Giannis gets triple-double, but Heat still falls to Mavs to drop to 0-4. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 113-109 loss to the Dallas Mavericks (2-2) on Monday night at Kaseya Center to fall to 0-4 this season. Next up for the Heat is a matchup against the Hawks in Atlanta on Wednesday:
The Heat’s longest season-opening losing skid in nearly two decades continued, as it’s still searching for its first win of the Giannis Antetokounmpo era.
The last time the Heat started 0-4 came when it began the 2007-08 season at 0-5. Miami finished the 2007-08 season at 15-67 before taking Michael Beasley with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 draft.
This is the fifth time in franchise history that the Heat has started a season at 0-4, along with the 1988-89, 1994-95, 2003-04 and 2007-08 seasons.
“This is not the start anybody wanted, but it has happened,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “So we have to address what’s in front of us, and we need to continue to get more consistent with our game.
“I can see and feel how much our guys want to play well, and it’s not happening. So we have to just manage that and show the fortitude just to continue to grind until we get a breakthrough.”
Antetokounmpo did everything he could to try to snap the Heat’s skid, finishing with a triple-double stat line of 29 points, 15 rebounds and 11 assists in 39 minutes. It marked his first triple-double in a Heat uniform, the 57th regular-season triple-double of his career and his first regular-season triple-double since April 11, 2025.
Antetokounmpo was everywhere, throwing a down a poster dunk over Mavericks center Daniel Gafford, hitting pull-up threes and assisting on a bunch of the Heat’s three-pointers. But it still wasn’t enough.
“I feel like sometimes you want something so bad that you kind of freeze in the moment,” Antetokounmpo said after the Heat’s fourth straight loss to begin the season. “As bad as it might sound, you’ve got to take a breath, relax and just play basketball. Watch film, keep on trying to strive to be better and eventually you’re going to be better.”
The Heat’s final lead of the night came at 96-95 with 6:34 left in the fourth quarter.
That’s when the Mavericks went on an 11-3 run to take control of the game and a seven-point lead with 4:23 to play.
After the Heat pulled within two points on a put-back from Bam Adebayo with 49.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Miami put itself in position to steal the win.
But after getting a stop on the defensive end, Heat forward Andrew Wiggins’ corner three-point attempt was blocked by Flagg with 31.1 seconds left.
Flagg then sealed the win for the Mavericks, driving past Wiggins for a layup over Antetokounmpo to put Dallas ahead by four points with 10 seconds to play.
Flagg totaled 29 points, six rebounds, 11 assists, four steals and two blocks for the Mavericks.
The Heat shot just 9 of 25 (36%) from the field and 2 of 9 (22.2%) from three-point range in the game-deciding fourth quarter. Dallas turned to a zone defense for a chunk of the period to help slow Antetokounmpo and Miami’s offense.
For the game, the Heat shot a poor 14 of 25 (56%) from the foul line on Monday.
“We all have to take a deep breath, and eventually we’re going to figure it out,” Antetokounmpo said. “You cannot press the panic button and panic. Because it’s only going to get worse if you start panicking. ... You just got to keep on playing basketball. You’re going to figure it out. But once you figure it out, you cannot let it go. Feel what you feel now. I feel what I feel now. I don’t like this feeling. The moment we turn this around, I’m always going to remember this feeling, and I’m going to try not to get back to this feeling.”
No team in league history that has started a season 0-4 has gone on to win the NBA championship.
“We have the type of guys that have the toughness to be able to handle some adversity, and collectively we’ll get together and continue to forge ahead,” Spoelstra said. “That’s all you can do right now. Nobody cares about what’s going on with our scores. The league isn’t going to bail us out. So it’s up to us to change it. There are some better things that are happening, but we have to get over the hump and get our first W. And then we’ll build it from there.”
Despite the Heat’s rough start, Spoelstra stuck with a starting lineup that has really been struggling.
The Heat’s starting unit has been bad to start the season, as it was outscored by an eye-opening 47.1 points per 100 possessions in 31 minutes together over the first three games. Among the 12 lineups around the NBA that entered Monday with at least 30 minutes played together this season, the Heat’s starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Klay Thompson, Wiggins, Antetokounmpo and Adebayo owned the worst net rating.
The results were better on Monday, as the Heat’s starting unit finished as a plus-three in 12 minutes together. But the final result was still a Heat loss.
Along with Antetokounmpo’s big night, Mitchell recorded 21 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting on threes in 34 minutes. Antetokounmpo and Mitchell were the only two Heat players to finish with more than 12 points.
After agreeing to a buyout with the Mavericks in August before joining the Heat this past offseason, Thompson played against the Mavericks for the first time on Monday since his departure.
Thompson’s quiet start to the season continued, though, finishing with six points on 2-of-7 shooting from three-point range in 15 minutes. Thompson didn’t play in the fourth quarter until being substituted in for the final 10 seconds of the contest.
Adebayo inched closer to becoming the Heat’s all-time leading rebounder, but his early-season struggles continue.
