PHOTO - Miami Heat
He’s already earned NBA all-rookie honors, now former Kentucky player Tyler Herro is trying his best to get Miami in the championship round. He had 12 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists in Tuesday’s overtime win over Boston in the first game of the Eastern Conference finals. While he barely missed the rare playoff triple double, he became the only player under 21 years old to put up 12-11-9 in a conference final. The other player — a guy named Magic Johnson.
“Well, there’s no turning back now. We need him. So we talked enough about how much he’s grown and how he’s earned it during the course of the year. He had a lot of ups and downs during the year, but we need his skill set, particularly against a good defense like we’re facing,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said after the win.
Another former UK player, Bam Adebayo, also starts for the Heat. He says Herro just adds another element for the surging Heat who are 9-1 in the playoffs.
“At this point, years don’t matter. If you’re out there, you’re out there to produce and he was producing tonight. I’m proud of him,” Adebayo said after the overtime when where he had the game-winning block.
Of course, what would you expect from a player who got some extraordinary from his former coach John Calipari.
“I swear to God he never left the gym. And he had a chip. I always tell him he’s got elephant balls,” ESPN’s Jordan Schultz tweeted recently that Calipari told him.
Herro thought it was funny when he read the comment.
“Coach Cal doesn’t lie when he said he tells me that all the time. I mean, he’s been telling me that since I was at Kentucky. It was just something that he says to me a lot,” Herro said after Tuesday’s win where he hit two key 3-point shots late in the game.
He said his confidence comes from the hours in the gym that Calipari mentioned. That started before he got to UK and has not stopped.
“Just hours in the gym, my coaching staff and the rest of my teammates feed life into me, feed confidence into me and trust me and they want me to do what I’ve been doing,” Herro said.
How confident is he? It’s obvious when you see his reaction to making the all-rookie second team, a honor most players would love to have.
“Felt like I could have been on the first team but I’m happy with what I got,” Herro said.
