How Ware, Jakucionis fared and other observations from Heat’s summer league loss to Lakers
The Miami Heat continued summer league action with a 103-83 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers’ summer squad on Sunday at Chase Center as part of the California Classic. Here are some observations from the Heat’s loss to the Lakers in San Francisco:
▪ After going with a starting lineup of guards Kasparas Jakucionis and Kira Lewis, forwards Pelle Larsson and Keshad Johnson, and center Kel’el Ware in Saturday’s 82-69 summer league-opening win over the San Antonio Spurs, the Heat went with a starting group of Jakucionis, guard Bryson Warren, forwards Javonte Cooke and Myron Gardner, and Ware on Sunday on the back end of the summer league back-to-back set.
Lewis, Larsson and Johnson were held out Sunday on the second day of the summer league back-to-back. Heat two-way contract center Vlad Goldin also didn’t play Sunday. All of their absences were due to rest, with no injuries involved.
▪ Ware, who closed last season as the Heat’s starting center on his way to being selected for the NBA All-Rookie Second Team, finished Sunday’s loss with 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field, 1-of-4 shooting on threes and 3-of-3 shooting from the foul line, three rebounds and one block in 28 minutes.
“I’m just getting back into the flow of it,” Ware said following Sunday’s loss. “It’s been a little while from game-time play. It’s about fitting into game-time situations.”
The highlight of the day for Ware came in the second quarter, when he dribbled his way into a step-back jumper that went in for his first made three-pointer of summer league after going 0 of 4 from three-point range in Saturday’s summer opener.
“I mean that’s something that showed up in the moment,” Ware said of his step-back three against the Lakers. “But playing around in the gym, you just do certain things, so it’s something I’ve gotten used to doing. So it’s nothing brand new for me.”
Improving as a three-point shooter is among the things on Ware’s offseason to-do list. The 7-footer shot 35 of 111 (31.5 percent) on threes last regular season as a rookie.
The Heat’s coaching staff wants to see Ware dominate in his second summer league after establishing himself as one of the NBA’s top rookies last season. With just three rebounds on Sunday, more will be expected from Ware in the coming weeks during summer league.
“Today was really hard to evaluate anybody,” Heat assistant coach and summer league head coach Eric Glass said when asked about Ware’s performance on Sunday. “The Lakers just took us out of everything. Kel’el has had moments where he’s been strong and moments where we want some more from him, and we’ll continue to push him with that. But when you turn the ball over as much as we did, it’s hard to get anything of substance out there.”
The Heat committed 24 turnovers in the defeat.
▪ Following a quiet summer league debut on Saturday, Jakucionis was again quiet in his second summer league game. He recorded four points on 0-of-3 shooting from the field and three-point range (all four of his points came at the foul line), one rebound, two assists and three steals in 21 minutes in Sunday’s loss.
The 19-year-old Jakucionis, who was selected by the Heat with the 20th overall pick in last month’s draft, has totaled just seven points on 1-of-10 shooting from the field, 0-of-7 shooting on threes and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line through his first two summer league games.
“I was speaking to him yesterday, because we walked back from the game, and I was just telling him, ‘Hey, you know, it’s summer league for a reason. You work on your stuff,’” Ware said of his message to Jakucionis. “I told him if you’re going to shoot, don’t think about it. You let it go, trust yourself.”
Jakucionis continues to struggle with turnover issues, committing five turnovers on Sunday. He has now totaled eight turnovers to three assists through his first two summer league games.
Jakucionis’ first turnover on Sunday came in the opening seconds of the contest, as he was trying to spin away from his defender in the paint and Lakers guard Bronny James raced over to strip the ball away. James turned that steal into a transition dunk on the other end.
Jakucionis also dealt with a turnover problem in his lone college season. He averaged 3.7 turnovers per game for a high turnover rate of 25.4% while playing in a high-usage role at Illinois last season.
“That’s a major emphasis for everybody,” Glass said of working with Jakucionis to limit his turnovers. “We’ll continue to watch film with him and coach him up. There’s a learning curve for him and we’ll help him with that process so we can get those turnovers down.”
Of playing Jakucionis in an off-ball role for most of the first two summer league games, Glass said: “We have a lot of guys that can handle. We’re trying to have counters to teams’ pressure. So that’s part of our offense, where we can get other guys involved, other guys can bring the ball up the court and initiate offense to alleviate some of that pressure.”
▪ Warren has spent the last few years in the Heat’s G League developmental program and flashed his skills on Sunday, closing the loss with 18 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes, two rebounds, two assists and two steals in 26 minutes.
Warren, who was a four-star high school recruit and played for Overtime Elite instead of playing college basketball, has spent the last two seasons with the Heat’s G League affiliate. Warren is still just 20 years old and has yet to play in an NBA game.
“I like his consistency,” Glass said of Warren. “He’s still the second youngest player on our summer league roster. He’s really young. I think he showed a lot of good flashes last season in summer league and the G League, and I think as a really young player it’s tough to build consistency to be able to do that each night. So we had him in the starting lineup, he played a good amount of minutes and he played really well.”
▪ Gardner was among the Heat standouts on Sunday, finishing the loss with 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting on threes, four rebounds, one assist, three steals and one block in 26 minutes.
The 24-year-old Gardner spent the last two seasons with the Orlando Magic’s G League affiliate, the Osceola Magic, after going undrafted in 2023 out of Little Rock. Gardner, who has yet to play in an NBA game, averaged 10 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.5 assists and one steal per game while shooting 48.8 percent from the field and 65 of 184 (35.3 percent) on threes in 50 G League games last season.
▪ Guard Erik Stevenson struggled to make shots on Sunday after scoring 16 points on 4-of-4 shooting from three-point range for the Heat in Saturday’s summer league opener.
Stevenson, who went undrafted in 2023 and has spent the last two seasons in the G League, finished Sunday’s defeat with four points on 2-of-9 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting on threes.
▪ Center Dain Dainja (6-foot-9 and 255 pounds), who went undrafted out of Memphis this year, recorded 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field, three rebounds, one assist and two steals in 17 minutes for the Heat’s summer team. All six of Dainja’s made field goals came from inside the paint
▪ Lakers three-point shooting forward Cole Swider shined against his former team, closing Sunday’s contest with 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting on threes.
Swider, 26, spent the 2023-24 season with the Heat on a two-way contract before parting ways with Miami following last year’s summer league.
▪ Sunday marked the second of three games that the Heat’s summer league team will play in the California Classic before moving on to Las Vegas Summer League. The Heat is 1-1 through its first two games in San Francisco.
The Heat’s summer squad plays its final game of the California Classic on Tuesday against the Golden State Warriors’ summer roster at Chase Center (7 p.m., ESPN+).
This story was originally published July 6, 2025 at 6:33 PM.
