Heat’s winning streak ends at six, falling to Grizzlies on Ja Morant’s game-winner. Takeaways
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 110-108 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies (45-32) on Thursday night at Kaseya Center to begin a three-game homestand on the back end of a back-to-back set. The Heat (35-42) continues this stretch at home on Saturday against the Milwaukee Bucks:
With both teams battling for postseason position in the final days of the regular season, the Heat-Grizzlies matchup produced an ultra-competitive game. But in the end, the Heat’s season-long six-game winning streak is over.
“You had two very desperate teams and this is what you got to love about this time of the year,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Both teams knew what was up, both teams were playing for something. They were able to secure the win.”
The Heat opened the game on a 9-0 run, with Bam Adebayo scoring all nine points for Miami. But the Grizzlies pushed back to take their first lead of the night at 41-39 with 4:38 left in the second quarter.
The Heat, which was playing on the second night of a brutal back-to-back after flying from Boston and landing in Miami just before 3 a.m. on Thursday morning, still managed to enter halftime with a one-point advantage.
What followed was a back-and-forth second half that included 15 lead changes and six ties.
The Grizzlies took an eight-point lead midway through the third quarter and the Heat responded by closing the period on a 23-14 run to enter the fourth quarter ahead by one point.
Miami and Memphis continued to trade punches down the stretch, with the Heat taking a 106-105 lead on a Davion Mitchell three-pointer with 2:01 to play.
“I really felt like once Davion hit that three, I thought we were winning this game,” Spoelstra said.
But Jaren Jackson Jr. put the Grizzlies back ahead, hitting a corner three off an assist from Scotty Pippen Jr. to give Memphis a two-point advantage with 1:07 left in the fourth quarter.
The Heat again had an answer, though, as Tyler Herro made a 11-foot floater to tie the score at 108 with 14.2 seconds to play.
The problem is the Heat left too much time on the clock, as the Grizzlies came out of a timeout and let their two-time All-Star guard Ja Morant go to work.
Morant took the ball up the court, got Kel’el Ware to switch onto him and made a game-winning nine-foot fadeaway jumper over Ware that rolled in as the final buzzer sounded.
“We came out of the timeout knowing where we were going — away from Mitchell and Bam,” Morant said of his game-winner. “Anybody else, you’re on an island. At that point, just get the switch and then Ja just go be Ja.”
Of the shot, Ware said: “He got the lucky shot. That’s it.”
But Spoelstra believes the Heat could have made Morant’s game-clinching shot tougher by sending help for Ware.
“We’re at our best when we’re active, not just leaving a guy on an island,” Spoelstra said. “We feel fully comfortable with Kel’el guarding a lot of different kinds of players, especially in an iso situation. But not on an island.”
In Morant’s first game against the Heat since October 2021, he finished with 30 points on 11-of-22 shooting from the field, 3-of-7 shooting on threes and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line, five rebounds, three assists and one steal. He scored 27 points in the second half.
The Grizzlies overcame a sloppy performance that included 18 turnovers by shooting an efficient 16 of 38 (42.1 percent) on threes.
The Grizzlies, which entered with losses in seven of their last eight games and recently made a coaching change, are in a tight race in the Western Conference to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament.
While the Grizzlies ended the Heat’s winning streak, Miami still made some history by winning six straight games after dropping 10 straight games.
The Heat became just the third team in NBA history to immediately follow a losing streak of at least 10 games with a winning streak of at least six games. The other two teams that did it are the 2021-22 Houston Rockets (didn’t make the playoffs and finished with a 20-62 record) and the 2017-18 Chicago Bulls (didn’t make the playoffs and finished with a 27-55 record).
The Heat also became the first team in NBA history to immediately follow a losing skid of at least 10 games with six straight double-digit wins. The Heat’s average margin of victory during its six-game winning streak was a dominant 20.5 points per game.
“This was a great basketball game,” Spoelstra said after Thursday’s loss. “We’re not happy with the way it went down the stretch. But we’re becoming a very tough team.”
The Heat lost despite getting one of the highest-scoring quarters in Herro’s NBA career.
After a quiet eight-point first half on 3-of-9 shooting from the field, Herro exploded for 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 shooting on threes in Thursday’s third quarter.
The 19-point third quarter is tied for the third-highest scoring quarter of Herro’s NBA career, only ranking behind his 21-point second quarter against the Houston Rockets on March 7, 2022 and his 21-point third quarter against the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 4, 2024.
