jokic was unconcerned by their double-teaming or fronting. I really doubt Porter and Murray will miss a combined 14 of 18 3-point attempts on Sunday given their similar looks.
It would be risky to draw that conclusion. Despite the statistics, I was much more worried about the Heat’s defence than their offence after the first game. They appeared small in comparison to the Nuggets, and Nikola Jokic was unconcerned by their double-teaming or fronting. I really doubt Porter and Murray will miss a combined 14 of 18 3-point attempts on Sunday given their similar looks.
Erik Spoelstra is likely to find a spot for Herro in this series if there is one. However, with Robinson frightening out defences even on his off nights with Haywood Highsmith making a variety of game-winning performances, there isn’t a clear-cut choice to remove from the rotation. Herro will have defensive challenges as soon as he goes onto the court, but not in the same way that other teams do. When playing against Denver, it’s important to avoid off-ball screens and maintain consistent communication in addition to showing up when your man sets a ball screen and recovering from it.The Heat might not want to revisit the zone after giving the Nuggets some possessions to analyse it outside of Jokic minutes, a sceptic could caution. Denver usually makes you pay if you let it look at something exploitable.
