Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro (14) reacts to making a basket in the last few minutes of the game against the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, at Kaseya Center in Miami. Alie Skowronski askowronski@miamiherald.com
Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro may have been the team’s leading scorer and lone All-Star last season, but he understood what he was returning to this season.
After missing the first 17 games of this season because of left ankle surgery he underwent on Sept. 19, Herro was returning to a Heat squad riding a five-game winning streak behind the NBA’s highest scoring offense and fastest-paced attack.
That’s why Herro went into his season debut without any big individual goals and instead just hoping to help the Heat continue its winning ways. And that’s exactly what Herro did, totaling a team-high 24 points to go with seven rebounds and three steals in 29 minutes in his return to help the Heat extend its winning streak to six games and improve to 12-6 this season in a 106-102 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night at Kaseya Center.
“I appreciate everyone,” Herro, 25, said after making his season debut in the first game of Miami’s four-game homestand. “My coaches, my teammates, everyone who allowed me to just come back into the lineup and just help try to win another game. I know they’ve been having a lot of fun, and just to be able to go out there and compete with them was great tonight.”
Even in Herro’s first game back, he played a big role in helping the Heat earn the win. Not only was he the Heat’s leading scorer on Monday, but he also made the game-winning basket on a 10-foot floater to break a 102-102 tie with 42.1 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
After missing his first four shots of the night, Herro made 12 of his final 14 shots of the game. He finished 8-of-11 from inside the paint, including 7 of 8 on floaters.
“It’s amazing that he could come back and have that kind of rhythm,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the homestand continuing on Wednesday with a pivotal NBA Cup group-play game against the Milwaukee Bucks (7:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “That’s only going to get better. And when you face the better defenses, you can see why we need that skill. You need as much skill and firepower as possible in this league. And it was just exciting to have him back.
“There’s not an adjustment for him in terms of how we play. He’s going to fit right in. He’s going to amplify everything we’re doing.”
Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro (14) warms up before the first half of a game against the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 24, 2025, at Kaseya Center in Miami. Alie Skowronski askowronski@miamiherald.com
But there is one big change to the Heat’s new-look offense that will require an adjustment from Herro. After using the most pick-and-rolls among Heat players last season, Herro returns to a Heat offense that’s running the fewest pick-and-rolls in the league this season.
Instead, the Heat’s uptempo offense is built around elite spacing and players being able to win 1-on-1 battles off the dribble. The offense also requires players to make the right decisions off the catch, whether it’s a catch-and-shoot look or a catch-and-go attack.
“A little bit,” Herro said when asked if there will be an adjustment to being involved in fewer pick-and-rolls this season. “A couple of times, I was ready to call Kel’el [Ware] up, like, let’s go pick-and-roll. But just being conscious of it, I think as the season goes on, we’re going to have to mix in a couple pick and rolls here and there. But at the end of the day, it’s about the patterns of recognition that our offense is kind of based on, the way we move without the ball, the spots we’re supposed to be in.”
Spoelstra believes Herro can thrive in the Heat’s new offense.
“He’s great with the decisions on the catch, playing out of close outs,” Spoelstra said. “Just wait until he gets comfortable shooting the catch three and playing off the catch that way. ... He’s done that for years now. It won’t take long for everybody just to get into rhythm. We want guys to gain confidence, to grow and hopefully this becomes something different weeks from now and something much better.”
But even with Herro back in the mix, the Heat was far from full strength on Monday.
The Heat was without three rotation players in Nikola Jovic (right hip impingement), Norman Powell (strained left groin) and Andrew Wiggins (left hip flexor strain), as they have all been labeled by the team as day-to-day. Powell missed his first game because of the injury, while Wiggins missed his third straight game and Jovic missed his fourth straight game.
Powell and Wiggins are starters, and Jovic has been a fixture in the Heat’s bench rotation this season. While Herro was out, Powell leads the Heat in scoring (25.4 points per game) and usage rate (27.1 percent) this season.
“I was bummed out when I saw Norm was out tonight,” Herro said in his return. “I just wanted to see all that come together. In talking with [Heat assistant coach Chris Quinn] a little bit, it’s going to be a process. We’ve already played about 20 games, and I’ve missed almost all of them. So to be just acclimated back into the starting five, and I’ve seen how well Norm and Wiggs and everyone is playing off each other. Just trying to come in and make the right play and let those guys be themselves.”
All the while, Herro continues to deal with the effects of offseason ankle surgery. He said after Monday’s win that he’s “still got a long way to go” before getting back to his pre-surgery routine.
“I still got to rehab, recover,” said Herro, who is in his seventh NBA season after being drafted by the Heat with the 13th overall pick in 2019. “I easily could have probably waited another two weeks to come back, but I’m healthy enough to be out there, and I want to be out there. So that was most important to me. I kind of circled this date probably three or four weeks ago. And then I was like, ‘I’m ready. Forget it, I’m ready.’ I took the last couple days when the team was on the road just to prepare my body for tonight, and it was a lot of fun to go out there and compete and ultimately win.”
After winning the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award for the 2021-22 season, making his first NBA All-Star Game last season and already entering this season as the sixth all-time leading scorer in Heat history, Herro isn’t concerned about his individual stats. He just wants to win games after being part of a Heat team that was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.
“I’ll have two points on Wednesday,” Herro said. “I just want to come out here and compete, play hard, win. Everyone knows I can score. I’m just trying to win.”