Miami Heat star Tyler Herro is receiving some flak for a late-game decision he made in the team’s loss to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday.
With under a minute left to go in the contest and the Heat trailing by five points, Herro came up with a steal and had an open lane to the basket for a layup that would have cut the deficit to three. But rather than getting the easy two points, Herro pulled up for a 3-pointer and missed the shot, and Miami ended up not scoring at all on that possession.
did i just watch tyler herro decline the wide open layup for a 3 pic.twitter.com/hXmenteyQx
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) April 10, 2025
Herro’s missed 3-pointer during crunch time got its own segment on “First Take” on Thursday. ESPN’s David Dennis Jr. said the shot was representative of “the Tyler Herro experience,” and his colleague Brian Windhorst was also critical of the decision from the former University of Kentucky standout.
"This is the Tyler Herro experience." 😂 @DavidDTSS and @WindhorstESPN react to Tyler Herro passing up an open layup to shoot a three in the final minute of Heat-Bulls. pic.twitter.com/SIoa0JauJ5
— First Take (@FirstTake) April 10, 2025
“A for entertainment, F for situational awareness,” Windhorst said. “The Heat love Tyler Herro. This mentality is what helped turn him into an All-Star from the back-end lottery pick or wherever he was taken. I think he was like taken 12th, 13th pick. That’s who he is. But Erik Spoelstra admitted after the game, ‘I gotta coach him better.’ Because with 43 seconds left, you cut the lead down to one possession, you get a defensive stop and then you have a timeout and you can set it up. This is not controversial. You go for the layup. Tyler knows he should’ve gone for the layup.”
Herro might have made a misjudgment on Wednesday, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s played the best basketball of his NBA career with the Heat this season. He’s averaging 23.9 points per game while shooting 47.1 percent from the field and 37.3 percent from 3-point range in his sixth season in the league.
The shooting guard has also been consistently on the court for the Heat this season after he was limited to just 42 appearances last season. He’s played 76 games in the 2024-25 campaign. Herro hadn’t played in more than 67 games in a single campaign prior to this season.
While the Heat have already clinched a spot in the upcoming play-in tournament, Miami hasn’t exactly played great basketball to wrap up the regular season, and that could come back to bite the team in the tournament. The Heat have lost three of their last four games played and currently own the No. 10 seed in the East.
Hopefully, the Heat will at least win each of their last two games, which will come against subpar opponents. Miami will take on the New Orleans Pelicans and Washington Wizards. The Pelicans own the second-worst record in the West, while the Wizards hold the worst record of any team in the East.
