With Tyler Herro suffering an injury that will likely keep him out a few weeks, the Miami Heat face a tall task in surviving without him.
After a 1-4 start to the season, the Miami Heat has done a good job in climbing out of their early-season hole. Quietly, the Heat has won three games in a row to get to 4-4. However, life isn’t getting any easier for Miami. In the Heat’s win over the Memphis Grizzlies Wednesday night, Tyler Herro exited the game with what looked like a bad ankle injury.
Shortly after the game, Herro admitted that the expectation is that he’s going to miss at least a couple of weeks with a sprained ankle. Considering how well Herro was playing through the first seven games of the season, this is not only a huge knock to Herro’s momentum individually but also to the team as a whole as they were beginning to play a bit better over the last few games.
Tyler Herro said he expects to miss a couple weeks after spraining his ankle.
— Anthony Chiang (@Anthony_Chiang) November 9, 2023
Through the first seven games, Herro was the leading scorer for the Heat. He was averaging 25 points, six rebounds, and five assists per game on 45 percent shooting from the field and 41 percent shooting from 3-point range. In a lot of ways, he was the saving grace for an otherwise underwhelming offense.
The Miami Heat’s offensive struggles
At the moment the Heat’s offense, even with Herro, leaves much to be desired. They ranked in the bottom five of the NBA in offensive rating and are ranked 27th in the league in points per game. If there’s any encouraging sign from the Heat’s first two weeks of the season on the offensive end of the floor, it’s the fact that they’re ranked sixth in the league in 3-point percentage.
Considering that’s a stat that plagued them last season, this is certainly a good sign. The problem is, the Heat isn’t taking enough 3’s for their efficiency from deep to have that big of an impact on their overall offensive numbers.
Losing 25 points per game is not going to be easy for the Heat to replace. Considering that Josh Richardson has left much to be desired in his return and the fact that Jimmy Butler hasn’t entirely looked like himself at this point in the season just yet, it’s no surprise why it’s easy to see why the Heat could be doomed by the Herro injury.
Eight of the Heat’s next nine games are on the road. With Herro out, we’re going to find a lot about the DNA of this team.