No Scrubs, Chuck: A look into Tyler Herro's scoring against starters
The Miami Heat guard is doing as much scoring against opposing stars as he is against reserves.
As the Miami Heat were assessing an eight-point halftime lead against the Mavericks in a locker room in Dallas on Tuesday night, Charles Barkley was on the set of TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” doing his usual schtick taking aim at a young player.
This time, Barkley’s target was Tyler Herro, who would end up leading the Heat with 25 points on 11 for 20 shooting in Miami’s 125-110 win over Luka Doncic’s Mavericks. The news peg: Herro’s preseason comments that he should be in the “same conversation” as up-and-coming pros such as Doncic, Atlanta’s Trae Young and Memphis’ Ja Morant.
“Listen I like Tyler Herro, and I’m a big Tyler Herro fan, but just because they got the same numbers, those guys got to carry a team every night,” Barkley began, referring to the fact that Herro is averaging about as many points (22.4) as Doncic (24) and Young (22.9) on better efficiency.
“And first of all, the second issue is, he’s playing against backups,” he continued. “The pressure of going and being the man is not the same as going, ‘Hey, Tyler, come off the bench and shoot it any time you want to.’ You’re playing against scrubs on the second unit.”
But here’s the thing: Herro isn’t doing it just against scrubs. Because of his minutes pattern, the league’s leading bench scorer is racking up nearly half his points against the NBA’s best players.
This isn’t meant as a critique of Barkley. He has a job, and that job is to entertain, and the way to entertain in a limited allotment of time is to come with the hot takes. To enjoy Chuck is to suspend your belief that you will be getting in-depth analysis and instead, sit back and be entertained by the four-time Emmy award winner’s antics. But Barkley’s comments do serve as an opening to analyze Herro’s performance this season.
Herro is Miami’s first player off the bench, taking Kyle Lowry’s place at the midway point of the first quarter. Herro will then play the remainder of the period — typically when most teams play their starters a bulk of the minutes — and all or most of the second quarter. When he is shooting well, as he has been this season, he earns a spot in the closing lineup. Copy and paste that pattern for the second half.
The result is that nearly 49% of Herro’s points are against opponents’ best players. If that seems low, consider the fact that star players spend plenty of time against opposing bench units as coaches have leaned more towards staggering their top scorers.
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Below is a snapshot of Herro’s production against each of Miami’s seven opponents. Against the Bucks on opening night, four of Herro’s 27 points came when both Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton were on the floor. That was a season-low. Against the Nets a few nights later, nine of his 14 points were against both Kevin Durant and James Harden. Against Memphis, 12 of 22. Against Dallas, 11 of 25. This is a purposely conservative estimate, factoring in Herro’s minutes with both opposing stars on the court — not just one.
On the flip side, Doncic played 22 of his 36 minutes and scored 16 of his 33 points against Miami’s core starters. Those are all higher rates than Herro. In that respect, Barkley has a point. But there’s only so much the 21-year-old can do when veterans Lowry and Butler are ahead of him in the rotation.
“The world knows he can score the ball with the best of ‘em,” Butler said of Herro after Tuesday night’s win. “We need him to keep doing that.”
The efficiency is there. Herro is shooting 47.2% overall, 40.8% from 3-point range and is on track to shatter his career-high for scoring in a season. He’s Miami’s second-leading scorer behind Butler, and tops in the NBA among bench scorers. Digging deeper into the data, Herro is actually recording a greater portion of his points against starters (49%) than minutes (44%) — meaning he performs better when going against the opponents’ best players.
He’s bailed out Miami’s offense on more than one occasion by going into his bag late in a possession and leads the Heat with 21 points on 42.9% shooting in the final four seconds of the shot clock so far this season.
“You’re talking about somebody who is becoming one of the more skilled players in this league,” Spoelstra said of Herro. “This league is becoming a skill league, and if you're one of the most skilled players in this league you're going to be extremely effective and efficient.”
The Heat, at 6-1, sit atop the Eastern Conference standings and have seen their title odds recently go from 25-to-1 to 12-to-1. There are many reasons for Miami’s impressive start, and Herro is one of them. Whatever Barkley or any pundit may say, he is thriving in the role the Heat need him to play.
“I don't think I have anything to prove,” Herro said. “I can score, I feel like with anyone.”