Floundering Heat hopes home-heavy stretch leads to more wins: ‘We got to continue to fight’
The well-known cliche is, “Home is where the heart is.” Well, the floundering Heat hopes home is where the wins are.
Because the Heat (26-30) now enters a home-heavy stretch in its schedule with losses in six of its last seven games and four games under .500 for the first time this season. The latest setback was an ugly 98-86 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night at State Farm Arena that dropped the Heat to ninth place in the Eastern Conference standings.
“Our group is very resilient,” a determined and adamant Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said following Monday’s defeat. “Look, what you need right now, you need an incredible amount of stubbornness. You got to be stubborn. You absolutely got to be stubborn and persistent in what we’re trying to do. We’re not getting the result we want. But there are things that are trending in a better direction.”
It’s debatable whether the Heat’s play is actually trending in a positive direction. Miami recorded its worst single-game regular-season offensive rating (points scored per 100 possessions) in Monday’s loss since November 2021.
But the Heat’s schedule is definitely turning in its favor, as Monday’s loss to the Hawks marked the end of a 3-7 rocky 10-game stretch for the Heat that included nine games on the road. The Heat’s only home game during this 24-day span was its Feb. 10 loss to the Boston Celtics.
Wednesday’s rematch against the Hawks at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun) marks the start of a long stretch spent almost entirely at home. Not only does nine of the Heat’s next 10 games come in Miami, but 14 of the Heat’s next 17 games and 18 of the Heat’s final 26 regular-season games will be played at Kaseya Center.
The Heat also enters Tuesday with the seventh-easiest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon.com, based solely on the current combined winning percentage of teams left to play.
“We’re just at the point of the season where you’ve got to seize the moment, especially where we are, where we want to be,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said. “These games are of the utmost priority.”
But in order to take advantage of its favorable remaining schedule, the Heat needs to win more consistently at home. Miami is just 12-11 at home this season and 35-32 (including the postseason) at home since the start of last season.
“Coming into the season, we wanted to be one of the better teams at home, protect homecourt,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “We haven’t been great at home, but I still think it’s a great opportunity for us to be at home. We haven’t been at home for a couple of weeks. So get home and win some games and try to climb in the standings.”
The Heat faces an uphill battle simply to escape the NBA’s play-in tournament, though.
With the NBA’s play-in tourney featuring the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference, the ninth-place Heat sits five games behind the sixth-place Detroit Pistons for the final playoff spot in the East that doesn’t require having to go through play-in.
The Heat also entered Tuesday percentage points behind the eighth-place Atlanta Hawks and 1.5 games behind the seventh-place Orlando Magic.
According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat entered Tuesday with just a 9.6 percent chance of finishing with a top-six seed in the East to make the playoffs without needing to take part in the play-in tournament. Basketball Reference’s modeling has the Heat’s most likely regular-season finish listed at 33.6 percent for eighth place in the East.
As for the Heat dropping further in the East standings and completely falling out of the play-in tournament/playoff contention, that’s unlikely with Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report giving just a 0.2 percent chance of that scenario. The Heat enters Tuesday four games ahead of the 10th-place Chicago Bulls, 5.5 games ahead of the 11th-place Brooklyn Nets and 6.5 games ahead of the 12th-place Philadelphia 76ers.
“It’s a huge opportunity for us to make a push and make a charge in these standings,” Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. said of the upcoming home-heavy stretch. “Obviously we don’t have the best record at home, but we can change that.”
Needing to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament would be nothing new for the Heat. In each of the past two seasons, the Heat has advanced through the play-in tournament to make the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed.
“Obviously, we’re not where we want to be,” Herro said. “We got to continue to fight. We go home for a couple games, we got to win those and just continue to build off that.”
This extended stretch at home will also give the Heat’s three new players — Kyle Anderson, Davion Mitchell and Andrew Wiggins — their first opportunity to get settled in Miami. Anderson, Mitchell and Wiggins have played in just one home game since being dealt to to Miami as part of the Jimmy Butler trade on Feb. 6.
“For sure, especially like finding a place and getting my car shipped and just little things like that,” Anderson said when asked how helpful it will be to spend most of the next month in Miami. “On the court, it’s going to be great. But off the court, things can get done as well.”
The Heat hopes more time at home leads to better on-court results, as it enters Tuesday with the NBA’s 26th-ranked offensive rating, 18th-ranked defensive rating and 24th-ranked net rating since Jan. 1. Miami is just 10-16 during that stretch, including 1-6 since trading away Butler earlier this month.
“You got to quiet all the noise and just not listen to anything, not read anything,” Spoelstra said of his message to the team. “That’s just the deal right now. We’re closer than what it feels like. We’re putting this thing together quickly and sometimes it doesn’t happen just like that.
“But are you building the right habits and building the right trends through the adversity? The head coach feels that we are and so you got to be stubborn. You got to put your head down and collectively be stubborn minded about this until we start generating some wins.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 10:33 AM.