Herro finished the loss with a game-high 35 points on 12-of-23 shooting from the field, 4-of-7 shooting on threes and 7-of-7 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds and four assists in 37 minutes. He totaled 27 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the field, 2-of-3 shooting on threes and 7-of-7 shooting from the foul line in the second half.
“I had a slow first half, so I came out in the second half with an aggressive mindset,” said Herro, who moved past Chris Bosh for sole possession of sixth place on the Heat’s all-time scoring list on Thursday. “I tried to get to my sweet spots and just be a little bit stronger with the ball and just try to lead the guys.”
Herro has averaged an impressive 28.9 points per game on 56.9 percent shooting from the field and 21 of 43 (48.8 percent) from three-point range over the last seven games.
Even with Duncan Robinson making his return, the Heat stuck with the same starting lineup.
The Heat went with the starting group of Herro, Alec Burks, Pelle Larsson, Ware and Adebayo for the fourth straight game on Thursday.
That left Robinson playing off the bench in his return after missing the previous five games with a back issue that was labeled by the team as “left sacroiliac joint dysfunction.” Robinson started in five of the six games before he went out with his back injury and now returns to a reserve role.
Robinson, who has made 35 starts this season, recorded six points on 2-of-3 shooting on threes, three rebounds and one steal in 11 minutes off the bench.
“The most important thing is he feels a lot better,” Spoelstra said of Robinson. “This is not what he was dealing with last year. He was able to get some really good work in and he creates a lot of offensive triggers for us. It’s good to have him back in the mix.”
Robinson was part of a four-man Heat bench rotation that also included Mitchell, Haywood Highsmith and Kyle Anderson on Thursday.
Mitchell again produced positive minutes off the Heat’s bench, finishing the loss with 11 points, four rebounds, seven assists and three steals in 37 minutes. He closed with a team-best plus/minus of plus 3.
While Robinson was back, the Heat remained without Andrew Wiggins (right hamstring tendinopathy), Kevin Love (personal reasons), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand) and Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) against the Grizzlies.
The Heat was also without Terry Rozier because of a stomach illness. Rozier has fallen out of Miami’s rotation in recent weeks and received his seventh DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) in the last 11 games during Wednesday’s win in Boston.
After a slow start to the season, Adebayo has been an extremely efficient three-point shooter for the last two months.
With Adebayo shooting 2 of 4 from deep in Thursday’s loss to the Grizzlies, he’s now shooting an eye-opening 41 of 99 (41.4 percent) from behind the arc in his last 31 games. He has also made at least one three-pointer in a career-best nine straight games.
This is an encouraging trend, considering Adebayo shot just 29 of 106 (27.4 percent) on threes in his first 44 appearances of the season prior to this hot stretch.
“It just makes me harder to guard,” Adebayo said of his three-point shot. “Because at that point, you’re dealing with closeouts. So it’s just adding something to my arsenal.”
Adebayo has already set new career highs in three-point makes (70) and three-point attempts (205) this season. He has shattered his previous career-high marks of 15 three-point makes and 42 three-point attempts, which were both set last season.
Adebayo finished Thursday’s defeat with 26 points on 11-of-26 shooting from the field, seven rebounds, five assists, one steal and two blocks in 34 minutes.
Not only did Thursday’s loss lock the Heat into the NBA’s play-in tournament for the third straight season, but it also clinched the Heat’s first losing season in more than five years.
By dropping its 42nd game of this regular season on Thursday, the Heat is now assured of finishing the regular season with a losing record for the first time since the 2018-19 season and just the sixth time in Pat Riley’s 30 seasons with the organization.
The Heat is also now locked into the play-in tournament that features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
Even after Thursday’s loss, the Heat (35-42) remains in ninth place in the Eastern Conference — one-half game ahead of the 10th-place Chicago Bulls (34-42). But the Heat fell 1.5 games behind the eighth-place Atlanta Hawks (36-40) and 2.5 games behind the seventh-place Orlando Magic (38-40)
If the Heat finishes the regular season in ninth or 10th place, it would need to win two straight games in the play-in tournament just to qualify for the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed. Closing the regular season in seventh or eighth place means the Heat would get two chances to win one play-in game to make the playoffs as either the East’s No. 7 or No. 8 seed.
The Heat has just five games left to play this regular season.
This story was originally published April 3, 2025 at 10:06 PM.
