Takeaways and postgame reaction from Heat’s ‘humbling’ home loss to struggling Wizards
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s ugly 110-108 loss to the Washington Wizards on Sunday at Kaseya Center to open a quick two-game homestand. The Heat (35-29), which has now lost three straight games, closes the homestand on Wednesday against the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets:
For a Heat team jockeying for playoff positioning and working to avoid the play-in tournament, Sunday was a complete disaster.
The Wizards entered tied for the NBA’s worst record this season at 10-53 and just snapped a 16-game skid with a home win over the Charlotte Hornets on Friday. It’s been so bad that the Wizards had not won a road game since Jan. 29.
But instead of taking care of business against a team it should have beat, the nightmare scenario happened for the Heat on Sunday. The Wizards (11-53) won their second straight game after snapping their 16-game losing streak a few days ago and also won their first road game in over a month.
“It’s a tough loss,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’re well aware of that.”
After allowing the Wizards to hang around for the first three quarters with sloppy and disjointed play, the Heat struggled on both ends of the court in a fourth quarter that the Wizards did enough in to escape with the narrow victory.
With the Heat entering the fourth quarter ahead by one point, the Wizards caught fire to make six of their first nine three-point attempts of the period and the Heat went cold to miss five of its first six three-point attempts of the period.
As a result, the Wizards went on a game-deciding 24-10 run to turn a four-point deficit with 8:55 to play into a 10-point lead with 2:45 remaining.
Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma scored 10 points during this spurt on his way to finishing the victory with a game-high 32 points.
The Heat, playing its fourth game in six nights, still managed to put itself in a position to force overtime or even escape with the win in the final seconds. Miami scored eight unanswered points to cut the deficit to two with 31.5 seconds to play.
Kuzma then committed an offensive foul to give the Heat the ball back with 12.2 seconds left, with a chance to tie or take the lead.
The Heat went for the win, but Duncan Robinson missed a three-pointer with 5.1 seconds to play. After Jimmy Butler grabbed an offensive rebound on the perimeter, Butler took a step back and put up his own game-winning three-point attempt but it bounced off the back of the rim as the final buzzer sounded.
“I thought we got two great looks at it,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s final possession. “I thought the last four three-point looks we got, I thought all four were going down. Would that have made things different? Yeah. They made theirs down the stretch.”
The Wizards didn’t score for the final 2:45 of the game and still won. Washington’s 10-point cushion with 2:45 left was too much for Miami to overcome.
The Heat shot just 9 of 29 (31 percent) from the field and 3 of 14 (21.4 percent) on threes in the final period. The Wizards shot 9 of 16 (56.3 percent) from the field and 6 of 9 (66.7 percent) on threes in the fourth quarter.
Butler scored a team-high 23 points for the Heat on 9-of-20 shooting from the field.
“I know my basketball team. This is not a case of overlooking an opponent,” Spoelstra said. “We came in with a disposition and the right mindset to approach this game. But this is what competition is about. Sometimes another team will just make more plays, as frustrating as that may be.”
The Heat had won 11 of 14 games before this current three-game skid.
With Sunday’s loss, the Heat fell from sixth place to eighth place in the Eastern Conference standings with just 18 regular-season games left to play. The Heat needs to finish with a top-six seed in the East to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament.
“This game is just very humbling,” Butler said. “If you don’t come out with the right mindset, this is what will happen, this is what will continue to happen.”
Two areas that usually aren’t problems were problems for the Heat through the first three quarters, setting up a nightmarish fourth quarter.
The Heat entered Sunday with the NBA’s fifth-best team free-throw percentage at 81.6 percent.
The Heat also entered Sunday with the NBA’s 13th-lowest turnover rate (percentage of plays that end in a team turnover) at 13.2 percent.
But the Heat shot just 7 of 12 (58.3 percent) from the foul line and committed 12 turnovers for a turnover rate of 16.2 percent through the first three quarters against the Wizards.
Bam Adebayo missed his first four free-throw attempts and Duncan Robinson committed a team-high five turnovers through the first three quarters for the Heat.
