By Barry Jackson
Tyler Herro knew the question was coming. He cracked at first that he wasn’t going to give the media anything, at least anything good, about what was coming.
Ultimately, though, a man can take only so much disrepect.
And so Herro delivered a zinger after Cleveland guard Darius Garland’s eyebrow-raising comments about him after Cleveland’s win in Game 2.
Asked Wednesday night what the key is to playing clean basketball and limiting turnovers against the Heat, Garland said: “Pick on Tyler Herro and take care of the ball. Don’t play in tight spaces and pick on their weak defenders.”
Asked for a response Friday, Herro said: “The game plan is the game plan. There was some back and forth between me and Darius on the court. To go to the media to talk about game plan ‘this or that’ kind of says a lot about him. I’m not worried about Darius Garland. I’m worried about winning a playoff game, and that’s what we came back to Miami to do, to win two at home. I’m not too [concerned] with what Darius Garland has to say about me.”
Herro will have his chance when the Heat, down 0-2, plays Cleveland in Game 3 at 1 p.m. Saturday at Kaseya Center.
Herro was asked this as well: Is the type of the comment that Garland made inappropriate for a player to say about another player?
“It’s cool,” Herro said. “At the end of the day, it’s competitive. But somebody who doesn’t play defense shouldn’t be talking. He don’t play any defense. We’ll see that tomorrow. I have enough fuel in me, in this locker room, around the organization, in the building, I don’t need any fuel from that guy over there.”
Bam Adebayo said players who make comments (like Garland did) “cannot hide. He said what he said; we all take that personal.
“I already have respect for Tyler Herro. He walked in like, ‘I’m a bucket’ with that swagger. You’ve seen what he’s progressed to now. The media throwing his name in the mud. ‘He’s fragile.’ Even our president has went at him before. It’s definitely made his tougher [and have a thick] skin.”
Adebayo was referring to Heat president Pat Riley respectfully saying last May that Herro has been “fragile” in terms of missing games with injuries, something that wasn’t an issue during this past regular season that included his first All Star berth.
According to NBA.com’s tracking data, both Herro and Garland have struggled defensively in two playoff games. Herro is allowing the player he’s guarding to shoot 63.6 percent from the field (21 for 33). Garland is permitting the player he’s defending to shoot 66.7 percent (12 for 18).
The Cavaliers have scored an efficient 1.2 points per possession on the 50 possessions that Herro been the screener’s defender. Cleveland has relentlessly hunted Herro’s defense, as he he was the screener defender on a career high 32 possessions in Game 2.
During the regular season, Herro allowed the player he was defending to shoot 48.5 percent, compared to the 45.6 those players shot overall. Garland yielded 46.6 percent shooting, worse than the 45.5 percent those players generally shoot.
Among player who spent much of the season in the Heat’s rotation, only Terry Rozier (48.8) had a worse shooting percentage against than Herro, per the league.
This and that
▪ If Oklahoma City sweeps Memphis following the Heat game on Saturday, then Monday’s Game 4 of the Cavaliers-Heat series at Kaseya Center would begin at 7:30 p.m. and be televised on both TNT (no local blackout) and FanDuel Sports Network Sun.
If Memphis wins Game 4 against the Thunder, then the Cavs-at-Heat Game 4 on Monday would begin at 7 p.m. and be televised locally on FanDuel Sports Network Sun and elsewhere in the country on NBA TV.
Both cablecasts of Saturday’s Game 3 -- on TNT and FanDuel Sports Sun -- will air in South Florida.
▪ Heat forward Andrew Wiggins, who did not play in the fourth quarter said, he “respects and supported” Spoelstra’s decision to stick with others, including Nikola Jovic and Haywood Highsmith, as Miami was making a late rally that came up short.
“The team is rolling, you go with them and let them keep going. Next time, I try to do more, give him a reason to keep me out there. Stay assertive, stay aggressively, defensively be disruptive.”
He said he hasn’t been aggressive enough the first two games. He shot 3 for 10 and scored 10 points in Game 2.
“I’ll find different ways to get downhill to open stuff up,” he said.
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 1:53 PM.
