The Miami Heat are unlike any team we have seen in the NBA Playoffs in a long time, maybe since the 2004 Detroit Pistons. They don't have an MVP-level player and every night someone else is leading them to big wins. Jimmy Butler has made big plays, Goran Dragic has scored huge buckets, Bam Adebayo had one of the biggest blocks in NBA history, and now Tyler Herro had a massive Game 4 in a win over the Boston Celtics.
On the daily Locked On NBA Podcast, hosts Ben Golliver (Washington Post) and David Locke (Locked On Jazz) wonder how 12 teams passed on Herro in the NBA Draft and why the Heat have trusted a 20-year-old rookie so early in his career.
Ben Golliver: The Miami Heat trusted Tyler Herro very, very early on. They really rode him in that game. That's what the story Erik Spoelstra was talking about today in his postgame, this idea that there wasn't some ‘breakthrough aha moment' where all of a sudden, Tyler Herro became the guy who's going to go score 37 points in a playoff game, it was a matter of him just never letting up all year long when it came to self-improvement.
There were some moments where Herro really struggled early on. The Heat had kind of a bumpy season, there were some losing streaks involved, some rotation changes, and all that kind of stuff. Herro winds up keeping his head above water, continuing to have the faith of the coaching staff, but also Jimmy Butler, who's kind of the elephant in that locker room. He took him under his wing and all those things helped prepare him for this moment. As Butler said, ‘Give Herro all the credit.' He was the guy who was going out there and doing almost all this stuff one-on-one in isolation situations with all that pressure, and this guy just doesn't feel it.
That's the most incredible part about it, you can definitely see guys on all four teams that are left here, at certain moments they feel the weight of these Conference Finals. It's different because there are no fans, it's absolutely a weird experience, and everyone's kind of adjusting to it differently, but there are certain guys, especially the ones who feel like they've been playing basketball since they were born, the kind of the true ballers out there who are really thriving. I put Jamal Murray in that category and I definitely put Tyler Herro in that category too.
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