Herro ‘would love to come back for the Finals’
Guard Tyler Herro, who has been sidelined since sustaining a fractured right hand in the Heat’s playoff opener, said late Monday that he hopes to return to play at some point in the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets.
Asked about a report by TNT’s Chris Haynes that he’s targeting a return in Game 3 in Miami, which would be June 7, Herro said: “We’ll see. I don’t know.” The NBA Finals begin Thursday in Denver; Game 2 will be Sunday, also in Denver.
After Herro had surgery on the hand, the Heat said he would miss a minimum of six weeks. This past Sunday — a day before Game 7 of the Celtics series — was the six-week mark.
Herro said “there’s a little soreness in my hand still. But it’s all just postsurgery scar tissue and stuff like that, that I’m trying to work through right now. I would love to come back for the Finals, but we’ll see how my hand feels. It feels good. I’m feeling good.”
Within the past week, Herro was cleared to shoot and dribble with the surgically repaired hand. But he hasn’t participated in a contact practice.
“I’m going to be working out every day .... two, three times a day from here until the day I hopefully come back,” said Herro, who is traveling with the team. “So I’m always going to continue to work hard and see how my body responds day by day and try to come back as soon as possible.”
Guard Gabe Vincent said Herro’s return would be a boost.
“Obviously, Tyler was a huge part of our team and he still is whether he’s on the court or off the court,” Vincent said. “... It’s great to see him put in work and it’s good to see his progress.”
What has it been like for Herro to watch this team get to the Finals to put him in a position to return?
“After we won in Milwaukee, I had a feeling we would be going back to the Finals,” he said of the Round 1 victory. “It’s been a hell of a ride for sure. Just to be on the sideline, I’ve been on every road trip, I’ve been a part of everything thus far.
“Being here with the team has been awesome. Just to see the guys rally around each other; it’s been great. I’m excited to have an opportunity to possibly play again this season.”
Asked about dealing with the altitude in Denver, where the Heat hasn’t won since 2016, Herro said: “We play there once
a year, so we don’t really have much experience . ... But I mean, you can feel it. It’s an adjustment for sure. But at this point, our team is built for anything. I can see us trying to steal one or two like we did here [in Boston] in Game 1 and 2.”
Herro averaged 20.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 67 games (all starts) this season. He shot 43.9 percent from the field (37.8 percent on three-pointers) and led the NBA and set a Heat record by shooting 93.4 percent from the free throw line.
He also became the first player to make at least 40 free throws, without a miss, in the fourth quarter this season, since the NBA began tracking that in 1986.
Herro, 23, has a 17.7 points-per-game scoring average in 242 games
(100 starts) through four NBA seasons.
THIS AND THAT
Herro noted that the Heat also dealt with high altitude when Miami played San Antonio in Mexico City this season. The Heat beat the Spurs 111-101 on Dec. 17. The
altitude in Mexico City is 7,350 feet, much higher than Denver’s 5,276 feet.
Heat owner Micky Arison tweeted “Three Percent” after the game — a reference to ESPN’s analytics department giving Miami only a 3 percent chance to win the series. ESPN’s analytics department gives the Heat an 11.3 percent chance to beat Denver in the NBA Finals.
Heat wing Caleb Martin scored 135 points on 60 percent shooting in the series against Boston. Per CBS Sports, only six players have scored more points on 60 percent shooting in a conference finals in the past 40 years: Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Shawn Kemp, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
and Dwight Howard.
The Heat had seven undrafted players appear in a game in this postseason — the most any team that made an NBA Finals has had since 1966.
The Heat’s seven NBA Finals appearances since 2006 are the most in the league during those 18 years — one more than Golden State. The Heat is only the second eighth seed to make an NBA Finals, following the 1999 New York Knicks, who lost to the Spurs.
The Heat became the third team in NBA history to make an NBA Finals after ranking last in the league in scoring during the regular season, per ESPN.
Also per ESPN, the Heat has now won 41 consecutive playoff games when leading by at least 10 points at halftime, the second-longest streak in NBA history behind the Los Angeles Lakers (63 from 1985 to 2008). Miami’s last loss in which it led by as many as 10 at halftime was in 2000 at the Knicks. The Heat led 52-41 at halftime of Game 7 on Monday.