Tyler Herro, zone defense help lead rally. Takeaways from Heat’s comeback win over Pistons
In Saturday’s loss to the Washington Wizards, the Miami Heat allowed a double-digit fourth-quarter lead to slip away. On Tuesday, the Heat overcame a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit.
Behind Tyler Herro’s fourth-quarter surge, the Heat (12-6) rallied to come away with a 100-92 victory over the rebuilding Detroit Pistons (4-13) on Tuesday night at Little Caesars Arena.
“Tyler just got into a great rhythm and the ball was finding him for a couple easy ones and he does what he does also and he made a couple tough ones, as well,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But everything was sparked by that defensive energy, full court, multiple efforts, the gang rebounding. It was like a tale of two teams.”
The Pistons pulled ahead by nine with 10:39 left in the fourth quarter.
But Herro sparked the Heat’s late-game run with back-to-back threes to cut the deficit to just three less than a minute later with 9:58 to play.
Herro then hit a midrange jumper to put the Heat ahead 80-79 with 8:09 remaining. It marked the Heat’s first lead since it was up 10-9 early in the first quarter.
The Heat went on to close the game on a 32-15 run on its way to the eight-point win.
Herro scored 14 points in the fourth quarter. He finished with a season-high 31 points on 12-of-21 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 shooting from three-point range, eight rebounds and three assists off the bench.
Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry each scored 15 points in the win. Adebayo and Butler each also had nine rebounds and five assists, and Lowry recorded seven of his eight assists in the fourth quarter.
“Whatever the team needs,” Herro said. “I always say whatever Spo and the team needs from me, that’s what I’ll try to do. I felt like we played sluggish through those first three quarters and I was able to make some shots, Kyle got me wide open threes, I knocked them down.”
It was a shaky Heat performance through three quarters. The Heat had just 67 points on 41.1 percent shooting from the field and 5-of-19 (26.3 percent) shooting on threes entering the final period.
The Heat continues its four-game trip on Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center (8 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) to complete the back-to-back set. Miami is 1-1 on the trip.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Pistons:
Herro has been the Heat’s go-to guy in fourth quarters this season.
Herro is averaging a team-high 6.6 points per game on 51.8 percent shooting from the field and 17 of 34 (50 percent) from three-point range in the fourth quarter this season. Only Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan has totaled more fourth quarter points (126 points) than Herro (113 points) this season.
The only five players in the NBA with at least 90 fourth-quarter points on 50 percent shooting or better this season are Herro, DeRozan, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey and Phoenix’s Chris Paul.
Herro, 21, has also played the second-most fourth quarter minutes in the NBA this season with 174. Only Charlotte’s Miles Bridges has played more minutes in the final period with 183.
That positive trend continued Tuesday, with Herro tying a regular-season career-high with 14 points in the fourth quarter. The only time he scored more in the final frame was when he contributed 17 fourth-quarter points in a playoff game against the Boston Celtics in 2020 in the Walt Disney World bubble.
“He really becomes energized in those kind of moments when there’s an opportunity for big shots or momentum shifting type shots, and that’s what he was able to do in the fourth quarter today,” Spoelstra said.
For some reason, the Heat has struggled recently to make threes in the first half. But Miami’s zone defense helped keep the game within reach until it began hitting shots.
Miami shot just 3 of 11 from deep in Tuesday’s first half and has now shot just 6 of 39 (15.4 percent) from three-point range during its past three first halves.
The Heat’s cold outside shooting was a big reason behind its seven-point deficit entering halftime in Detroit. The Pistons outscored the Heat 27-9 from beyond the arc in the first half on Tuesday.
“We were not in a great rhythm offensively, particularly in that first half,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t think anybody in that locker room felt like there was a rhythm or a flow in that first half. Detroit has a lot to say and do about that. But we didn’t really play with great energy and pace and multiple actions and getting the ball on one side of the floor to the other.”
Miami went on to shoot 6 of 18 from deep in the second half, while Detroit made just 1 of its 14 three-point attempts in the final two quarters.
The Heat played its zone defense during long stretches Tuesday and it worked to force the Pistons into tough outside shots. Detroit is shooting a league-worst 29.9 percent from three-point range this season.
“We had to go to it,” Spoelstra said of moving to zone. “In the second quarter and the beginning of the third, they were chewing us up in our man. At that point, we got down double digits and we went to it to just try to change the tempo of the game. Those guys did that and some. Their energy and multiple efforts was really inspiring.”
The Heat owns the NBA’s 13th-best three-point percentage this season at 34.6 percent. That’s just above average and there’s room for improvement there.
But it’s the inconsistent nature of Miami’s outside shooting that has been the more noticeable issue. The Heat has hit better than 40 percent of its threes in five of its 18 games this season while shooting worse than 30 percent from three-point range in eight games.
The Heat is looking to steady its early-season boom-or-bust three-point shooting.
It’s worth noting that despite its inconsistent outside shooting, the Heat holds the NBA’s fourth-best offensive rating this season.
The Pistons didn’t make it easy for the Heat, but their young roster has struggled to pick up wins this season.
Not only did the Pistons enter with the Eastern Conference’s second-worst record. But Detroit also came into Tuesday’s game against Miami with the NBA’s third-worst offensive rating, seventh-worst defensive rating and fourth-worst net rating.
The Pistons were also without two starters in Killian Hayes (thumb sprain) and Isaiah Stewart (league suspension).
Detroit scored just 16 points on 30 percent shooting from the field and 0-of-7 shooting on threes in the fourth quarter, allowing the Heat to rally for the victory.
There was a small change to the Heat’s rotation on Tuesday.
With veteran forward Markieff Morris unavailable for the past two weeks, the Heat has typically gone with a four-man bench rotation of Herro, Dewayne Dedmon, Caleb Martin and Max Strus when the rest of the rotation has been healthy.
But against the Pistons, Spoelstra played guard Gabe Vincent over Strus. Vincent missed all four of his shots from the field and finished with one point on 1-of-2 shooting from the foul line and two steals in 18 minutes on Tuesday.
Vincent scored a season-high 18 points off the bench in Thursday’s win over the Wizards with Herro unavailable that game because of a wrist injury. But with Herro back, Vincent did not play in Saturday’s loss to the Wizards.
On Tuesday, it didn’t matter that Herro was in his usual sixth man role. Vincent played against the Pistons, but at the expense of Strus’ minutes.
“This team was so quick and that’s not something that is any kind of indictment on Max,” Spoelstra said of his decision to play Vincent over Strus in Detroit. “It’s just the speed and quickness, and they were playing small ball. It just felt like we needed another ball-handler out there and another guy that can contain off the dribble.”
It marked Strus’ first healthy scratch of the season. He missed five games earlier this month because of a sprained left knee.
The only Heat players who were unavailable because of injury on Tuesday were Marcus Garrett (right wrist tendinitis), Morris (whiplash) and Victor Oladipo (right knee injury recovery).
Duncan Robinson’s streaks continue.
Robinson exited Saturday’s loss to the Wizards in the third quarter and did not return because of a right knee contusion. But the injury didn’t force him to miss any time.
The Heat’s sharpshooter was in his usual starting spot against the Pistons, finishing with 11 points on 3-of-6 shooting from deep and three rebounds in 23 minutes.
That means Robinson, 27, has appeared in 165 consecutive games dating to April 9, 2019, which is the second-longest streak in franchise history behind Glen Rice’s 174 consecutive games played.
Robinson has also made a three-pointer in 66 consecutive regular-season games, which is a franchise record. The last regular-season game he did not hit a three-pointer in was a Feb. 9 Heat win over the New York Knicks.
This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 9:30 PM.
