The Miami Heat have an intriguing dilemma with Tyler Herro ahead of the NBA Finals. Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green weighed in on how he believes they should handle the unique situation.
Tyler Herro has yet to play since his April 16th injury during Game 1 of the Heat-Bucks series in the very first round. He successfully had hand surgery a few days later with an initial timetable of 4-6 weeks. He'll be in Week 7 of recovery once the NBA Finals begin, with Draymond considering it a “dicey” proposition to deploy him under the wrong circumstances.
“Now, that's a very dicey thing,” said the Warriors star on his Draymond Green Show podcast. “When you've missed the amount of time that Tyler Herro has and you've gotten the rhythm that the guys have gotten into. Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, Kyle Lowry. All the guys off the bench. Caleb Martin. All of those guys are in rhythm.”
The Heat have managed to not only stay above water but pull off upset after upset without Tyler Herro. His absence has empowered other rotation players to step up, particularly Duncan Robinson and Caleb Martin who might not have gotten as much burn otherwise.
But on the other hand, Herro was a 20-point scorer for the Heat this season and their most consistent outside shooter averaging three triples per contest. A healthy Tyler Herro couldn't possibly be a bad thing. Draymond Green acknowledges that, but the Warriors star offered a more strategic way of integrating him back into the lineup.
“He's too talented not to bring back. But I wouldn't slot him into rotation. Why wouldn't I slot him into rotation? Well, again, remember all the guys that I just spoke about having a rhythm? I don't want to mess with that rhythm.
So what I'm going to save Tyler Herro for is when I need a spark. Like if I need a spark, say we go down one, oh, we go down two, oh, we need a spark. Tyler comes in, he gets it going.”
In other words: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Heat can test the waters without him at first, like the Warriors veteran is suggesting. With how formidable the Denver Nuggets have looked, they're bound to need a change of pace at some point. Who better than Erik Spoelstra to decide when exactly to do that.
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