Heat comes out of quiet trade deadline by blowing 22-point lead in loss to Celtics. Takeaways
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 98-96 loss to the Boston Celtics (34-18) on Friday night at TD Garden to open a two-game trip. The Heat (27-26) ends the trip against the Washington Wizards on Sunday afternoon at Capital One Arena.
The Heat did not make a move ahead of Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, carrying the same players and the same problems into its post-deadline schedule that began with Friday’s painful loss to the Celtics.
The Celtics shot just 1 of 20 from three-point range in the first two quarters, as the Heat led by as many as 22 points in the first half and entered halftime with a big 59-38 lead. The 38 points are the fewest that Boston has scored in any half this season.
But the Heat’s season-long third-quarter problem proved to be a big problem again.
The Heat, which entered with the NBA’s fifth-worst third-quarter net rating this season, was outscored 36-15 in Friday’s third quarter. The Celtics erased a 21-point halftime deficit and took their first lead of the night with 9.1 seconds left in the third quarter before entering the fourth quarter with the score tied at 74.
After making just one three in the first half, the Celtics shot 13 of 20 (65 percent) from the field and 5 of 7 (71.4 percent) on threes in the third quarter to get back in the game.
Meanwhile, the Heat shot just 5 of 19 (26.3 percent) from the field and 2 of 12 (16.7 percent) on threes in another rough third-quarter showing.
What followed was a back-and-forth fourth quarter that included four lead changes and four ties.
But after Derrick White hit a corner three-pointer to give the Celtics a two-point lead with 1:31 to play, the Heat missed its final three shots of the game.
Miami’s final miss came on its final possession, as the Heat came out of a timeout with the ball and down by just two points with eight seconds left.
With a chance to send the game to overtime or steal the win, the Heat generated an open shot. A driving Andrew Wiggins found Davion Mitchell for an open corner three, but Mitchell’s three-point attempt rimmed out with 2.7 seconds to play to end Miami hopes of coming away with the road victory.
Payton Pritchard led the Celtics’ rally with 19 second-half points. He finished Friday’s victory with 24 points.
Jaylen Brown totaled a game-high 29 points for the Celtics.
After making just one three in the first half, the Celtics hit nine threes in the second half to finish 10 of 36 (27.8 percent) from behind the arc.
Meanwhile, the Heat shot just 13 of 38 (34.2 percent) and 6 of 21 (28.6 percent) on threes in the second half.
“Our offense, we were pressing a little bit more in the second half,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s all from the right place. We have great competitors in our locker room.”
Wiggins scored a team-high 26 points for the Heat on 10-of-16 shooting from the field and 5-of-7 shooting on threes.
Heat center Bam Adebayo added 16 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting on threes, seven rebounds and one assist.
Friday marked the Celtics’ first win after trailing by 20 or more points at halftime since April 2021. The Heat, which is now 0-3 against Boston this season, also blew a 19-point lead in a loss to the Celtics in Miami on Jan. 15.
“We’re not looking for a moral victory,” Spoelstra said. “It’s disappointing, but we’re going to get better from it. As painful as this is, it’s going to drive us. And I feel we’re going to get there.”
Veteran guard Norman Powell returned to the Heat’s starting lineup after missing the previous three games because of “personal reasons” that turned out to be the birth of his first child. But then Powell left Friday’s game for a brief period and fellow Heat starter Pelle Larsson exited the game early.
Powell started alongside Mitchell, Larsson, Wiggins and Adebayo on Friday.
Powell, who is the Heat’s lone All-Star this season, started fast with eight of the Heat’s first 11 points.
Powell closed his first game in a week with 24 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field and 3-of-7 shooting on threes, three rebounds, four assists and four steals in 35 minutes.
But the Heat opened Friday’s second half with a different lineup. Simone Fontecchio started the third quarter in place of Larsson, who exited the contest with 5:01 left in the second quarter because of a right elbow contusion and did not return.
“I was trying to warm up at halftime and was shooting and was struggling to get it to the rim,” Larsson said.
Powell also left Friday’s contest with 9:57 left in the third quarter after hurting a finger on his right hand. Powell eventually returned with 4:16 left in the third quarter after an X-ray on his right hand returned negative.
“They ruled out it being a fracture,” Powell said. “It looked like there might have been a minor one in there. So it took a little longer for me to be able to come back out. But they ruled that out and then we just tried a few tape jobs to keep it stable in support.”
For those asking whether the Heat would prioritize minutes for its young players after Thursday’s silent trade deadline, 19-year-old guard Kasparas Jakucionis did not play on Friday despite being healthy and in uniform.
Jakucionis, a rookie who was selected by the Heat with the 20th overall pick in last year’s draft, received his first DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) on Friday since Jan. 13. It also only marked Jakucionis’ second DNP-CD in the last 27 games.
In addition, 22-year Heat forward Nikola Jovic logged just six minutes on Friday. He finished with a team-worst plus/minus of minus 14 in his limited playing time.
The four players who played double-digit minutes off the Heat’s bench against the Celtics were Jaime Jaquez Jr., Dru Smith, Fontecchio and Kel’el Ware.
Ware, the Heat’s first-round pick in 2024, closed Friday’s loss with two points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field and 0-of-2 shooting on threes, five rebounds and one steal in 10 minutes.
“We’re not going to prioritize something over winning,” Spoelstra said before Friday’s game when asked if he’ll prioritize minutes for his younger players moving forward this season. “Winning is going to be the bottom line. Take it or leave it, like it or not, that’s what the Miami Heat is about. We’re competing to win. You have to earn your minutes. We’re not gifting minutes to anyone.”
The last time Miami and Boston faced off, the Celtics won behind a big edge in second-chance points. The Heat again finished in a deficit in this area.
After the Celtics outscored the Heat 31-7 in second-chance points on 18 offensive rebounds in a Jan. 15 win in Miami, the Heat ended Friday’s loss to the Celtics in a 20-12 hole in second-chance points.
The Celtics grabbed 13 offensive rebounds to the Heat’s 10 offensive rebounds on Friday.
“The biggest difference, again, was those 50-50 plays, the second-chance opportunities that just really take away, they’re deflating,” Spoelstra said. “So it was a 20 second-chance points again, but also some loose balls that we had a chance to get and we didn’t come up with it.”
It was a battle between one of the NBA’s top offensive rebounding teams and one of the NBA’s top defensive rebounding teams, as the Celtics entered with the league’s fifth-ranked offensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available offensive rebounds a team grabs) and the Heat entered with the league’s sixth-ranked defensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available defensive rebounds a team grabs).
But the Celtics again won this battle on Friday.
“The second half, they just beat us on some rebounds and 50-50 balls,” Adebayo said. “Other than that, it’s a [win]. But we didn’t do that, so we lost the game.”
While the Heat was the only Eastern Conference team not to make a move ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline, the Celtics’ new addition made his debut on Friday.
The Celtics traded guard Anfernee Simons to the Chicago Bulls to acquire veteran center Nikola Vucevic this week.
Vucevic made his Celtics debut on Friday, finishing with 11 points, 12 rebounds and four assists in 28 minutes off the bench. The Celtics outscored the Heat by 11 points with Vucevic on the court.
Meanwhile, the Heat moves forward with the same roster as one of only three teams in the NBA that didn’t make a trade before Thursday’s deadline. The other two teams are Western Conference contenders in the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs.
This story was originally published February 6, 2026 at 10:16 PM.
