Getty Tyler Herro of the Miami Heat reacts against the Atlanta Hawks.
Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro helped salvage a 111-108 win without Jimmy Butler in the lineup against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday, most notably thanks to a game-winning 3-pointer in the closing seconds.
With the game tied at 108, Herro dribbled the clock down, then attacked Kings guard Terence Davis. A pump fake got Davis in the air, and Herro buried a triple to give Miami the lead. The Kings couldn’t answer, and the Heat improved to 4-5.
Herro’s game-winner caused a mini-controversy post-game, however. Kings coach Mike Brown sounded off for several minutes, saying that while Herro is a “great player,” he shuffled his feet before shooting.
“He traveled,” Brown told reporters. “He traveled on the last play, and I would be — I would not be doing my job if I didn’t come up here and protect my guys. My guys fought their behinds off for close to 48 minutes, and to pump fake, then side-step or hop and then 1-2 into a shot, and not make that call, to me, it’s just unbelievable. And it’s not why we lost the game, although I didn’t think we got a fair whistle.”
Brown also believed Harrison Barnes deserved a foul call on an earlier play.
“Again, we lost,” Brown said. “We have to own up to it, but when you have a team fighting — both teams, both teams fighting as hard as they fought down the stretch of a back-and-forth game, and you’re not going to make the right call, right? It’s right in front of you. And then to say, ‘I didn’t see it,’ that’s tough. But then give them calls that are right in front of you, it’s tough to swallow as a coach, because again, you just feel for how hard our guys worked.”
Herro Thought the Play Was Clean
For his part, Herro didn’t think the play was a travel.
“Early in the game they called a travel on me that I also didn’t think was a travel,” Herro told reporters postgame. “I think I hit a mid-range pull-up right before and they called a travel. So I mean, just like last night with [Warriors guard] Jordan Poole, you can call a carry on every play, you can call a travel I’m pretty sure on almost every play. So you’ve got to take that one on the chin.”
The Heat Wanted the Ball in Herro’s Hands
With Butler out, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra wanted Herro to create something with time winding down — whether for himself or for someone else.
“Spo really just drew up a play to get me the ball in space,” Herro told reporters. “And whether it was my shot or creating — attacking and creating for someone else — I could have shot it or I could have went to the rim and dished it out off Bam or someone on the weak side for a three, but lucky enough it went in.”
Herro finished with a game-high 26 points on 12-for-21 shooting to go with 12 rebounds.
“He just did basically what Jimmy [Butler] did last night [against the Warriors], was create something out of nothing,” Spoelstra told reporters. “He’s a shot creator and a shot maker, and he’s not afraid of those moments. That was a big-time shot. The only criticism I have is he left a couple seconds on the clock. But he’s a gutsy kid, and he wants those moments, and he really delivered tonight.”