Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro reacted to a controversial call that ruled him out of bounds in the Heat’s loss to the New York Knicks on Friday night.
Herro had two points taken away when an official ruled that his foot touched the baseline, but the replay seemingly shows that Herro stayed in bounds. The Heat ended up losing Friday’s game by just two points.
Herro had a huge game for the Heat, scoring 29 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field (5-for-8 from beyond the arc). He also added eight rebounds, six assists and a huge steal that gave the Heat the lead late in the game.
The reigning Sixth Man of the Year deflected the ball away from Julius Randle in the closing minute, chasing it down and then making a layup to put Miami ahead 120-119.
Unfortunately for the Heat, that bucket didn’t hold up as the game-winner. Randle, on a crazy possession, ended up draining a 3-pointer in the final seconds to put the Knicks up 122-120, which wound up being the final score.
Heat fans can only imagine how differently the game would have gone had Herro’s bucket earlier in the contest counted, but what’s done is done.
The Heat fought hard on Friday night, erasing a double-digit halftime deficit against a tough Knicks team. But with the team ultimately coming up short, Miami is now 4.5 games behind the Knicks in the Eastern Conference standings.
The bigger concern for the Heat right now may be the Atlanta Hawks, who have pulled to within half a game of Miami for the No. 7 seed.
Herro and the Heat are going to need to turn things around quickly if they want a chance at avoiding the play-in tournament. They are currently 2.5 games back of the No. 6 seed.
Miami’s loss to the Knicks was the team’s sixth defeat in its last seven games. The controversial Herro call is just another sign that things aren’t going Miami’s way, and the team doesn’t have much time to push the reset button with the Hawks in town for a game on Saturday night.