MIAMI – It wasn't pretty, but the Miami Heat beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-98, in what was a resilient victory, marking the first on Pat Riley court and on the night they were celebrating the unveiling of Dwyane Wade's statue the day before. After the Heat had a brutal loss to the Orlando Magic in the opener, they've been on a two-game winning streak as they were led Monday by the duo of Tyler Herro and Terry Rozier where Erik Spoelstra commented on their potential.
The Miami head coach spoke after the game to talk about the highly anticipated duo as Herro and Rozier scored 19 and 20 points respectively where Jimmy Butler led the team with 23. Each had a high volume of shots, especially from deep as each shot it 12 times from that range, a number Spoelstra wants to set possibly as a goal while calling them “killers.”
“Pretty good number, if it's, it's open. Those guys are great shooters,” Spoelstra said. “Don't leave anything on the table. That's basically my message to them. Don't ever finish a game and you left 4, 5, 6 wide open ones still out there. These guys are killers. Like there's going to be a game where, Tyler goes 10 for 13. Terry has full ability to go nine for 13, easy. I see it in practice all the time. Actually, that'd be a good goal. Just keep on getting the attempts up. But eventually, each one of these guys are gonna have 10 makes in a game like that for each one of them.”
Heat's Erik Spoelstra on the “great potential of Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier
While 19 and 20 points from Herro and Rozier is nothing to complain about, they lit it up in the first half having 14 each where the second half had them make key shots, but it also was filled with missed open looks. The box score could have looked much differently as Spoelstra says the tandem have “great potential.”
“We have some great potential, that'll get better after several weeks and months,” Spoelstra said. “But they already have a real good comfort level with each other, and their dynamic with their skill level on the shooting ability. That could of looked totally different. You know, some of those rimmed in and out shots, or some of the wide open shots go. I mean, this could have been a 23, 24 made three point game, but you just have to stay with it, whatever the right plays are and I think those guys are making a lot of right plays, a lot of smart plays for our team, and we need them to be dynamic.”
Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier on their “growing” Heat relationship
Both Rozier and Herro have spoke time and time again about their relationship, especially hearing the outside noise about the concerns from fans or people within basketball about them playing together. There is no doubt that each are bought in as Rozier would call it “fun” and Herro would still say it's “growing.”
Related Miami Heat NewsArticle continues below
“It's a lot of fun,” Rozier said. “I say it all the time, just pick your poison. We are two unselfish guys who look for our shot, look for our teammates shot, and along with our two anchors Bam and Jimmy, we're just trying to put it all together. Then once we do that, it'll be tough.”
“It's still growing, you know, as we continue to play more together, get more reps, just trying to feed off each other,” Herro said. “You know, we're fast. We can attack closeouts and create two on one situations for each other for each other or other guys on the team that are able to expose advantages.”
At any rate, the Heat will need their dynamic come Wednesday night when the New York Knicks come into town.
-1732155069-q80.webp "Thomas Brown listed among top head coaching candidates and he'll have seven more weeks to prove himself to Chicago or other clubs")
