Heat looking to do something it hasn’t done in weeks. Also, Adebayo and Wiggins questionable
It has been nearly two months since the Miami Heat defeated a team that currently has a winning record.
The Heat’s last such win came on Jan. 7 against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco. While the Warriors now have a winning record after acquiring Jimmy Butler from the Heat in a trade earlier this month, they fell to 18-18 that night after losing to the Heat.
The Heat (27-30) will have an opportunity to end its drought against winning teams in the coming days, as the next two games during its homestand come against the Indiana Pacers (33-24) on Friday and New York Knicks (38-20) on Sunday. It’s the start of a challenging stretch for the Heat, with 10 of its next 13 games coming against teams currently with winning records.
“It’s Heat-Pacers,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, looking ahead to Friday’s matchup against the Pacers at Kaseya Center (8 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “It’s set up to be a great Friday night in this arena.”
But most nights that have included matchups against quality opponents this season have not been great nights for the Heat.
The Heat holds an underwhelming 8-20 record this season against teams currently with a winning record. Miami is also just 3-9 this season against teams currently at least 10 games above .500.
The Heat has racked up wins against subpar opponents, though. With Wednesday’s 131-109 victory over the Atlanta Hawks to begin a four-game homestand, Miami improved to 19-10 this season against teams currently with a losing record.
“Any time we can get a win right now, we’re happy,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said after Wednesday’s win over the Hawks. “By one point, half a point, 30 points, whatever it is, we’ll take the win and we just want to try to build off this. Like we’ve been saying, there’s a great opportunity for us here with this homestand and we want to be able to attack it and just continue to get better every day.”
With Wednesday’s victory marking the start of a 17-game stretch that includes 14 games in Miami, the Heat hopes to take advantage of this home-heavy span to put itself in the best possible postseason position.
At the moment, the Heat’s most likely fate is needing to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament for the third straight season.
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 eighth-place Heat sits five games behind the sixth-place Detroit Pistons for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference that doesn’t require having to go through play-in. The Heat also entered Thursday just one-half game behind the seventh-place Orlando Magic.
According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat entered Thursday with just a 13.4 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 33.3 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 less than a 1 percent chance of that scenario. The Heat is now one game ahead of the ninth-place Hawks, five games ahead of the 10th-place Chicago Bulls and 6.5 games ahead of the 11th-place Brooklyn Nets.
“You have to look at things objectively,” Spoelstra said. “Sometimes you have to look at it the next day just to see where we are. And we can’t get all these wins in one night, we can’t. But the work, the intention has been there.”
After dropping six of its previous seven games, Wednesday’s 22-point win over the Hawks was needed. Now, the Heat needs some victories against winning teams.
“It’s great to win and win at home,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said after Wednesday’s victory. “Just kind of get back into that belief of what we’re capable of. This league is really, really challenging. Obviously, it’s hard to win games and you can forget pretty quickly as a group what you’re capable of. So it’s always good to have a little reminder. I think it will be a good reference point for us moving forward about what we’re capable of.”
DAVION’S BIG NIGHT
Since guard Davion Mitchell was acquired by the Heat in the Butler trade on Feb. 6, he has started in each of his first seven appearances for Miami.
But Mitchell’s best performance yet in a Heat uniform came in Wednesday’s win over the Hawks, finishing with 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and 5-of-5 shooting from three-point range, six assists and two steals in 37 minutes. The 20 points tied a season high and the five three-point makes matched a career high for Mitchell.
“He was making a lot of shots. He was in a good rhythm, for sure,” Heat forward Haywood Highsmith said of Mitchell. “Honestly, with the zone and the press, I could feel his presence, as well. Obviously, I’m used to it. I’ve been here for a minute. So trying to coach him a little bit on it, what we’re doing in the zone-press. But he was being a bull dog and just being a great offensive spark for us.”
BAM, WIGGINS QUESTIONABLE
Despite being listed as questionable because of a right calf contusion, Heat three-time All-Star center Bam Adebayo made himself available and logged 35 minutes in Wednesday’s win over the Hawks. He made a positive impact, too, finishing with 20 points and grabbing nine rebounds while posting a plus/minus of plus-16.
“Bam was banged up coming into this game,” Spoelstra said. “It just shows you how much he wants this for this group. He put himself out there and then was a force of nature out there with his physicality and his efforts and his voice, his spirit, all of that. There’s probably a lot of guys that would have sat out either for the back or the calf, and he was unquestionably going [to play] in what he felt was a must-win.”
But Adebayo is again listed as questionable for Friday’s matchup against the Pacers because of his calf contusion.
Adebayo has still only missed two games so far this season — a Jan. 13 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers because of a lower back contusion and a Feb. 13 loss to the Dallas Mavericks because of a left knee contusion.
Heat forward Andrew Wiggins is also listed as questionable for Friday’s game because of a sprained right ankle. Wiggins played 29 minutes in Wednesday’s win over the Hawks.
The Heat will be without Josh Christopher (G League), Keshad Johnson (G League), Nikola Jovic (broken hand), Dru Smith (Achilles surgert) and Isaiah Stevens (G League) against the Pacers.
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 3:46 PM.
