Add another entry to Scott Van Pelt’s “Bad Beats” SportsCenter segment. Here’s Heat rookie Tyler Herro flushing money down the toilet Tuesday night with a costly three late in Miami’s Game 4 loss to the Lakers, which staked Los Angeles to a 3-1 series lead in the 2020 NBA Finals.
As you can see, the Lakers already had Tuesday night’s game in the bag, leading by nine with mere seconds remaining. Though it didn’t affect the game’s outcome in the slightest, Herro’s bucket with 1.1 seconds left was a gut punch for anyone who bet the Lakers to cover the spread, which Vegas set at 7.5.
If Herro had misfired or simple dribbled out the clock as many would have in that situation, the Lakers’ bet would have hit. Instead, he padded his stats by sinking a three at the horn, cutting the final margin to six. While a certain segment of the betting population did benefit from Herro’s last-second heave (including one ambitious FanDuel user who needed it for an eight-way parlay that paid out over $22,000), most were not thrilled by this development.
Of course, it was Herro who did the deed. The snarling rookie has been a thorn in the Lakers’ side all series, netting an impressive 17.3 points per game including a Finals-best 21 in Tuesday’s Game 4. Now the 20-year-old Kentucky product can add thousands of incensed bettors to his growing list of enemies.
Bad beats like this have been a rather frequent occurrence in Orlando. You may remember Stanley Johnson of the Raptors draining a meaningless three against Boston (Toronto was down 25 at the time) back in August. That pushed the game’s final total to 222, ensuring the over hit (221.5). Weeks later, Joel Embiid tormented bettors with a similarly gratuitous trifecta (also against Boston), spoiling two wagers—the Celtics’ spread (-7) and under 216 combined points—in one fell swoop.
Bettors’ next chance to have their hearts broken by Herro won’t come until Friday when the series resumes with Game 5 in the Orlando bubble. An L.A. victory would give the Lakers their first title since 2010. It would be a fitting end to a year that saw the Lakers lose franchise legend Kobe Bryant (the MVP of the 2010 Finals against Boston) to a stunning helicopter crash that reverberated across the sports landscape.
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