MIAMI — For those tiring of the Miami Heat’s hamster wheel of mediocrity, to those who insist in stepping back to step forward, there is one undeniable pathway to lottery riches: only play the third quarter.

Because when it comes to how Erik Spoelstra’s team has looked in the 12 minutes after halftime this season, the numbers have the Heat at lottery level.

To wit, with yet another third-quarter collapse in Wednesday night’s 133-124 loss to the Orlando Magic at Kaseya Center, the Heat went into Thursday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center:

— 25th in the NBA in third-quarter net rating.

— 28th in the NBA in third-quarter offensive rating.

— 19th in the NBA in third-quarter defensive rating.

— 21st in the NBA in third-quarter scoring.

— 26th in the NBA in third-quarter field-goal percentage.

— 25th in the NBA in third-quarter rebounding percentage.

— 20th in the NBA in third-quarter assist-to-turnover ratio.

Say all you want about the floundering Washington Wizards, Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets, New Orleans Pelicans and Sacramento Kings, but when the Heat exit the locker room at halftime, they have been right down there with the worst of ’em.

“It’s our Achilles heel,” guard Norman Powell said in the wake of the Heat falling to 0-4 on the season to the Magic. “It sucks, honestly. This season we’ve come out very flat — knowing that we come out flat — in the third quarter, and we haven’t changed it as a team.

“So as one of the leaders of the team, I take that on me. Not having the team prepared and ready to come out and battle to start the second half.”

It has been the defining pattern of 2025-26, from artful to awful, as the Heat move from the first half to the third quarter.

“It’s hard to explain that,” Spoelstra said of the recurring theme that has been particularly problematic against the Magic, “We pay the price for that.”

As continually has been the case this season, first-half fury followed by a third-quarter thud.

“I don’t know if individually we’ve got to do something different to prepare. Collectively, we’ve definitely got to make a change in just how we come out to start the second half,” Powell said. “Because these games are important.

“We can’t keep having games where we have an opportunity to get a good win, a signature win, and we don’t seize that opportunity,”

If not for a bottom of the Eastern Conference that is wretched, the third-quarter issues could already have had the Heat in a lottery location (and, yes, the Heat hold their own first-round pick for this June’s draft).

As is his wont, even with the Heat only scoring 20 points in Wednesday night’s third quarter, Spoelstra pointed to the 40 scored by the Magic in the period, in the Heat’s most-lopsided outscored quarter of the season.

“We can score in bunches,” Spoelstra said. “We can score as well as anybody in this league, but when we don’t defend, that’s been pretty consistent all year, and we pay the price for that.”

To put into perspective how important third quarters can be for the Heat, with Wednesday night’s loss, the Heat fell to 1-19 this season when trailing at the end of the third quarter. But at the start of the fourth, all too often the damage has been done.

“We’ve got to figure it out,” Powell said. “We can’t just keep making excuses for it, ‘Oh, we’re a young team’ or this, that, and the other. If we want to do something special, well, we can’t have that. There’s young teams in this league dominating, coming out with the right energy and focus and intent every single game.

“So it’s something that we got to collectively band together and get right. Or we’re going to get left behind and we’re going to be looking back at how we could have done this, should have done this, and the other. So we got to get better.”