Heat moves to 3-0 on trip behind Tyler Herro’s career night. Takeaways from win over Rockets
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 111-108 win over the Houston Rockets (9-19) on Thursday night at Toyota Center to improve to 3-0 on its four-game trip. The Heat (15-15) closes the trip on Saturday against the San Antonio Spurs in Mexico City:
The Heat was without six players against the Rockets. But the short-handed Heat still managed to hold on to get back to .500 behind the highest-scoring game of Tyler Herro’s NBA career and a solid all-around display from Jimmy Butler.
With Bam Adebayo (sprained left ankle), Dewayne Dedmon (left foot plantar fasciitis), Kyle Lowry (rest), Victor Oladipo (left knee injury management), Gabe Vincent (left knee effusion) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery) out on the second night of a back-to-back, that left the Heat with just 10 available players against the Rockets: Butler, Jamal Cain, Udonis Haslem, Herro, Haywood Highsmith, Nikola Jovic, Caleb Martin, Duncan Robinson, Orlando Robinson and Max Strus.
Despite its thin roster, the Heat still managed to get past the young and rebuilding Rockets with the help of another big game from Herro.
Just 24 hours after tying his regular-season career-high with 35 points and hitting a game-winner in Wednesday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Herro set his new career-high for any game with 41 points on 13-of-20 shooting from the field, 10-of-15 shooting on threes and 5-of-5 shooting from the foul line to lead the Heat to Thursday’s victory. The 10 made threes set a new career-high for Herro and tied the Heat record for the most threes made in a game that’s also held by Duncan Robinson, Mario Chalmers and Brian Shaw.
“Tyler was fantastic again with his shot-making,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He just got in such a great rhythm.”
Thursday’s performance also included the highest-scoring half of Herro’s NBA career, as he totaled 25 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field, 6-of-8 shooting from three-point range and 5-of-5 shooting from the foul line in the first half. His previous career-high for points in any half was 22.
Herro scored 76 points on 25-of-43 (58.1 percent) shooting from the field and 19-of-32 (59.4 percent) shooting from three-point range in a back-to-back to remember that began with Wednesday’s standout night in Oklahoma City and ended with another one of his best NBA performances on Thursday.
With nine made three-pointers on Wednesday and 10 made three-pointers on Thursday, Herro joined Stephen Curry and James Harden as the third player in NBA history to hit at least nine threes in consecutive games. Herro is the first to do it during a back-to-back.
Butler didn’t score as many points as Herro, but he was an all-around force for the Heat after missing Wednesday’s win in Oklahoma City on the front end of the back to back because of right knee injury management. Butler returned to finish Thursday’s win with 20 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists, four steals and three blocks.
Thursday’s first half included five lead changes and six ties, but the Heat finally took control with a 22-9 run over the five minutes of the second quarter to turn a one-point lead into a 14-point lead entering halftime.
But the Rockets rallied to come all the way back and take a one-point lead with 11:41 left in the fourth quarter. Houston did it with the help of a dominant third quarter, outscoring Miami 33-20 in the period to cut the deficit to one before regaining the the lead in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter.
That’s when Herro again came through when it mattered most, making back-to-back threes for his own personal 6-0 run to put the Heat back ahead by five points with 10:54 to play. Miami led the rest of the way.
But the Heat still found itself in its league-leading 21st clutch game on Thursday when Houston cut Miami’s lead to five with 2:55 to play. A clutch game is defined as a game that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Rockets even had a chance to send the game to overtime in the final seconds. With possession of the ball and trailing by just three points with 12.7 seconds to play, Houston came out of a timeout and generated a would-be game-tying three-point shot for Kevin Porter Jr. that bounced off the rim and landed out of bounds with two seconds remaining.
The miss was the Rockets’ final opportunity to force overtime, as the Heat then dribbled out the clock. Miami managed to escape with the victory despite scoring its final points of the night with five minutes left in the fourth quarter.
The Rockets scored the final nine points of the game and still lost, as the Heat missed its last four field-goal attempts and committed three turnovers in the final five minutes of the contest.
The Heat has won the first three games of its current four-game trip by a combined 10 points.
“I think the games have still been close and they could go either way,” Herro said. “Right now, we’re covering for each other. I think we’re getting that unity that we had — I don’t want to go back to last year — but last year we had a bunch of guys covering for each other, making plays for one another and enjoying each other’s success and that’s what we’re doing right now. Coming out on this road trip, we knew how important it was and we’re just taking care of business.”
