Miami Heat starting lineup unveiled with Tyler Herro in rare role

As the Miami Heat get ready for the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight, a major storyline looms over the team as Tyler Herro makes his second return of the season.

After an off-season foot procedure, Herro debuted earlier this season before playing six games and being sidelined once again for a couple of weeks.

One sticking point for this game tonight is how his role will look in his first game back, as Erik Spoelstra already noted at shootaround that this won't be a game where he's out there for 38 minutes.

But the even bigger story tonight is the starting lineup conversation.

Going away from the Bam Adebayo and Kel'el Ware big man pairing shouldn't be in the cards, and it most definitely shouldn't be the case against that big front-court in Minnesota with Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert.

Norman Powell obviously isn't going anywhere as he's averaging over 24 points a game this season. Davion Mitchell should be a shoe in as well, just due to the fact it balances the rotation to allow Dru Smith or Kasparas Jakucionis to get some run off the bench.

Then there's Andrew Wiggins. He's the one to make the case for since he's found a ton of second unit success next to Jaime Jaquez Jr as of late, but Jaquez won't be suiting up tonight after recently tweaking his ankle.

That leaves us with one more name: Tyler Herro. And that's the name Erik Spoelstra landed on to come off the bench initially in his first game back.

Your starters for our 8pm tip pic.twitter.com/LMWlrZgpNq
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) January 7, 2026

The Heat have won five of their last six games, and have found some consistency with this first unit. It also isn't abnormal to work a player back into things in a reserve role after missing a significant chunk of time.

Even the San Antonio Spurs did it with their young superstar Victor Wembanyama, who accepted that bench role for more than a week as he ramped back up.

Prior to tonight, Tyler Herro had come off the bench just twice in the regular season since winning Sixth Man of the year in 2021-22
— Five Reasons Sports 🏀🏈⚾️🏒⚽️ (@5ReasonsSports) January 7, 2026

This rotation tonight should look pretty balanced for Miami. Dru Smith, Pelle Larsson, and Nikola Jovic out there running side by side with Herro should give the Heat a pretty diverse mix of styles.

Herro has one job in his short spurts tonight: go put the ball in the basket. He doesn't have to worry about stepping on the toes of Norman Powell, or over-working this "new style" next to a bunch of on-ball players.

Just go play freely in a unit that likes to play fast and run the floor.

We will see how things shake out in the near future. But for now, the Heat are keeping things the same with Tyler Herro returning to the hardwood.