The Heat was better in both areas in the fourth quarter, shooting 5 of 6 from the foul line and committing only one turnover in the final period. But it didn’t matter because after allowing the Wizards to hang around through the first three quarters, the Wizards got hot from three-point range and came away with the upset win.
“Our level of play throughout the game, that put us in that position,” said Heat guard Terry Rozier, who finished the loss with 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists. “All the credit goes to them, they deserved that win. But when you get a team like that to feel comfortable throughout the whole game, shots like that start to fall in the fourth quarter. So it’s too late by then.”
After a rough road trip, Adebayo was better but still not his usual dominant self against the Wizards.
After totaling just 19 points on an inefficient 6-of-23 (26.1 percent) shooting from the field in the previous two games, Adebayo found some success against the Wizards.
Adebayo finished Sunday’s loss with 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field and 16 rebounds in 35 minutes for his first double-double in seven games.
With the Wizards missing its top two centers, Marvin Bagley III and Richaun Holmes, because of injuries, Adebayo took advantage at the start.
Adebayo nearly recorded a double-double in the first quarter, scoring eight points and grabbing eight rebounds in the period. But his production waned as the game went on, contributing eight points and eight rebounds over the final three quarters.
Adebayo also again struggled to make outside shots, as he finished Sunday’s loss 1 of 5 on non-rim paint shots. He has now shot just 2 of 16 (12.5 percent) on non-rim paint shots over the last three games.
Adebayo’s free-throw struggles also continued on Sunday.
Adebayo, who entered the game shooting 76.9 percent from the foul line this season, shot just 2 of 6 (33.3 percent) from the charity stripe in the loss. He has now shot just 9 of 18 (50 percent) from the free-throw line in the last three games.
With Kevin Love still out, the Heat continues to rotate through different options at backup center.
While Love has been unavailable because of a bruised right heel, the Heat has rotated between Thomas Bryant, Orlando Robinson and Nikola Jovic to fill in as the center when Adebayo is on the bench.
Some of it has been based on matchups and some of it has been based on who’s playing best at the moment.
On Sunday, Jovic earned the first opportunity to play at center in the non-Adebayo minutes.
But Jovic, who also started for the Heat at forward, struggled on the defensive end and picked up his third foul with 9:09 left in the second quarter.
That foul trouble forced Spoelstra to call on Orlando Robinson to play 2:42 in the second period, as the Heat attempted to survive a few more minutes with Adebayo on the bench.
Spoelstra again went with Jovic as the backup center when Adebayo went to the bench in the third quarter. Jovic was better in his second stint, scoring nine points in those non-Adebayo minutes.
Robinson did not re-enter the game after playing 2:42 in the second quarter. Bryant did not enter the game at all.
In the end, the Heat actually won the non-Adebayo minutes on Sunday, outscoring the Wizards by seven points in the 13:01 that he spent on the bench. But the Heat was outscored by nine points in the 34:59 that Adebayo played.
Sunday marked the sixth straight game that Love has missed with his bruised heel.
The Heat also was without guards Tyler Herro (right foot medial tendinitis) and Josh Richardson (season-ending shoulder surgery) against the Wizards. In addition, Heat two-way contract players Jamal Cain and Alondes Williams were unavailable because they’re currently playing for the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the G League.
After failing to take care of business against the struggling Wizards, the Heat will have an opportunity on Wednesday to do something it hasn’t done enough this season: Defeat a quality opponent.
The Heat has struggled against the league’s best teams. Not only is the Heat just 14-20 this season in games against teams currently with a winning record, but Miami is also winless at 0-10 this season against the teams that entered Sunday with the NBA’s top five records.
The Heat will have a chance to earn its first win of the season against a top-five team when it hosts the Nuggets on Wednesday in a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals.
The Nuggets defeated the Heat in the their first matchup of the season, 103-97, on Feb. 29 in Denver.
“You don’t ever want to get too high, you don’t want to get too low,” Rozier said following Sunday’s defeat. “What can we do about today? It’s over with. We got to worry about the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday.”
Meanwhile, Sunday’s loss dropped the Heat to 21-9 this season in games against teams currently with a losing record.
This story was originally published March 10, 2024 at 8:38 PM.
