Heat’s NBA Cup run ends with another loss to Magic. Takeaways from Heat’s fourth straight loss
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 117-108 loss to the Orlando Magic (15-10) on Tuesday night at Kia Center in an NBA Cup quarterfinal game to drop its fourth straight game. The Heat (14-11) is now eliminated from the league’s in-season tournament and has some time off before playing its next game on Monday night at home against the Toronto Raptors:
The Magic’s success against the Heat this season continues, ending Miami’s NBA Cup run on Tuesday. All the while, the Heat’s worst stretch of the season continued.
Not only did the Magic improve to 3-0 against the Heat this regular season, but they also eliminated Miami from the league’s in-season tournament in the quarterfinal round.
The Heat started fast, scoring the first 15 points of the game on the way to taking an 18-2 lead just 3:09 into the first quarter.
But after ending the first quarter with a 30-17 advantage, the Magic erupted for 39 points in the second quarter on 16-of-26 (61.5 percent) shooting from the field and 5-of-11 (45.5 percent) shooting from three-point range. That led to Orlando taking its first lead of the night, pulling ahead 47-46 with 3:55 left in the second quarter.
The Heat entered halftime with a narrow 57-56 lead.
“An early lead at the beginning is nothing,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “You have to complete quarters and possessions all the way through. So they were able to work their way through it, as it often happens. And they had a huge second quarter. That could have kept things a little bit different if we could have gotten a few more stops.”
The Magic’s offense remained hot in the third quarter, scoring 33 points on 12-of-22 (54.5 percent) shooting from the field and 6-of-10 (60 percent) shooting from behind the arc to take a six-point advantage into the fourth quarter.
The Magic only added to that lead in the fourth quarter, pulling ahead by as many as 14 points to blow the game open in the final period behind its hot three-point shooting.
The Magic outscored the Heat 45-24 from three-point range. While Miami shot just 8 of 33 (24.2 percent) on threes, Orlando shot 15 of 32 (46.9 percent) from behind the arc to finish with that big edge.
Desmond Bane was the catalyst behind the Magic’s offensive surge, finishing the win with a game-high 37 points on 6-of-9 shooting from three-point range.
“We’ve been struggling with this concept recently. If we’re not making shots, we’re not able to get tough defensive stops,” Spoelstra said. “We just could not get enough stops in the fourth quarter. We were trading baskets when we were down a couple digits. And you need to put together three, four, five stops in a row to be able to change it. And we just weren’t able to do it.”
Norman Powell scored a team-high 21 points and Tyler Herro added 20 points for the Heat. But they combined to shoot just 4 of 18 (22.2 percent) on threes — Powell finished 4 of 12 on threes and Herro shot 0 of 6 on threes.
Bam Adebayo and Andrew Wiggins each contributed 19 points.
Mitchell totaled 11 points and nine assists.
After the Heat pulled ahead by 16 points in the opening minutes, the Magic went on to outscore the Heat by 25 points the rest of the way.
“Very tough, obviously,” Herro said after the loss. “Two competitive teams going back and forth the entire night. Obviously, I was encouraged by the way we started the game. But they fought back, and they got more stops and made more shots than us at the end.”
Not only has the Heat now dropped four straight games, but it has also lost five of its last six games after a strong 13-6 start to the season. And now the Heat’s NBA Cup run is over.
“It’s high,” Spoelstra said of the team’s disappointment level after being eliminated from the in-season tournament. “We have a very competitive group. There was something to really play for right now. We had all wrapped our minds around it. We’re all still kind of shocked about it.”
With Tuesday’s loss, the Heat will now have an extended break before playing again.
After being eliminated from the NBA Cup, Miami won’t play again until it meets Toronto at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Kaseya Center. Bally Sports Sun will carry the game, which will go head-to-head with the Dolphins-at-Steelers game at 8:15 on ESPN.
The Raptors lost 117-101 to the Knicks in the other Eastern Conference NBA Cup game on Tuesday. That result sends the Raptors to Miami to play a regular-season game on Monday and sends the Knicks to Las Vegas to play Orlando in an NBA Cup semifinal game at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
If Toronto had won Tuesday, Miami would have played a regular season game at the Knicks on Sunday night. The Raptors’ loss means the Heat will play 41 home games and 41 road games this season, as opposed to 40 at home and 42 on the road.
