Tyler Herro (NBA.com photo)
When the Miami Heat needed him the most, rookie Tyler Herro seemed to be at his best in Tuesday’s Game 4 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. He finished with 21 points, seven rebounds, three assists and one steal in 37 minutes.
“He’s already been that kind of guy for us in the playoffs, so it’s not about developing a new package,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said after Tuesday’s game. “Against a defense as good as L.A.’s, you’re going to need a lot of guys contributing and different guys that are threats to make them react in a different way.
“And Tyler can make plays in a lot of unscripted ways, which is really important. At the same time with Tyler it feels like, you know, he’s not really a 20-year-old rookie player with us.
“He’s been through three training camps, he went through Summer League last year, went through our training camp, went through a full season, and then the restart, he went through a training camp here. So it almost feels like this is his third season in many regards. But we’ll need all of it for the next one.”
The next one is Friday night when the Heat have to win to continue their magical postseason run.
“Tyler’s got to be Tyler,” Bam Adebayo said. “At the end of the day we don’t want him to be anything different than what he wants to be as a player in this league. So he’s got to score the ball, he got to make passes and we expect that from him.
“He is what, 19, 20? 20. He’s a rookie in The Finals, so it’s fast paced, he’s trying to figure it out and I feel like he’s figuring it out and he’s getting better.”
