No 83-point day for Bam, but Heat gets 16-point win over tanking Wizards. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 152-136 blowout win over the Washington Wizards on Saturday night at Kaseya Center to close a three-game homestand at 2-1. The Heat (41-37) now enters a two-day break before heading to Toronto for a two-game set against the Raptors on Tuesday and Thursday:
Even without its top two scorers, the Heat took care of business against the tanking Wizards for just its third win in the past three weeks. Miami nearly set a franchise record in the process.
The Heat was without its two leading scorers in guards Norman Powell (illness) and Tyler Herro (personal reasons) on Saturday, but still crushed the tanking Wizards by 16 points on Saturday. Miami is now 3-8 over in its 11 games.
“We had a good day of practice coming off the disappointing [loss to the Boston Celtics on Wednesday],” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And that’s what you want out of the group, particularly with everything we’ve gone through in these last ten games is just to focus on solutions and work to get better. And the approach was solid.”
The Wizards, which hold the NBA’s worst record at 17-60 and have now lost 21 of their last 22 games, sat Anthony Davis, Kyshawn George, D’Angelo Russell, Alex Sarr, Tristan Vukcevic, Cam Whitmore and Trae Young against the Heat.
The Heat has four losses against the teams with the five worst records in the league this season, but Miami took advantage of an inferior opponent on Saturday.
The Heat, which improved to 3-0 against the Wizards this season, pulled ahead by as many as 22 points in the first half and never looked back.
The Heat’s lead grew to as large as 35 points in the second half behind a balanced attack that included seven players with double-digit points.
Miami finished with 152 points for the second-most points it has totaled in a game in franchise history behind only a 153-point performance in an April 11, 2025 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
Heat sixth man Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored a game-high 32 points on 12-of-18 shooting from the field, 1-of-2 shooting on threes and 7-of-7 shooting from the foul line, three rebounds and four assists in 32 minutes.
Heat backup center Kel’el Ware added 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes, 19 rebounds and two assists in 36 minutes. He also tied a career-high with seven blocks.
Wizards rookie Will Riley totaled a team-high 31 points on Saturday.
The Heat and Wizards face off the fourth and final time this regular season on Friday at Capital One Arena.
The last time Heat center Bam Adebayo went against the Wizards, he produced an all-time NBA moment with an 83-point performance. But he didn’t get anywhere close to 83 points on Saturday.
After single covering Adebayo for much of his 83-point night on March 10, the Wizards made it clear at the start that they had a different plan to guard him on Saturday.
With Adebayo getting the ball in the post on the Heat’s first possession, the Wizards triple-teamed him. The Wizards then sent double teams at Adebayo throughout the game.
Adebayo closed Saturday’s win with a modest stat line of 14 points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field, 2-of-4 shooting on threes and 6-of-7 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds and seven assists in 24 minutes. He was subbed out of the game with five minutes left in the third quarter and never needed to re-enter the blowout victory.
“They did their job,” Adebayo said with a smile. “I got six shot attempts.”
After turning in the second-highest scoring performance in league history by totaling 83 points in the Heat’s March 10 home win over the Wizards, Adebayo finished with 69 fewer points on Saturday.
Before Saturday’s game, Wizards coach Brian Keefe called the conjecture surrounding Adebayo’s 83-point display from last month “outside noise.”
Jaquez led an impressive effort from the Heat’s bench on Saturday before flying across the country after the game. Ware was also impressive.
Jaquez took advantage of the Wizards’ weak defense, finishing Saturday’s win with his highest scoring performance of the season in a 32-point display. It also went down as the second-highest scoring performance of his NBA career behind only a 41-point day in last season’s regular-season finale against the Wizards on April 13, 2025.
It’s just the continuation of Jaquez’s strong season, as he’s among the top candidates for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award. He ranks first in the NBA in total bench points with 1,066 and also has a plus/minus of plus 172 this season.
“I know if I get in the right spots, I know I can finish,” Jaquez said. “My teammates were finding me a lot in transition and on the break. So when that happens and you hit them, you get a night like tonight.”
Ware was also a bright spot on Saturday, as he finished four points away from tying his career-high in points, one rebound away from tying his career-high in rebounds and matched his career-high in blocks.
“We’ve had three practices in the last ten days and I would venture to say that these are the three best practices he’s had this year,” Spoelstra said of Ware following Saturday’s win. “And those were coming off of some tough games against tough competition. A lot of that was being put through a fire hose, playing against good teams that are playing at a high level and things not necessarily going the way he wanted them to. And where I had to go to different lineups.