The Heat now has some time to exhale and rest. This added game will mark the Heat’s only game in an eight-day span before continuing the rest of its schedule on Dec. 18 against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center to begin a three-game trip that also includes matchups against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden on Dec. 19 and the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 21.
“We’ll be able to get a couple of days of just rest, which I think our group needs that right now,” Spoelstra said.
But Heat players missed out on at least an additional $53,094 on Tuesday.
That’s because every player on a standard deal on the eight NBA teams that advanced to the quarterfinals of the in-season tournament already earned $53,093 for making the knockout rounds. But that monetary reward increases to $106,187 for each standard contract player on the four teams that make it to Saturday’s semifinals in Las Vegas, $212,373 for each standard contract player on the two teams that make it to the Dec. 16 championship game in Las Vegas, and $530,933 for the standard contract players on the NBA Cup champion.
For just the second time this season, the Heat had its full rotation available on Tuesday.
With Herro (right big toe contusion) back from his two-game absence, and guards Pelle Larsson (right hip flexor tightness) and Mitchell (right groin tightness) returning from their one game absences, the Heat was back at full strength.
The only unavailable Heat player on Tuesday was Terry Rozier, who remains away from the team after being arrested in October as part of a federal gambling investigation.
Even the Heat’s three two-way contract players — forward Myron Gardner, center Vlad Goldin and guard Jahmir Young — were with the team in Orlando after spending time in the G League.
The only other game this season that the Heat had its full rotation available for this season was its Nov. 26 home win over the Milwaukee Bucks. The only unavailable Heat players for that contest were Goldin (G League), Kasparas Jakucionis (G League) and Rozier.
Meanwhile, the Magic was without its leading scorer on Tuesday and still won.
Magic forward Franz Wagner, who is averaging a team-high 22.7 points per game this season, missed the game with a high left ankle sprain.
The Magic was also without Colin Castleton (left thumb fracture) and Moe Wagner (left knee injury recovery) against the Heat.
A fully healthy roster allowed the Heat to return to its preferred starting lineup for just the fourth time this season.
With Herro missing the first 17 games of the regular season because of offseason left ankle surgery and then the last two games because of a toe contusion, Tuesday marked only the fourth game this season that the Heat has opened with its preferred starting unit of Mitchell, Herro, Powell, Wiggins and Adebayo.
Entering Tuesday, this lineup had outscored opponents by a dominant 10.9 points per 100 possessions over the limited sample size of 51 minutes during their first three games together.
On Tuesday, the Heat’s starters began the game on a 20-7 run before the team turned to the bench for the first time.
But that strong start couldn’t be sustained against the Magic, as the Heat’s starting lineup was outscored by three points to begin the second half before the first substitution was made.
With the Heat’s roster at full health, the initial bench rotation on Tuesday didn’t include some notable names. But Larsson sprained his ankle in the second quarter and that forced a chance to the bench rotation in the second half.
With so many players available, Spoelstra faced some tough rotation decisions.
Spoelstra ended up going with a bench rotation of Jaime Jaquez Jr., Larsson, Kel’el Ware and Simone Fontecchio in the first half.
The available Heat players who didn’t get into Tuesday’s first half were Myron Gardner, Kasparas Jakucionis, Keshad Johnson, Nikola Jovic, Dru Smith, Jahmir Young and Vlad Goldin.
The most notable players on that list are Jovic and Smith, who have been fixtures in the Heat’s bench rotation for most of the first month-plus of the season.
But Smith played in the second half after Larsson sprained his left ankle in the second quarter. Smith entered for his first action of the night with six minutes left in the third quarter, totaling two points, two rebounds, one assist and two steals in eight minutes.
But Jovic did not play on Tuesday. It marked Jovic’s third DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision)of the season, and all three DNP-CDs have come in the last seven games after his rough start to the season.
Jaquez was the only Heat reserve who finished Tuesday’s loss with double-digit points, recording 10 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field in 25 minutes. Each of the five Heat reserves used Tuesday finished with a negative plus/minus.
As for Larsson, an X-ray on his sprained ankle returned negative. He’s expected to undergo an MRI on Wednesday.
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 8:45 PM.
