In wake of trade, Andrew Wiggins shows how he can help and why Heat is ‘super happy to have him’
Miami Heat newcomer Andrew Wiggins will remember Friday night’s road win over the rebuilding Toronto Raptors for a few reasons.
First, it marked Wiggins’ first NBA win in Toronto after losing the first six games of his NBA career there. This is meaningful for Wiggins because he was born and raised in the Toronto area.
“This is my first win in this building? There’s no way,” a surprised but soft-spoken Wiggins said when told that by a reporter following the Heat’s 120-111 overtime victory on Friday to kick off its post-All-Star break schedule and open a three-game trip. “I didn’t know that. That’s pretty crazy.”
But more importantly, it marked Wiggins’ first win with his new team after the Golden State Warriors moved him to the Heat in the Jimmy Butler trade earlier this month. It also was Wiggins’ best performance in a Heat uniform.
Wiggins finished Friday’s victory with 25 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the field, 2-of-6 shooting on threes and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line, eight rebounds, one assist and two steals in 42 minutes in his third appearance and start with the Heat since the trade. It’s the most points, rebounds and steals that Wiggins has recorded with the Heat.
But Wiggins’ best and most important work came down the stretch of Friday’s tight game, totaling 13 points between the fourth quarter and overtime period. He helped send the game to overtime by hitting three clutch free throws to tie the score at 107 after drawing a foul on a three-point attempt with 45.6 seconds left in regulation.
The Heat’s new leading trio of Bam Adebayo (six points), Tyler Herro (three points) and Wiggins (four points) combined to score all 13 of the Heat’s overtime points.
“It was really important,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Wiggins’ late-game contributions on Friday. “They were draped all over Tyler and we actually were able to get some pretty good mileage on the two-man action between Tyler and Bam. But then they were loading up. So we just were throwing the ball to Wiggs and letting him make some plays. He had two really good post-ups going down the stretch.
“It shows you his skill level and that’s something that we need, another guy that you can just throw the ball to and he can go make something happen. That drive he had down the stretch going to his left, great finish. And then the two-way basketball on the other side. He really had some key defensive stops against some clever offensive players.”
Wiggins, who turns 30 on Sunday, scored just 24 points on 7-of-24 (29.2 percent) shooting from the field and 3-of-13 (23.1 percent) shooting from three-point range over his first two games with the Heat before surpassing that multi-game point total in just one game on Friday.
Wiggins showed off his full offensive package on Friday, too, hitting spot-up threes, scoring out of post-ups, driving for layups, making step-back jumpers and also scoring off a cut to the basket.
“We were all just really happy for him,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat continuing its trip Sunday against the Milwaukee Bucks at Fiserv Forum (6 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “We’re excited. Now we’re able to see a little bit of what this can look like.”
Wiggins is a big part of this new-look Heat roster. With the Heat also acquiring Davion Mitchell and Kyle Anderson in the Butler deal, Wiggins is the centerpiece of the trade package that the Heat accepted.
Wiggins, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, was voted into the 2022 All-Star Game as a starter. He logged the second-most minutes for the Warriors during the 2022 playoff run that ended in an NBA championship and is the third-highest paid player on the Heat’s roster this season ($26.3 million) for the season behind only Adebayo and Herro.
Including the 43 games that Wiggins played with the Warriors this season prior to the trade, he’s averaging 17.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists and one steal per game while shooting 43.9 percent from the field and 37.1 percent on threes this season.
“They’ve been a great duo,” Wiggins said of playing alongside Adebayo and Herro. “You saw it in overtime. They started us off in overtime, getting us a nice little lead and getting in a nice rhythm. So playing with these guys, I feel like it’s going to be easy. They’re unselfish. They just want to win and so do I.”
Adebayo and Herro are also enjoying having Wiggins in the locker room and on the court with them.
“We’re all rooting for Wiggs, man,” Herro said. “Great guy, we love having him here. We’re super happy to have him. He’s just going to continue to get more comfortable with everything we’re doing. We’re trying to feed as much life and as much confidence into him as possible. We’re really happy for him. We got another game where we’re going to really need his contribution on Sunday.”
The Heat needs more of what it got from Wiggins in Toronto and the Heat also needs to rack up more wins. Miami, which snapped a season-long four-game losing skid on Friday, entered Saturday in eighth place in the Eastern Conference with a 26-28 record and 28 regular-season games left to play.
“Just build on this game, piggyback on this game,” Wiggins said of the goal moving forward. “This was a good win. Now we got to go to Milwaukee [on Sunday], Atlanta [on Monday] and get two more [wins] and end the road trip off right. Go back home and get some more wins and keep piggybacking it.”
INJURY REPORT
The Heat ruled out Dru Smith (Achilles surgery), Isaiah Stevens (G League), Josh Christopher (G League), Keshad Johnson (G League) and Kevin Love (personal reasons) for Sunday’s game in Milwaukee.
Herro is listed as probable because of right shoulder soreness.
This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 11:20 AM.
