Heat celebrates 2006 championship, falls to Hawks as trade deadline looms. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 127-115 loss to the Atlanta Hawks (25-27) on Tuesday night at Kaseya Center to finish its three-game homestand at 1-2. The Heat (27-25) now enters a two-two day break before continuing its schedule on Friday against the Celtics in Boston:
As the Giannis Antetokounmpo speculation swirls, the Heat will enter Thursday’s trade deadline coming off a bad home loss.
It remains to be seen how this Heat team will look after Thursday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline, but Tuesday’s defeat will leave a bad taste in the mouth of the organization’s top decision makers.
The Heat fell to a sub-.500 Hawks team at home, and it wasn’t even close.
By the end of the first quarter, the Heat was in a 10-point hole.
By halftime, the Hawks were ahead by 17 points.
The Heat shot just 37.3 percent from the field and 5 of 19 (26.3 percent) from three-point range in an ugly first-half performance.
“We had an uneven offensive first half,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We missed some, and then we started to press a little bit. But then it just absolutely affected our resolve and commitment defensively. We are a very good defensive team, except for when we don’t make shots.”
The Heat made a run to begin the second half, opening the third quarter on a 23-12 spurt to cut the deficit to six just seven minutes into the period.
But that run was short-lived, as the Hawks regained their footing to push their lead back up to 17 at the end of the third quarter.
The Hawks extended their lead to as large as 23 points in the fourth quarter.
The Heat shot just 8 of 32 (25 percent) from behind the arc in the loss. Meanwhile, the Hawks finished 21 of 51 (41.2 percent) from deep to outscore the Heat 63-24 on threes.
“They lit us up from the three, something that’s kind of been a theme for us in the last couple games,” Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. said. “We just got to continue to get better. The season doesn’t end today. We still got a lot left.”
Hawks forward Jalen Johnson led the way, finishing with a triple-double stat line of 29 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.
CJ McCollum added 26 points on 6-of-9 shooting from three-point range off the Hawks’ bench.
Jaquez totaled a team-high 21 points for the Heat, along with eight rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes off the bench.
Heat center and captain Bam Adebayo finished with 16 points on 4-of-16 shooting from the field, 0-of-3 shooting on threes and 8-of-8 shooting from the foul line, 14 rebounds, one assist and one steal.
Heat guard Pelle Larsson contributed 18 points, four rebounds and five assists.
The Heat followed up Sunday’s blowout win over the Chicago Bulls with Tuesday’s double-digit loss to the Hawks. The inconsistent Heat has still won consecutive games just once since the start of 2026.
“We won back-to-back games once in January,” Spoelstra said. “It was a great opportunity to take a step forward, and we didn’t.”
For the second time in the last three games, the Heat was missing three starters. The Heat couldn’t overcome those absences on Tuesday.
The Heat was without starters Tyler Herro (right costochondral injury to ribs), Norman Powell (personal reasons) and Andrew Wiggins (left hamstring tightness) against the Hawks.
Herro missed his 11th straight game because of a rib injury on Tuesday. It marked the 41st game that Herro has been unavailable for through the first 52 games of the Heat’s season.
Powell missed his third straight game on Tuesday due to undisclosed personal reasons.
Wiggins sat out his first game Tuesday with left hamstring tightness after playing in the previous 23 games.
Along with missing Herro, Powell and Wiggins, the Heat was without Terry Rozier (not with team) on Tuesday.
“It’s the league. It’s not exclusive to us,” Spoelstra said, downplaying the Heat’s injury issues. “I know probably people think, ‘Oh, it’s just the Miami Heat. We have people out. You can’t expect who’s going to play or who’s not.’ Watch the National Basketball Association. You have no idea who’s going to play on a given night. You play a team one night. The next time you play them or you watch them on TV and you’re prepping for them, by the time they get to you, there’s going to be a couple of different guys out. You have to learn how to handle that.”
The Hawks were without N’Faly Dante (right knee torn ACL), RayJ Dennis (G League), Nikola Djurisic (G League), Caleb Houstan (G League), Onyeka Okongwu (dental fracture), Kristaps Porzingis (illness) and Duop Reath (right foot stress fracture) against the Heat.
The ongoing injury issues led to the Heat using another new starting lineup.
The Heat opened Tuesday’s contest with a lineup of Davion Mitchell, Myron Gardner, Simone Fontecchio, Larsson and Adebayo. It marked Miami’s 17th different starting lineup of the season.
Not only was it Gardner’s second start of the season, but it also was just the second start of his NBA career.
Gardner, who is on a two-way contract with the Heat, finished Tuesday’s defeat with 14 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field, 2-of-3 shooting on threes and 2-of-2 shooting from the foul line, six rebounds and two steals in 22 minutes. The undrafted rookie has now logged double-digit minutes in seven of the Heat’s last 11 games.
Gardner’s best stretch of the night came during the Heat’s run to begin the second half, totaling 10 points and two steals in the first six minutes of the third quarter.
Fontecchio, who was acquired by the Heat this past summer and has been used primarily in a bench role this season, made his third start of the season on Tuesday. He recorded 18 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field and 2-of-8 shooting on threes, six rebounds and two assists.
It was a rough first half for Heat second-year center Kel’el Ware.
Ware, the Heat’s backup center, closed Tuesday’s loss with nine points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 shooting on threes and eight rebounds in 18 minutes.
Ware’s first stint of the game was especially shaky, as the Heat was outscored by 11 points in his eight first-half minutes. Ware scored just two points on 1-of-6 shooting from the field and also had a few miscues on the defensive end during this stretch.
Ware finished the defeat with a negative plus/minus of minus 12. Losing those minutes proved to be the one of the differences that helped decide Tuesday’s contest.
The Heat played the Hawks to a tie in the 30 minutes that Adebayo, the Heat’s starting center, played.
Ware now holds a team-worst plus/minus of minus 86 this season.
With the Heat celebrating the 20th anniversary of its first championship on Tuesday, most of the players from the Heat’s 2006 championship squad were in attendance at Kaseya Center. That included Heat legend Dwyane Wade, who had some things to say about this season’s team.
While sitting next to 2006 Heat teammate Shaquille O’Neal for a pregame media session on Tuesday, Wade offered an honest assessment on this season’s middling Heat team.
When asked about the current Heat team, O’Neal said: “I don’t even know their record. What’s their record?”
Wade quipped: “It ain’t good enough.”
Then Wade added that he hopes this season’s Heat team draws some inspiration from the Heat’s 2006 championship roster.
“The foundation of everything that you guys strive for every day and everything that you have to deal with here started with us,” Wade said. “It really started with us. That set the standard. That’s the standard that you live by every day. So I hope you’re inspired by this team. And I hope you listen to the story of this team because we’re not a perfect team. We weren’t a perfect roster put together. But we were a team who had determination and we sacrificed. We willed ourselves. We believed in each other and we accomplished something that no one thought we could. They would be doing the same thing.”
The Heat’s celebration of its first NBA title began at Monday night’s gala, with players from the 2006 team attending the event.
The Heat then held “2006 NBA Champions Night” during Tuesday’s game against the Hawks. The celebration included a gameday tribute to the players and coaches from that 2005-06 Heat team, including a question-and-answer session with members of that team during an extended halftime.
This story was originally published February 3, 2026 at 10:15 PM.
