MIAMI – Observations and other notes of interest from Saturday’s 152-136 victory over the Washington Wizards:

– For a team involved in the NBA play-in race, there are few worse feelings than beginning the day No. 10 in the conference.

– There also are few worse feelings than ending the day there.

– As in the final spot in the four-team play-in field in each conference.

– Such is where the Heat stood entering Saturday’s game against the Wizards.

– Such is where they exited.

– Which would mean having to fight their way into the playoffs solely on the road.

– Having to win twice in the play-in round without a loss.

– That had Heat coach Erik Spoelstra asked pregame about another season of play-in reality.

– “We’re focusing on the task at hand,” he said.

– Which at this point is about the only face one can put in the situation.

– “Right now,” he said, “we want to play really good basketball. And that’s all we’re focused on.”

– Which is hard to do against a Wizards team with an April 12 team charter to Cancun.

– So, basically, an acceptance of what is to follow after the remaining four regular-season games.

– “We’ll fall where we’ll fall,” Spoelstra said, “and you have to compartmentalize right now. You have to focus on the task and the opportunity that we still do have.”

– An opportunity that would have been considerably better if the Heat handled the rest of the lottery field the way they have handled the Wizards in these first three meetings.

– With the teams to close out the season series Friday in Washington.

– In addition to the Heat being without Norman Powell for a fourth consecutive game as he works through an upper-respiratory illness, Tyler Herro was ruled out short before the opening tip due to personal reasons.

– That had the Heat opening with a lineup of Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, Pelle Larsson, Simone Fontecchio and Davion Mitchell.

– The Heat won their previous lone game starting that lineup.

– The Wizards, deep in the abyss of a tank-a-thon, were without Anthony Davis, Kyshawn George, D’Angelo Russell, Cam Whitmore, Trae Young, Alex Sarr and Tristan Vukčević.

– That had them opening with the eclectic first five of  Anthony Gill, Bilal Coulibaly, Bub Carrington, Tre Johnson and Will Riley.

– Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kel’el Ware entered together first off the Heat bench.

– With Kasparas Jakucionis following, after previously being out of the rotation in favor of Dru Smith.

– Spoelstra said Powell simply was not ready to go Saturday, despite returning to practice Friday after missing the previous three games due to an upper-respiratory illness.

– “He still has some big-time lingering effects,” Spoelstra said. “Two days ago he felt a little bit better. Yesterday he was able to get some work in, and he’ll continue to work.”

–  Not only did Jaquez leave immediately after the game for Phoenix and the NCAA women’s Final Four game there on Sunday to watch his sister play for UCLA, but Spoelstra spoke pregame of spending time with UCLA coach Cori Close this season when the Heat was in Los Angeles.

– “She came to our practice, and she is so impressive,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve exchanged texts and calls over the years. We have similar coaching circles where we bounce ideas off each other. But she is a tremendous culture builder.”

– Also before the game, Spoelstra spoke of former Heat big man Amar’e Stoudemire formally being named Saturday to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

– “We enjoyed our time with Stat,” he said. “It was a fun year. He’s a heck of a personality. We had him, obviously, at the tail end of his career. So a lot of his time was just managing his body just to be available. But what a talent.”

– With his team completing an epic tank-at-thon of a season, Wizards coach Brian Keefe was asked pregame about the considerable amount of blowout games this season.

– “For a coach, I think we’re so focused on the day,” he said. “I probably don’t look at the big picture of those things. I know the league will look at those types of things. For me, I’m just focused on today and our team, so I probably can’t comment too much on that.”

– Keefe was asked pregame about being back at the scene of Adebayo’s 83-point game against the Wizards in the teams’ previous meeting.

– “I think we handle things the way we’ve been handling since I’ve got here,” he said. “Really, nothing has changed. We focus on our day-to-day habits, how we prepare, how we train. All that other stuff is this outside noise.”

– He added, “We just focus on what we can control. What we can control is how we prepare and how we work on things. Our team does a great job of that, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do the rest of the year.”