Tyler Herro
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Tyler Herro offered his final thoughts about the altercation with Kevin Durant after the Miami Heat's win over the Houston Rockets.
Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro and Houston Rockets forward Kevin Durant made waves on Saturday when the two got into a verbal altercation.
During the Heat’s 115-105 win over the Rockets, Durant and Herro exchanged some heated words, leading to double technicals being assessed. Two days removed from the incident, Herro talked to Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald to reflect on his relationship with the future Hall-of-Fame forward.
“Me and Kev [Kevin Durant] have been cool for a long time,” Herro said on Monday. “He used to send me shoes in high school. I’ve been knowing KD for a minute. And yeah, he almost came here last year in the offseason. We were just competing. We were just talking normal competitive [expletive].”
Herro continued, adding that because of social media, the incident between the two was blown up more than it should have been.
“I think media, social media enlightens everything and like brings it to the light, but that’s normal stuff,” Herro said. “We were just competing.”
“He was saying I couldn’t guard, and I said something to him,” Herro added. “But we’re competing. At the end of the day, you want to be able to play against the best players in the world and be able to compete like that. That’s what I live for. I love to compete.”
This is the video of the fight in case you haven’t seen it:
Herro finished the game with 18 points on 8-12 shooting in 33 minutes. Durant finished with a team-high 32 points and 8 assists. He also finished with a +5 plus/minus despite the Rockets losing by 10 points.
Kevin Durant Echoed the Same Mentality as Tyler Herro
Directly after the incident, Kevin Durant revealed his thoughts about Tyler Herro. Juan Paolo David of Heavy reported on Durant’s respect for the young guard.
“I just think we both needed a little jolt of energy to start the game,” Durant said. “I mean, you saw it, we laughed and joked right after that. I got respect for Tyler, he has respect for me. And those words, they’re just words at the end of the day. We didn’t do nothing too much, it wasn’t too physical on our end. But I appreciate his competitiveness and vice versa.”
At this point, Durant hasn’t added any additional thoughts on the situation.
Tyler Herro and the Miami Heat will Return Against the Brooklyn Nets
After two days off, Tyler Herro and the Miami Heat will return against the Brooklyn Nets.
In 14 career games against the Nets, Herro has averaged 18.1 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game.
The Heat have multiple injuries going into the game against the Nets. Heat guard Norman Powell will miss his second consecutive game with a groin injury. Heat forward Andrew Wiggins was also added to the injury report and is questionable with a knee injury.