Takeaways: Heat closes tumultuous regular season with loss on career day for Jaime Jaquez Jr.
A Miami Heat regular season that will be remembered for the Jimmy Butler drama is over. But the Heat hopes its postseason is just beginning.
The Heat’s tumultuous regular season came to an end in a 119-118 loss to the Washington Wizards (18-64) on Sunday afternoon at Kaseya Center. Up next for the Heat is a win-or-go-home play-in tournament game against the Chicago Bulls at United Center on Wednesday (7:30 p.m., ESPN).
“It’s an opportunity to get into the party, get into the dance,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the team’s tough path to the playoffs. “I think the format, once you can wrap your mind around it, it’s fun.”
The Heat closed the regular season with an underwhelming 37-45 record. It marks the Heat’s worst regular-season record since finishing the 2014-15 season at 37-45 and it’s only the sixth time the Heat has finished the regular season with a losing record in Pat Riley’s 30 seasons with the organization.
With the Heat entering the final day of the regular season already locked into 10th place in the Eastern Conference and set for Wednesday’s play-in tournament matchup against the Bulls, Miami sat a chunk of its usual rotation on Sunday.
The Heat was without Bam Adebayo (rest), Tyler Herro (rest), Andrew Wiggins (right hamstring tendinopathy), Alec Burks (lower back discomfort), Pelle Larsson (sprained right ankle), Kevin Love (personal reasons), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (right foot discomfort) against the Wizards.
That left only nine available Heat players on Sunday: Kyle Anderson, Josh Christopher, Haywood Highsmith, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Keshad Johnson, Davion Mitchell, Duncan Robinson, Terry Rozier and Kel’el Ware.
Meanwhile, the Wizards also had little to play for Sunday after already clinching one of the worst three records in the NBA for the best lottery odds at the top pick in this year’s draft. Washington played just seven players in the regular-season finale.
The Heat lost Sunday’s game in dramatic fashion after using an 11-1 run to rally from a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit and take a four-point lead with 8.5 seconds to play.
But after Wizards forward Justin Champagnie made a three to cut the deficit to one with five seconds left, the Heat committed a costly backcourt violation that resulted in a turnover. Washington then completed the miraculous comeback on a game-winning floater by Bub Carrington as the final buzzer sounded.
“It’s a shame because we did so many really good things in front of our fans,” Spoelstra said. “The last four minutes were a lot of fun. We were able to crawl back and get the lead and then get a four-point lead. And then three things that had to go three their way and three not our way, and all three things happened unfortunately.”
The Heat finishes the regular season with an NBA-high 21 blown fourth-quarter leads in losses.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Wizards on Sunday:
With so many regulars out, the Heat went with its 28th different starting lineup of the season and played two-seldom used developmental players for extended minutes.
The Heat opened Sunday’s game with a lineup of Mitchell, Robinson, Jaquez, Highsmith and Ware.
The Heat then used Anderson, Rozier, Johnson and Christopher off the bench to play all nine of its available players.
With little to play for, Sunday’s regular-season finale represented a rare opportunity for a pair of Heat developmental players to log extended minutes.
Johnson, who was promoted from a two-way contract to a standard deal earlier this season, finished the loss with a career-high 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting on threes, seven rebounds, one assist and three steals in a career-high 28 minutes. He appeared in 16 games for the Heat this season, spending most of his rookie year in the G League.
“My opportunity came today with the guys resting and the guys out and everything like that,” Johnson said. “Being out there on the court, with Jaime finally getting it back rolling and everything like that, it’s just an uplifting moment all around. You got to be grateful for it.”
Christopher, who is on a two-way contract, closed the defeat with a season-high 17 points on 7-of-16 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting on threes, seven rebounds, one assist and three steals in a season-high 29 minutes. He appeared in 14 games for the Heat this season and also spent most of this season in the G League.
“Josh had some big buckets going down the stretch,” Spoelstra said of Christopher, who scored 15 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter.
Two Heat players who were expected to play big roles this season, but fell out of the rotation in recent weeks, got the chance to play extended minutes on Sunday. One took full advantage and one did not.
Jaquez, who received four DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision) in the previous nine games, finished the regular-season finale with a career-high 41 points on 17-of-25 shooting from the field, 2-of-6 shooting on threes and 5-of-7 shooting from the foul line to go with 10 rebounds and seven assists.
