Report: Tyler Herro cleared for basketball activity, no timetable for return

Herro has been out since Game 1 of the postseason due to a broken hand.

Photo by Alejandro Luengo on Unsplash

After he broke his hand in the first half of Game 1 of the Milwaukee Bucks series after diving for a loose ball, we all—or at least most of us—thought Tyler Herro’s season would be 100 percent over.

Well, akin to what we’ve learned across the postseason with this Miami Heat team: Never say never.

While there’s still a good chance the former Sixth Man of the Year doesn’t return, Herro has officially been cleared for non-contact basketball activity, Ira Winderman of South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Tuesday.

He received surgery on his broken hand April 21, so Friday would mark five weeks since the surgery was completed.

There’s still no timetable for when Herro would hypothetically return; his rehab presumably entails plenty of shooting/ballhandling drills in addition to contact activity (3v3, 5v5, etc), so it’s going to extend longer than the original 4-6 week timetable for the injury.

Hypothetically, if the Heat were to advance to the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets, Game 1 would not be until June 1 with Game 7 not until June 18. So there’s still a window — a slim one, but one nonetheless.

Even then, Miami would (and should) ease Herro in and likely wouldn’t expect much if he did play; Herro was the team’s best shooter this season, so any semblance of shotmaking he could provide for an abbreviated sample would help.

Herro was the Heat’s second-leading scorer, averaging 20.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists, shooting 43.9 percent, 37.8 percent from 3-point range and 93.4 percent from the free-throw line. Across the 19 first-half minutes he played in Game 1, he had 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting with a pair of 3s, in addition to two rebounds and two assists.