MIAMI — Jimmy Butler is arguably one of the 10 best players in the NBA, and he’s a prototype late-game finisher. Tough. One-on-one savvy. A versatile scorer who can draw defenders and find teammates. Butler’s been a conscious playmaker early in games, but when it’s winning time, the Heat know who to go to for buckets. Same as the Sixers, who put the ball in Butler’s hands over and over for the biggest moments of last year’s playoffs. He’s a closer in every way. 

But down the stretch on Monday night, it wasn’t Butler with the ball in his hands for the Heat, who were locked in a tight affair with the visiting Utah Jazz. It was rookie Tyler Herro. And, man, did the 19-year-old out of Kentucky deliver, making play after play as the Heat outlasted Utah for a 107-104 win to improve to 22-8 on the season. 

Herro scored nine of his 17 points in the fourth quarter, including a momentum-swinging 3-pointer and three straight in-between touch shots — runners, or push shots if you prefer that description — that showcased a poise and touch in tight moments that would seem to defy a player of his age. But Herro is different. He is a portrait of confidence and calmness. He probes the defense and keeps his dribble alive, finding cracks at his own tempo and shots on his own terms. 

This is Donovan Mitchell that Herro is doing this to:

“Those eight-foot plays, he made it look easy but those are not easy shots,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Herro’s short-mid-range baskets in crunch time. “He has that [knack for big moments]. You’ve seen it over and over. He had that in college. These are qualities that you can’t really define, you just know it when you see it. He steps up and has bigger moments when the game is on the line.

“And those plays that he was making, what was important about those plays is that Goran [Dragic] and Jimmy [Butler] were on the court at the same time, and we were running our offense through [Herro],” Spoelstra continued. “And [Dragic and Butler] felt fully confident with that because he was attacking that coverage more efficiently than anybody else. That speaks a lot when you have those experienced All-Star veterans wanting you to make the play.”

Herro led Miami’s bench unit that was the difference in the game. Utah’s starters outscored Miami’s starters by 18, but the Heat’s bench bested Utah’s reserves by 21. There’s your three-point victory. Herro spoke about how the game has slowed down for him, and that while he has always been a confident player, his comfort level, particularly in tight situations, has grown considerably as his rookie season has progressed. 

“It felt good,” Herro said of the way he was clicking in the fourth. “I put in a lot of work. My teammates and coaches trust me with the ball in that situation.”

Herro wasn’t just doing it on the offensive end either. He played terrific defense all night, and really he’s done so all season long considering his age and still slight frame. He closes to shooters hard and under control. He stays in front of ball handlers and battles on switches in the post. Down the stretch he stoned Mitchell as he tried to penetrate and wound up with a steal, and on this next clip you can see Herro again staying in front of Mitchell and forcing him into a tough, contested mid-range shot. 

“He kicked my a–,” Mitchell said after the game. “Credit to him. He did his thing. He capitalized on my poor defense. And I take the blame for that. That’s on me. He kicked my a– for three straight possessions.”

None of this is to say Herro single-handedly won the game for Miami. That’s not even close to true. Bam Adebayo was a monster in the fourth after starting the night 2 for 10 from the field. Butler finished with 20 points. Dragic was a sensation with 15 points off the bench including his own second-half stretch of paint-probing buckets that precipitated Herro’s run. Derrick Jones Jr. was again a menace on the defensive end, and he also threw down one of the nastiest dunks that you’ll ever see — on the head of back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, no less. 

But in the end, this was a night for Herro ball. The kid came through. Talk to anyone in the Miami organization, and they’ll tell you it’s been that way from the second he showed up to summer workouts. He backs down from nobody. His confidence is off the charts, and if you thought he was just a shooter coming into, or out of, the draft, you were sorely mistaken. This guy is a player. Plain and simple. 

“He knows what he’s capable of,” Butler said of Herro. “We know what he’s capable of. And I think if we don’t put enough confidence in him, he already had a tremendous amount in himself. That is how he was playing all year long since he became an NBA player. It is fun and for sure special. I’m glad that rookie is on our team.”