“It was good to see Jaime play free in the mind, play aggressive,” Spoelstra said. “He definitely had the downhill part of it. We haven’t forgotten that’s what he can do. It’s a matter of just having clarity in his head, in his role and then to be able to make reads off the dribble.”
It has been a disappointing sophomore NBA season for Jaquez after he became just the seventh Heat rookie in franchise history to be selected for the All-Rookie First Team last season. But Jaquez ended the regular season on a positive note Sunday.
“It felt good,” Jaquez said after the highest-scoring performance of his NBA career. “I’m just happy to be out there playing. We had a great group of guys out there competing, trying to win the game. It didn’t go our way at the end, but I’m just happy to be back out there playing.”
Rozier’s struggles continued, closing the final game of the regular season with two points on 1-of-9 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting on threes.
Rozier, who began the season as a starter and is the fourth-highest paid player on the roster, received nine DNP-CDs in the previous 15 games.
The good news is the Heat escaped the regular-season finale relatively healthy.
None of the nine available Heat players needed to leave Sunday’s game early because of an injury.
But with Larsson, Love and Jovic also missing time ahead of the final day of the regular-season, it remains to be seen if any of them will be available for Wednesday’s play-in game in Chicago.
Smith is out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on his ruptured Achilles in December.
Christopher and Stevens aren’t eligible to take part in the playoffs because they are on two-way contracts.
The Heat now waits to learn where it will pick in the first round of this year’s draft.
But one thing is now set: If the Heat misses the playoffs, it would enter the May 12 NBA Draft Lottery with the 11th lottery seed that comes with a 2 percent chance of landing the top pick and a 9.4 percent chance of snagging a top-four pick during next month’s draft lottery.
However, if the Heat wins two road play-in games this upcoming week and makes the playoffs, it would not be part of the lottery and its first-round pick this year would go to the Oklahoma City Thunder — a lottery-protected selection first sent out by Miami in the 2019 trade to acquire Butler.
The Heat is also still monitoring the Golden State Warriors’ pick that it acquired in the Butler trade in February. Miami will get Golden State’s first-round selection this year as long as it falls between No. 11 and No. 30.
Golden State closed the regular season in seventh place in the Western Conference and will need to take part in the play-in tournament to qualify for the playoffs. The only chance of the Warriors keeping their first-round pick this year is if they lose in the play-in tourney and then overcome long odds to get a top-four pick during the lottery.
If Golden State makes the playoffs from the play-in tournament, the Heat stands to own the 18th, 19th or 20th overall pick in this year’s draft from the Warriors. With the Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies and Milwaukee Bucks all finishing the regular season at 48-34, a random drawing in the days ahead will determine which of those picks is 18th, 19th and 20th.
If the Warriors lose two play-in games this upcoming week and miss the playoffs, their pick would move up to 14th and would still be sent to the Heat. However, Golden State would keep its first-round pick if it lands a top-four pick in the lottery.
Next up for the Heat are two must-win games to extend its season.
As the East’s 10th-place team, the Heat will need to win two consecutive road play-in games just to qualify for the playoffs as the conference’s No. 8 seed and clinch a first-round matchup against the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.
With the East’s play-in seeding set at No. 7 Orlando Magic, No. 8 Atlanta Hawks, No. 9 Bulls and No. 10 Heat, here’s the challenging path to the playoffs that Miami faces ...
The East’s play-in game between the No. 7 Magic and No. 8 Hawks will be played on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in Orlando and aired on TNT. The winner of this matchup earns the conference’s seventh playoff seed and will face the second-seeded Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.
The East’s play-in game between the No. 9 Bulls and No. 10 Heat will be played on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Chicago and aired on ESPN. The loser of this matchup is eliminated from playoff contention.
Then the East’s play-in game between the loser of the Magic-Hawks matchup and the winner of the Bulls-Heat game will be played on Friday in either Orlando or Atlanta and aired on TNT at a time still to be determined. The winner of this matchup earns the conference’s eighth playoff seed and will take on the top-seeded Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs.
To make the playoffs this season, the Heat will need to do something no other team has done. No 10th-place team in either conference has ever advanced past the play-in tournament since this current play-in format was first instituted for the 2020-21 season.
This story was originally published April 13, 2025 at 3:20 PM.