With eight rebounds on Monday, Adebayo is now up 5,785 rebounds since being drafted by the Heat in 2017. That puts Adebayo just seven rebounds from breaking Udonis Haslem’s franchise record of 5,791 rebounds in a Heat uniform.
But Adebayo finished Monday’s loss with just eight points on 3-of-10 shooting from the field and 0-of-5 shooting on threes, eight rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks in 30 minutes.
“He just needs to see the ball go in,” Spoelstra said when asked how the Heat can get Adebayo going on the offensive end. “He had some good, clean looks. He just wasn’t able to capitalize on them. But I know his makeup and his resiliency. We’ll work together to find a way to get him aggressive and his spots where he’s comfortable.”
Adebayo is averaging just 11.8 points per game on 40% shooting from the field and 3-of-18 (16.7%) shooting on threes through the first four games of the season.
“I’m not going to overthink it,” Adebayo said of his early-season slump. “It’s funny how the outside noise wants to make me the scapegoat. But when the tables turn, when the energy shifts, be prepared for that.”
When asked about Adebayo’s offensive drought, Antetokounmpo was quick to point out that “it’s not just Bam.”
“It’s everybody,” Antetokounmpo said. “We’re trying to figure out where we fit in and what we’ve got to do. We try to not step on toes. I do it myself at times. I find myself just floating around and trying to see how to help the team. But at the end of the day, I feel like when I’m at my best, when any player is at his best, is when he’s decisive.
“If you’re a downhill player, play downhill. If you’re a three-point shooter, hunt threes. Then it takes the thought process out of the game. You don’t think, you just play. And that’s for Bam, for every single person. Just play basketball, don’t think, do what you do, and stop trying to step on toes. Just play basketball.”
Adebayo could pass Haslem to become the Heat’s all-time leading rebounder on Wednesday when the Heat takes on the Hawks in Atlanta.
The fact that Haslem became a mentor for Adebayo and developed a close friendship with him during their six seasons as Heat teammates will make the moment especially meaningful. Haslem retired after 20 NBA seasons (all spent with the Heat) at the end of the 2022-2023 season.
But for at least two more days, Haslem remains the only undrafted player in NBA history who’s currently the all-time leading rebounder for a franchise.
There was a change to the Heat’s bench rotation, with forward Nikola Jovic dropped out of the mix.
The Heat went with a four-man bench unit of Pelle Larsson, Bobby Portis Jr., Dru Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. on Monday.
Smith logged just six minutes in one appearance over the first three games of the season, but he was in the Heat’s bench rotation in place of Jovic against the Mavericks.
Jovic, who was part of the Heat’s bench rotation in each of the first three games, received his first DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) of the season on Monday.
The Heat’s bench provided a spark through a dust-up between the two teams after Gafford took a hard foul on Antetokounmpo midway through the second quarter.
Heat players didn’t like Gafford’s foul on Antetokounmpo, and Gafford shoved Hardaway in the back. Portis rushed to his teammates’ defense, getting into Gafford’s face before the two teams separated them.
Gafford’s foul on Antetokounmpo was upgraded to a Flagrant 1, and Portis and Gafford both received technicals for the incident.
But that spark wasn’t enough.
Larsson led the Heat’s reserves with 12 points, four assists and three steals in 34 minutes.
Portis added 10 points on 3-of-6 shooting on threes, 12 rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 24 minutes off the Heat’s bench.
There were familiar faces on the Mavericks’ side.
First, former Florida Atlantic University men’s basketball coach Dusty May is in his first season as the Mavericks’ head coach. May and Spoelstra developed a friendship during May’s time in Boca Raton, with the Heat holding several training camps at FAU while May was coaching there.
Spoelstra and May became even closer when the Heat hired his son, Jack May, as a video room intern a few years ago. Jack left the Heat after two seasons to join his father in Dallas as a video coordinator this past offseason.
“When he was at FAU, we got to know him and were fans from afar,” Spoelstra said when asked about May prior to his first matchup against him on Monday. “And then got to know him, ironically, better and more often when he went to Michigan because of Jack, his son, being in our video room. He would fly down three or four times a year, stop by the gym and everything. He’s a heck of a coach. There’s no doubt about it. He can have success like he had and stay in college, but the way he coaches, I think, is also built for the NBA. It’s really a credit to his communication skills. He’s relentless as a learner.”
How much did May learn from Spoelstra over the years?
“I would list it. But we have a game at 7:30,” May joked prior to Monday’s game. “I watch games religiously. I came down and probably watched 50 practices and workouts in the offseason. I spent a couple training camps with him. A lot of what we do has been things that we’ve stolen from them and from studying and watching them and finding creative ideas. So we’re well aware of how great their staff is.”
In addition, Rob Fodor is now a Mavericks assistant coach/shooting coach after spending the last 20 years with the Heat. Fodor spent the last decade as a shooting coach/player development coach for the Heat before joining the Mavericks’ staff this past offseason.
“I’m happy for him there,” Spoelstra said when asked about Fodor on Monday. “He looks weird in blue. But he’s got a great shooting mind, very creative.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2026 at 10:13 PM with the headline "Giannis gets triple-double, but Heat still falls to Mavs to drop to 0-4. Takeaways and details."
