Takeaways: Heat’s skid and fourth-quarter struggles continue in home loss to short-handed Celtics
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 103-91 loss to the Boston Celtics (48-19) on Friday night at Kaseya Center to close a winless five-game homestand and drop its sixth straight game. The Heat (29-37) now travels to face the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday (8 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun) to complete the back-to-back set and begin a two-game trip:
The Heat’s fourth-quarter struggles and losing skid continue.
The reeling Heat put together a quality effort against the talented Celtics, entering halftime with the score tied at 50 and entering the fourth quarter trailing by just one point.
But the Heat was outscored in the fourth quarter for the sixth straight game Friday on the way to its sixth straight loss. The Heat now stands eight games below the .500 mark for the first time since the 2016-17 season.
“We played and competed hard, like visually that’s what I want to see every single day,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said following Friday’s 12-point loss to the Celtics. “We’ve been doing that, not really in the Clippers game [on Wednesday]. But we’ve been doing it. Against most teams, that’s probably going to give yourself a better chance down the stretch. Against Boston, it’s going to be a double-digit loss with a competitive game.”
After 11 lead changes and five ties through the first three quarters, the Celtics pulled away from the Heat by opening the fourth quarter on a 10-2 run to turn a one-point lead at the start of the period into a nine-point advantage with 9:19 to play.
The Heat kept fighting, cutting the deficit to four points on a Davion Mitchell three with 4:22 left in the fourth quarter. But Derrick White responded by hitting a three on the other end to push the Celtics’ lead back up to seven with 3:54 remaining.
The Celtics went on to increase their lead to 14 points in the final seconds to cruise to the double-digit win.
The Heat was outscored 25-14 in Friday’s fourth quarter and has now been outscored by an NBA-worst 126 points in the fourth quarter since the start of February. Miami has also been outscored by an NBA-worst 28.2 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter during that time.
The Heat shot just 5 of 20 (25 percent) from the field and 2 of 9 (22.2 percent) on threes during its ugly fourth-quarter performance against the Celtics.
“Their defense was good in the fourth quarter,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “They were able to kind of take us out of what we were trying to get to. We just got to continue to stay with it, try to figure out ways and solutions to score in the fourth.”
Andrew Wiggins scored a team-high 23 points for the Heat on 9-of-21 shooting from the field and 3-of-8 shooting on threes in the loss.
Herro added 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field and 3-of-8 shooting on threes, five rebounds and six assists.
Jayston Tatum (28 points), Jrue Holiday (25 points) and Derrick White (18 points) combined for 71 of the Celtics 103 points. Boston took 50 threes to Miami’s 34 three-point attempts, outscoring the Heat 57-39 from behind the arc.
The Celtics beat the Heat despite being short-handed, as they were missing two starters. Jaylen Brown (right knee posterior impingement) and Kristaps Porzingis (illness) were unavailable on Friday.
The Heat’s last win came nearly two weeks ago on March 3 against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center.
With the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic also losing Monday, the Heat remains in ninth place in the Eastern Conference and is a near-lock to have to go through the NBA’s play-in tournament in order to make the playoffs.
“No one likes losing,” Herro said, with the Heat now just 6-14 since the start of February. “No one in this locker room is a loser. We want to win, so there’s obviously frustration.”
In search of solutions amid its losing skid, the Heat made major changes to its starting lineup. But it appears that the starting lineup and rotation remain fluid.
After going with the starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Herro, Wiggins, Kel’el Ware and Bam Adebayo for each of the previous three games and in eight of the previous 14 games, Spoelstra decided to shake things up.
The Heat started Friday’s game with Duncan Robinson in place of Mitchell and Jaime Jaquez Jr. in place of Ware alongside Herro, Wiggins and Adebayo.
Not only did it mark the first time that the Heat has used this lineup to start a game, but Friday was also the first time that the Herro-Robinson-Wiggins-Jaquez-Adebayo combination has played together at any point in a game this season. This is the 20th different starting lineup that the Heat has used this season.
It didn’t go very well, as the Heat found itself in a 20-8 hole to start the game before turning to its bench for the first time Friday.
But it went better in the second half, as the Heat’s new starting lineup outscored the Celtics 17-13 to begin the third quarter.
In the end, though, the Heat’s starting lineup was outscored by eight points in 13 minutes together on Friday.