Spoelstra added: “Out foundation and our bread and butter has to be on the defensive side of the floor, committing to all the tough things. I just like seeing it again, us putting our body in front of drives, trying to take hits and then the ball hitting the floor and us being the first to the floor a lot more often than we were the first few weeks of the season.”
The Heat is hopeful Adebayo’s injury will be a short-term issue.
Adebayo missed Thursday’s game because of a sprained left ankle after logging 33 minutes in Wednesday’s win over the Thunder. It marked the third game that the Heat’s starting center has missed this season, with the first two coming last month because of a left knee contusion.
“He’s been dealing with it a couple of games,” Spoelstra said Thursday of Adebayo’s injured ankle. “If you saw him in the fourth quarter [Wednesday], this was an easy decision for the head coach. I mean, he was laboring in the fourth, just gutting it out. Part of that was he got kicked really hard in the shin, when he got knocked down in the third quarter. But the ankle has been bothering him for a little amount of time.”
The Heat has not been a good team without Adebayo this season, as it had been outscored by 7.7 points per 100 possessions in non-Adebayo minutes entering Thursday’s game. But Miami was able to survive Adebayo’s absence in Houston thanks to Herro and Butler.
The Heat is 1-2 in games that Adebayo has missed this season.
Without its starting center (Adebayo) and backup center (Dedmon), the Heat turned to Haslem to start at center on Thursday.
It not only marked just the fifth game that the 42-year-old Haslem has played in this season, but it represented his first start since Aug. 14, 2020 in the finale of the Heat’s eight seeding games in the Walt Disney World bubble.
In fact, it was only Haslem’s third start since the start of the 2015-16 season. Along with his start in the bubble, he also started Dwyane Wade’s final NBA game on April 10, 2019.
Haslem, who is in his 20th and final NBA season, finished Thursday’s win with zero points and two rebounds in a season-high 11 minutes.
“UD just gave us that tenacity and that toughness,” Spoelstra said. “Just from the very get-go, everybody understood how important this game was for us and I think UD had a large part in that just with his intensity that was almost spilling over the edge.”
Haslem started alongside Herro, Butler, Martin and Strus against the Rockets. It marked the 10th different starting lineup that the Heat has used this season.
With so many of the regulars unavailable, the Heat’s bench rotation on Thursday also seldom-used players.
The Heat used a three-man bench rotation of Highsmith, Duncan Robinson and Orlando Robinson.
Highsmith, who did not play in two of the previous three games and has already received 11 DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision) this season, finished with eight points, seven rebounds and three assists.
Duncan Robinson, who did not play in four of the previous seven games despite being healthy, scored eight points on 2-of-11 shooting from three-point range.
Orlando Robinson, who has spent most of the season in the G League and was just signed to his latest two-way contract by the Heat on Sunday, was a bright spot with nine points, six rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks in 36 minutes.
“Orlando really just coming in off the airplane and playing 36 minutes basically, and gave us a great presence under the rim on both sides,” Spoelstra said.
The only two available Heat players who did not play were rookies Nikola Jovic and Jamal Cain, who both rejoined the team in Houston for Thursday’s game after spending time in the G League with Miami’s developmental affiliate.
The Heat won despite off nights from two of its best three-point shooters.
Strus (2 of 11 on threes) and Duncan Robinson combined to shoot 4 of 22 (18.2 percent) from beyond the arc, but the Heat still managed to win because Herro and Butler were the two best players in Thursday’s game.
Strus’ three-point shooting slump continued, as he’s now 14 of 57 (24.6 percent) from three-point range in his last eight games.
But to Strus’ credit, he found other ways to make an impact against the Rockets to finish with 12 points, four rebounds and five assists. One of Strus’ two made threes also came at a good time, extending the Heat’s lead to 10 with 5:32 left in the fourth quarter.
“He’s always going to help space the floor for Tyler and Jimmy and Bam,” Spoelstra said of Strus. “He wasn’t able to do that tonight, but he knocked down a big one. When it felt like we needed a bucket, he knocked one down. And the great thing about Max is even if he misses some, he’s not going to stop taking his shot.”
This story was originally published December 15, 2022 at 10:32 PM.
