Heat’s mediocrity gets put in full display, as they failed to handle a tanking Jazz team on their home floor Monday night.
(Mandatory credit: Miami Heat/X)

Another rock bottom hit the Miami Heat on Monday evening. They failed to take down one of the worst teams in the league at home in the tanking Utah Jazz— who didn’t even play their All-Star’s in the fourth quarter. Instead, Utah’s bench closed out the Heat in the final minutes of a tight ending, defeating Miami 115-111.

The Miami Heat are capable of beating most teams on any given night.

They’re also capable of losing to most of them, even when 1.) at home and 2.) the other team is tanking.

This is the sign of mediocrity.

Brutal loss.@hothothoops @5ReasonsSports #HEATNation

— Matt Hanifan (@mph_824_) February 10, 2026

The Heat have proved to consistently be inconsistent all season long. They haven’t won back-to-back games in over two weeks now, and this most recent embarrassing loss will drop them to a 28-27 record overall and now 1.5 games behind the seventh seed Orlando Magic. Utah improved to 17-37 and snapped a three-game losing streak. They evidently handed Miami some revenge for a near 30-point blowout win against them on the road in Utah a few weeks back.

For once, Miami didn’t play poorly in the third quarter. Instead, their woes came in the second quarter of this game, where the Jazz had a 35-20 edge in that period. Utah had seven players score in double figures, led by newly acquired Jaren Jackson Jr’s 22 points before sitting the entire fourth quarter. The Heat had several chances to put away the Jazz in the final possessions but failed to execute on either end of the floor.

They couldn’t get the necessary defensive stops, and each Andrew Wiggins and Kasparas Jakucionis missed two crucial buckets that could’ve tied the game or give Miami the lead with under a minute left.

It was clear that the Heat missed Norman Powell’s scoring ability in this one, who was sidelined with back soreness. Miami lacked that true go-to scorer down the stretch. However, Wiggins led offensively with a game-high 26 points and 5 rebounds on 50% shooting. The veteran 3 & D wing has continued to impress as of late in the midst of an underrated season for him.

Bam Adebayo submitted another well rounded outing of 22 points, 11 boards and 5 assists. Rookie point guard Jakucionis has also been on a heater as of late shooting the ball from deep, adding 20 points on 7 of 12 from the field and 60% from 3-point range in 32 minutes off the bench. As mentioned, Jakucionis had a chance to capitalize a great two-game stretch with a go-ahead open corner triple in the final seconds, but just couldn’t sink it with the game on the line.

Outside of Wiggins, Adebayo and Jaku, the remainder of the Heat rotation struggled and failed to make the most out of their minutes. Kel’el Ware received the surprising start next to Adebayo to help match up to Utah’s size, but he was limited to just 14 minutes before fouling out of the game.. The unfortunate limit on Ware this time came in a game where Miami had lost the rebounding battle 58-43 and allowed a 15-10 advantage on the offensive glass— leading to second chance points.

Instead, Spoelstra was forced into having Heat Nation stomach another disappointing stint from Nikola Jovic.

Jovic put up a whopping 0 points on 0 for 4 from the field in 17 minutes. He has continued to chalk up a terrible season with stints of looking unplayable, right after Miami committed a near $65 million extension to the 22-year-old prior to the start of this 2025-26 campaign.

The Heat’s next game will be Wednesday in New Orleans before getting a much needed nine days off for the All-Star break.

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