In Jaquez’s 13th start of the season, he finished with 13 points, five rebounds and three assists in 31 minutes.
In Robinson’s 31st start of the season, he finished with six points on 2-of-6 shooting from three-point range in 26 minutes.
After the loss, Spoelstra made it seem like the starting lineup could change again soon.
“We’ve tried a lot of things,” Spoelstra said of his decision to go with a new starting lineup on Friday. “It’s not working. We were anticipating that they were going to be with their main guys. So went with this lineup to match up with them to try to take away the threes. I think the rotation was pretty fluid all the way through.”
Does Jaquez expect to stay in the Heat’s starting lineup moving forward?
“I think coach is trying a lot of things right now,” Jaquez said. “I think we’ll take it game by game. You never know in this league, so that’s kind of where I’m at.”
The changes to the Heat’s starting lineup forced changes to its bench rotation, and Mitchell provided a spark off the Heat’s bench.
After starting in 21 straight appearances, Ware returned to the bench and played as the Heat’s backup center Friday. The Heat’s rookie center entered for his first action of the night with 1:35 left in the opening quarter and immediately threw down an alley-oop dunk on his first possession of the game.
Ware recorded seven points and three rebounds in 15 minutes off the Heat’s bench in Friday’s loss. The Heat outscored the Celtics by one point with Ware on the court.
After starting in his first 14 appearances with the Heat since being traded to Miami in early February, Mitchell was the first player used off Miami’s bench on Friday. He entered the game for his first action with 5:52 left in the first quarter.
Mitchell made an impact, contributing 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 shooting on threes, nine rebounds, four assists and one steal in 35 minutes off the Heat’s bench. He played the final 17:29 of the game.
“He made all of us watch him, right? He has that kind of gift, those kinds of abilities.” Spoelstra said of Mitchell. “He’s really dynamic, the way he can move laterally. And we just want to unlock all of that. The more he can just be a pest and piss everybody off, which he was doing tonight. Taking on all the big matchups, just making great efforts, we’re going to need that a bunch going down the stretch. But I was really pleased with his play.”
Ware and Mitchell were part of a four-man bench rotation that also included Haywood Highsmith and Pelle Larsson.
Terry Rozier, Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love, Keshad Johnson and Isaiah Stevens were out of the Heat’s rotation on Friday despite all of them being available to play.
The only Heat players unavailable against the Celtics were Alec Burks (lower back pain), Josh Christopher (G League), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand) and Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery).
Adebayo turned in his second straight low-scoring performance.
After scoring just six points on 2-of-7 shooting from the field in Wednesday’s home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Adebayo totaled just nine points on 3-of-7 shooting from the field in Friday’s defeat.
Those low numbers of points and shots is uncharacteristic for Adebayo, who is averaging 17.5 points and 13.8 shot attempts per game this season.
“I don’t think it’s anything somebody is doing,” Adebayo said, dismissing the notion that opposing defenses have taken him out of his offensive flow. “We’re well beyond that in my career. But it’s one of those things, where coach wants us to move the ball, get the ball moving and that’s what we’re going to do. Then we’ll figure it out from there.”
These last two underwhelming offensive outings are especially noteworthy because they came immediately after Adebayo’s best and most aggressive offensive stretch of the season. The three-time All-Star averaged 23 points per game on 16 field-goal attempts per game in his 19 appearances prior to totaling just 15 points on 14 field-goal attempts during the last two games.
The Heat needs Adebayo to be a big part of its offense, especially with former leading man Jimmy Butler now on the Golden State Warriors’ roster.
“We obviously want to get him involved, be intentional to try to get him the ball,” Spoelstra said when asked about Adebayo’s back-to-back quite offensive games. “There were probably some opportunities to get him some catches. But I don’t think that was necessarily the deal. We’ll get him involved. There were some other swing moments that had a bigger impact. He’s been playing great, obviously, the last six weeks.”
The Heat’s last regular-season win over the Celtics came more than two years ago.
The Heat has now lost six straight regular-season matchups against the Celtics. The Heat’s last regular-season win over the Celtics came in a 98-95 victory in Miami on Jan. 24, 2023.
Most of those defeats haven’t been close either, as four of the six Celtics’ wins during this regular-season streak came by double-digits.
Of course, the Heat ended the Celtics’ season in the 2023 Eastern Conference finals in the middle of this regular-season losing skid to Boston.
This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 9:26 PM.
