Heat’s Tyler Herro hoping to prove his growth in playoffs as potential extension awaits
During the Miami Heat’s roughest patch of the season, guard Tyler Herro was searching for answers and some open threes. Herro’s scoring and shooting efficiency had taken a dip after a scorching start to the season.
“I’m not getting any open looks,” Herro said to the Miami Herald in the middle of March, with the Heat battling through a miserable 10-game losing skid. “So that’s part of it. I’m pretty sure I shoot high 40s on open catch-and-shoot threes or open threes. I just haven’t gotten any good looks in the last about three months. ... When Jimmy [Butler] was here, he created three to five threes for me per game, where he would drive and kick it to me. But we don’t really have anyone right now that’s doing that.”
So after re-inventing his shot chart at the start of the season by taking fewer midrange shots and more three-pointers, Herro again needed to tweak his offensive game following the mid-season departure of Butler.
With Butler traded to the Golden State Warriors and defenses making the necessary adjustments, Herro wasn’t generating the same kind of three-point looks that he was getting when he was scoring a career-high 24.1 points per game and shooting a career-best 40 percent on a career-high 9.7 three-point attempts per game over his first 45 appearances of the season through January.
In fact, Herro’s scoring dipped to 21.9 points per game and he shot just 27.8 percent on eight three-point attempts per game over his next 22 appearances.
So, how did Herro adjust? By using opposing defenses’ game plan to take away his three-point looks against them, increasing his drives to the basket and finding cleaner two-point opportunities.
“Obviously, the way guys are guarding me now, I’m not getting the same catch-and-shoot threes I was getting at the beginning of the year,” Herro said, with the Eastern Conference’s eighth-seeded Heat opening the playoffs on Sunday night against the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers at Rocket Arena. “Even my pull-up threes off the bounce aren’t the same I was getting early on. A lot of guys are blitzing me or switching or being up on the pick-and-roll.
“So just finding different ways to be aggressive. I’m not going to get the same shots every game with just the way guys are guarding me. But I got to find different ways to be efficient. Also, context of games, knowing when to shoot the pull-up two, which I think I’m doing pretty well.”
Herro has done it very well lately, as he averaged 27.4 points and 4.9 assists per appearance while shooting an efficient 56.6 percent from the field and 47.4 percent from three-point range over the Heat’s final 12 regular season games. Miami went 8-4 during this stretch.
During the Heat’s two-game run in the play-in tournament to become the first 10th-place team in either conference to make the playoffs through the play-in, Herro exploded for 34 points and 5.5 assists per game while shooting 57.5 percent from the field and 8 of 17 (47.1 percent) on threes.
Herro’s growth will again be tested in the playoffs, going up against a Cavaliers team that finished the regular season with the NBA’s eighth-best defensive rating and did a solid job in limiting three-point opportunities. Just 37.7 percent of the shots that the Cavaliers defense allowed this regular season were threes, which was the ninth-lowest percentage in the league.
“I’m excited for it,” Herro said of the playoffs. “I think I’m ready for the opportunity. I know I’ll be ready to seize the moment.”
Over the final 12 games of the regular season, Herro averaged 2.1 more drives to the basket per game than he did through January, 3.6 more two-point shots per game than he did through January and 1.4 more free-throw attempts per game than he did through January.
“Look, what he did the first half of the season was the shot profile that we had laid out during the summer,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Herro. “Scouting reports get implemented, [Andrew Wiggins] was out, so he had to become a guy that just generates some offense for us. And a lot of those things are going to be midrange or wherever he can get an open crack in the defense on a floater or things like that. He has developed that skill set.
“What I really like about what he’s doing right now is he’s playing off the ball, off the catch and he’s using other opposing defenders’ aggressiveness against them on catch and gos. He’s so skilled that he’s going to make you pay if you’re moving against his catch, and that’s part of his evolution. And then if that scouting report changes, then he can still do it from behind the three-point line or on the catch or Wiggs gets it going and they start sending more attention to him. All of this is trending in a good way for our team.”
The 25-year-old Herro closed the regular season averaging career-highs in points (23.9 points per game) and assists (5.5 per game) while shooting a career-best 47.2 percent from the field. He was also selected for his first NBA All-Star Game this season.
Whatever happens in the playoffs, Herro and the Heat have something to figure out this upcoming offseason.
Starting Oct. 1, Herro is eligible to tack on a three-year, $149.7 million extension to the two years ($31 million and $33 million) he already has left on his contract following this season.
If an agreement is not reached on an extension by Oct. 20, Herro would be eligible to sign a four-year, $206.9 million extension during the 2026 offseason. He is supermax eligible (five years, $380 million) if he is selected for an All-NBA team during the 2025-26 season.
“It’s something I haven’t paid much attention to, obviously,” Herro said of a potential extension. “I’m going to let my agent and the organization figure that out. But everyone knows I want to be here long term and I’m definitely excited to see what they have to say for the extension, and see if they want me here as much as I want to be here.”
