A bounce-back win and Tyler Herro’s return. Takeaways from a good night for the Heat in Houston

The Miami Heat’s day started with news of Tyler Herro’s long-awaited return and ended with an important win.

Just 24 hours after falling to the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday in Miami for one of the most painful losses of its season, the Heat enjoyed a bounce-back day that included good news on Herro and a much-needed 119-104 win over the Houston Rockets (38-39) at Toyota Center on Friday night to close a challenging back-to-back set and open a pivotal three-game trip.

“You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure out how we felt climbing onto that plane last night after a disappointing loss,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “In that regard, I was glad we were playing 24 hours later. ... It was a good response tonight.”

The Heat (43-34), which is fighting to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament, cruised to Friday’s double-digit win behind a big 56-34 edge in paint points and another quality defensive effort that limited the Rockets to just 45 points on 30 percent shooting in the second half.

The Heat entered halftime ahead by five and extended its lead to as many as 18 points in the second half.

The Rockets made a late push in hopes of getting back into the game, pulling within six points with 8:01 left in the fourth quarter.

But the Heat ended the Rockets’ momentum right there, scoring 12 unanswered points to push its lead up to 18 with 4:23 to play on its way to the victory.

In Herro’s return from injury, he totaled 17 points, five rebounds and six assists in 25 minutes. He scored nine points in the fourth quarter.

Jimmy Butler finished with a game-high 22 points for the Heat with the help of 8-of-8 shooting from the foul line. He produced those numbers despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter because of the lopsided score.

Bam Adebayo added 18 points, 12 rebounds and six assists for the Heat.

Jeff Green scored a team-high 21 points for the Rockets.

The Heat continues its final trip of the regular season with probably the most important game of its season. That comes Sunday against the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis — a battle of two teams jockeying for sixth place in the Eastern Conference in order to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament.

“As we’ve said all year long, we’re always in control of our own destiny,” Butler said. “It’s now that case more than ever. So it’s good to start by getting one on the road.”

Five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Rockets on Friday:

Even after the win in Houston, the Heat remains in seventh place in the Eastern Conference.

The battle for sixth place in the East — to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament — is coming down to the final days of the regular season.

With the Heat and Pacers both winning on Friday, the seventh-place Heat (43-34) remained a half-game behind the sixth-place Pacers (44-34). But both teams are even in the loss column, setting up Sunday’s critical matchup between the Heat and Pacers in Indianapolis.

The eighth-place Philadelphia 76ers are also looming. The 76ers (42-35), which were idle on Friday, stand one game behind the No. 7 Heat and 1.5 games behind the No. 6 Pacers. The 76ers are also one game behind both the Heat and Pacers in the loss column.

The Pacers, Heat and 76ers are battling for the sixth spot in the East, with the top-six seeds in each conference going straight to the playoffs without needing to take part in the NBA’s play-in tournament.

Meanwhile, the No. 7 and No. 8 teams in each conference play each other in the play-in tournament, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.

While the No. 6 seed would be locked into a first-round playoff matchup against the East’s No. 3 seed, the teams in the play-in tourney will be competing for the right to face either the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the conference.

For those with hopes of the Heat jumping even higher than sixth-place in the East, the New York Knicks and Orlando Magic both lost on Friday. The Heat is now two games behind both the fifth-place Knicks (45-32) and fourth-place Magic (45-32).

There are five games left in the Heat’s regular season.

The Heat’s defense was dominant in the second half.

After allowing the Rockets to total 59 first-half points, the Heat limited the Rockets to 45 points on 15-of-50 (30 percent) shooting from the field and 7-of-26 (26.9 percent) shooting from three-point range in the second half.

The Heat’s defense was especially dominant in the fourth quarter, holding the Rockets to just 21 points on 8-of-27 (29.6 percent) shooting from the field in the final period.

“I think they felt us more in that second half and we were able to do it mostly in our man in the fourth quarter, which is a good thing,” Spoelstra said.

One of the biggest differences from the first half: The Heat was able to keep the Rockets off the free-throw line in the second half. After generating 17 free-throw attempts in the first half, the Rockets took just eight free throws in the second half.

“A lot more discipline,” Spoelstra said.

This is just the continuation of the Heat’s mid-season defensive surge, as it holds the NBA’s second-best defensive rating since the start of February.

That uptick has pushed the Heat into the NBA’s top-five in defensive rating for the season after standing at No. 13 in this category on Jan. 29.

Herro made his return for the Heat after missing 20 straight games.

After missing more than a month of games because of a foot injury diagnosed as right foot medial tendinitis, Herro made his return in Friday’s win over the Rockets.

Herro, who played in his first game since Feb. 23, finished his return with 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field and 1-of-4 shooting on threes, five rebounds and six assists in 25 minutes. He also closed with a positive plus/minus of plus 11.

“Just excitement to be back on the court doing what I love with my guys,” Herro said. “So just to be able to be in this environment competing for standings for the playoffs is what it’s all about.”

Herro entered for his first action of the game with 3:42 left in Friday’s first quarter. He then scored his first points a few minutes later on a 13-foot pull-up during an impressive 11-minute stint that included six points and four assists.

Herro also closed the game for the Heat, entering with 3:01 left in the third quarter and remaining on the court until there was 1:28 left in the fourth quarter when Miami had already wrapped up the win. He recorded 11 points, four rebounds and two assists during this second-half stretch.

“It’s just great to have him back,” Spoelstra said. “His head coach didn’t forget what he brings to the table. That skill level, the creativity, the speed, the quickness, all that stuff is what we need.”

Herro started in his first 36 appearances of the season prior to the injury, but he played off the bench in his first game back on Friday. It marked Herro’s first time playing off the bench since the 2022 playoffs — the same season that he was named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year.

Herro had started 103 straight regular-season games since then before playing as a reserve on Friday. Will Herro continue to play off the bench moving forward? That remains to be seen.

Friday was the healthiest the Heat has been in a long time, with only Josh Richardson (right shoulder surgery), Orlando Robinson (G League), Cole Swider (G League) and Alondes Williams (G League) unavailable.

With Herro playing off the bench, the Heat continued to use its new go-to starting lineup.

The Heat opened Friday’s game with a lineup of Terry Rozier, Duncan Robinson, Butler, Nikola Jovic and Adebayo.

It marked the 13th game that this group has started , with most of those starts coming during Herro’s 20-game absence. No Heat lineup has started more games together this season than this one.

But the results have been underwhelming, as this lineup holds a negative net rating. Entering Friday, opponents outscored the Heat by 5.3 points per 100 possessions in the 156 minutes that the Rozier-Robinson-Butler-Jovic-Adebayo combination played together this season.

On Friday, the Heat’s starting lineup was outscored 18-13 in the first 6:41 of the game before Miami made its first substitution.

But Friday’s second half went well for this lineup, as the Heat started the third quarter on a 19-13 run before turning to its bench.

The suddenly healthy Heat leaned on its depth on the second night of a challenging back-to-back, using a 10-man rotation.

With Herro back in the mix, he didn’t replace anybody in the Heat’s usual nine-man rotation. Instead, the Heat just added Herro to make it a 10-man rotation.

The Heat used Caleb Martin, Kevin Love, Haywood Highsmith, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Herro off the bench to complete the 10-man look.

This proved to be an advantage for Miami, as the Heat’s bench outscored the Rockets’ reserves 48-26 on Friday led by 17 points from Herro and 12 points from Jaquez.