“But he’s really been intentional of trying to get better at some things. And his technique, getting his hands up, he still needs to get better with it. But hands up, that gets him in a better position to now react to blocking shots or making plays on the ball. That was very good tonight. He probably had an opportunity for sure to be able to get two or three more to get both hands up. But he’s drilling on it. He’s working on it. He’s watching film on it. He wants to get better at it. And the rebounding was great. ... So now, the next challenge will be doing it against a physical team on the road. And I’m looking forward to seeing him respond.”
Of Spoelstra’s compliment and challenge, Ware said: “That just means he wants more from me, better from me. He just wants to see me perform at a higher level.”
With Jaquez and Ware combining for 66 points, the Heat’s bench outscored the Wizards’ reserves 81-65.
The Heat went with a bench rotation of Jaquez, Ware and Kasparas Jakucionis on Saturday before emptying its bench in the second half of the rout.
After two straight DNP-CDs (coach’s decision), Jakucionis was back in the mix and totaled 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting on threes, three rebounds and nine assists in 28 minutes.
But there was a scary moment in the final seconds of Saturday’s win, as Heat forward Nikola Jovic limped off the court after a hard foul by Wizards guard Jamir Watkins with 36.2 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Jovic, who has been out of the Heat’s rotation, recorded five points and two assists in 13 minutes after entering the game late in the blowout victory.
Spoelstra said following the win that Jovic suffered a sprained ankle and that a postgame scan returned clean.
“Nothing is broken,” Spoelstra said. “But it is a sprain. We’ll just have to treat him and see how he feels.”
Following Saturday’s win, Jaquez flew to Phoenix on Saturday night to watch his sister, Gabriela Jaquez, and UCLA take on South Carolina for the NCAA women’s college basketball national championship on Sunday afternoon. It marks the first time that the UCLA’s women’s basketball team has reached the title game.
Gabriela, who is a senior, is a starter for UCLA. She is averaging 13.3 points and 5.4 rebounds per game this season.
“It’s going to be pretty epic,” Jaquez said. “I’m really happy for my sister and her team. They’re playing so hard as a group of seniors who have been there for a very long time. So this is their moment right now and we’re just going to go support.”
Along with missing Herro, the Heat also remained without Powell. But Powell is expected back soon.
Powell, who was the Heat’s lone All-Star this season, missed his fourth straight game due to an upper respiratory illness. But he was able to return to practice on Friday and is currently working his way back into game shape after missing time.
With the Heat now having two days off before its next game on Tuesday against the Raptors in Toronto, Powell will have a few more days to prepare for his impending return.
“He’s feeling a lot better,” Spoelstra said of Powell before Saturday’s game. “So now he’s just getting ready, gearing up to be available. He still had some big time lingering effects two days ago. He felt a little bit better yesterday. He was able to get some work in and he’ll continue to work.”
Powell, who has now missed 12 of the Heat’s 24 games since the All-Star break due to various ailments, is still averaging a team-high 22.1 points per game this season. Herro, who also missed Saturday’s contest, is averaging the second-most points on the team at 21.4 per game.
The Heat was only without Herro, Powell and Terry Rozier (not with team) on Saturday. Herro was a late scratch just minutes before tipoff because of personal reasons.
With Herro and Powell out, the Heat opened Saturday’s game with a starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Simone Fontecchio, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins and Adebayo. It marked the second game that this group has started this season.
Even after Saturday’s win, the Heat remains in 10th place in the Eastern Conference standings with just one week left in the regular season.
The Heat (41-37), which has slim chances of avoiding the NBA’s play-in tournament, is still in 10th place in the East and one loss behind the ninth-place Orlando Magic (41-36). But the Heat is essentially two losses behind the Magic because Orlando holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Miami after sweeping the regular-season series 5-0.
The Heat is also one loss behind the eighth-place Charlotte Hornets (42-36). Miami holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Charlotte.
The Heat is three losses behind the seventh-place Raptors (43-34), with Toronto already clinching the head-to-head tiebreaker over Miami. The Heat’s next two games come against the Raptors in Toronto.
The Heat needs to finish among the East’s top six teams to clinch a playoff spot and avoid the play-in tournament, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat entered Saturday with just a 1.3 percent chance of evading the play-in tourney.
This is unfortunately familiar territory for Miami, which has needed to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament in each of the last three seasons.
The Heat has just four regular-season games left to play. The final day of the regular season is April 12.
“We’re competitors. We want to win,” Jaquez said. “At the end of the day, every time we go out and step on the floor, we’re looking to win games. No matter what the standings are right now, we know where we stand. And we just got to continue to get better.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2026 at 5:30 PM.
