The Heat\u2019s chances of hosting a play-in game improved, but its slim chance of landing a high draft pick declined a bit, as a result of Miami\u2019s 140-117 win against the tanking Washington Wizards on Friday night in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
The Heat\u2019s win, coupled with Charlotte\u2019s 118-100 home loss to Detroit and Philadelphia\u2019s win at Indiana, means Miami can finish only ninth or 10th in the East and thus would need to win two play-in games to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Heat would finish 10th if Miami loses at home to Atlanta or if the Hornets win at the Knicks on Sunday. (Both games are at 6 p.m.). In that scenario, the Heat would play at Charlotte in a 9-10 play-in game on Tuesday or Wednesday on Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n
The Heat would move to ninth and host Charlotte in a 9-10 play-in game if the Heat beats Atlanta and the Hornets lose at the Knicks.<\/p>\n
In that scenario, both Miami and Charlotte would finish 43-39, and Miami would win the tiebreaker by virtue of winning the season series with the Hornets.<\/p>\n
Whether the Heat is ninth or 10th, Miami would need to win two play-in games and would play Detroit in the playoffs if it wins those play-in games.<\/p>\n
The Heat could have moved to eighth in the East with two wins, two Hornets losses and two 76ers losses. But Philadelphia\u2019s win against the Pacers eliminated that possibility.<\/p>\n
But the Heat\u2019s chances of maximizing its odds in the May 10 NBA draft lottery took a hit. Miami\u2019s lottery odds of landing top four pick would have risen from as low as 2.4% to 9.4% if seven things had happened: the Heat losing its final two games and losing in the play-in game; if Portland beats the Clippers late Friday and then the Kings on Sunday, and if the Clippers beat the Warriors Sunday; and if the Warriors advance from the play-in to the playoffs.<\/p>\n
That would have left the Heat with the fourth-best record among lottery teams, giving Miami that 9.4 percent chance to snag a top four pick. While that scenario was still possible as of 10 p.m. Friday, it\u2019s less likely.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Heat (41-38) is very much at risk of finishing with the 14th and worst lottery slot if it finishes with the ninth seed and if the Blazers and Clippers finish the season with worse records than Miami. Portland was 40-40 and the Clippers 41-39 heading into their meeting on Friday night in Oregon.<\/p>\n
The team with the 14th lottery slot has a 0.5 chance of landing the top pick and 2.4 percent chance of snagging a top four pick.<\/p>\n
Heat clinches winning record<\/p>\n
In moving to 42-39, Miami won for only the fourth time in its past 14 games and assured itself of a winning record for the 19th time in 26 seasons this century.<\/p>\n
Miami has finished with a losing record only once in the past seven seasons (37-45 last season). But the Heat hasn\u2019t won a playoff series since its NBA Finals run in 2023 and will face long odds to do so this season, if it makes the playoffs at all.<\/p>\n
The Heat played without Tyler Herro (foot soreness), Norman Powell (groin injury) and Davion Mitchell (shoulder). Washington played without Anthony Davis and Trae Young, among others.<\/p>\n
But even without three rotation players, the Heat made quick work of the hapless Wizards, opening a 34-23 lead after a quarter and a 72-52 lead at the half.<\/p>\n
Bam Adebayo scored 19 in the first half and closed with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists.<\/p>\n
But even though he scored 83 points against the Wizards on March 10, Adebayo fell well short of setting the franchise record for highest scoring average against a single opponent in a season. Dwyane Wade holds that mark, having once averaged 42 points in three games against the Knicks.<\/p>\n
Jaime Jaquez Jr. was brilliant in the second half, hitting six baskets during one five-minute stretch late in the third and early in the fourth, en route to finishing with 23 points on 10 for 14 shooting, with eight assists. Pelle Larsson also was very good, with 24 points and 6 assists.<\/p>\n
Simone Fontecchio added 24 points – his most in a Heat uniform – and shot 6 for 8 on three-pointers. Kel\u2019el Ware had 12 points and 8 rebounds and Kasparas Jakucionis played well in his 12th NBA start, delivering 16 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.<\/p>\n
The Heat opened with a starting group of Adebayo, Ware, Andrew Wiggins, Fontecchio and Jakucionis.<\/p>\n
Erik Spoelstra suggested that he\u2019s now once again committed to starting Ware with Adebayo, and that\u2019s why he moved Larsson to the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis allows him to get some more minutes out of the gate,\u201d Spoelstra said of Ware. \u201cWe all know about his upside.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first half, Erik Spoelstra used a bench of Larsson, Jaquez Jr., Keshad Johnson and Myron Gardner.<\/p>\n
The Wizards sliced the Heat\u2019s 24-point lead to 10 late in the third quarter before threes by both Adebayo and Jaquez — and two more baskets by Jaquez — pushed the Heat\u2019s lead to 20 after three.<\/p>\n
Miami finished 4-0 against the Wizards and pushed its record to 19-7 against teams that aren\u2019t advancing to the play-in or playoffs (in other words, the bottom five teams in each conference). The Heat is 23-32 against the top 10 teams in each conference.<\/p>\n
Miami, which ended a four-game road losing streak, finished 17-24 away from Kaseya Center.<\/p>\n
Young gets deal<\/p>\n
Hours after releasing Terry Rozier, the Heat filled that roster spot by agreeing to a deal with Jahmir Young, who was promoted from his two-way contract.<\/p>\n
Young, a 6-0 point guard, averaged 26 points, 8.9 assists and 4.6 rebounds for the Heat\u2019s G-League team in Sioux Falls, S.D. this season. He played 55 minutes in 13 games for the Heat this season, scoring 22 points on 9 for 23 shooting, to go with seven assists and four rebounds.<\/p>\n
The contract makes him playoff eligible; the players remaining on two-way contracts – Vlad Goldin and Trevor Keels – are not playoff-eligible.<\/p>\n
Young, who went undrafted out of Maryland in 2024, played six games for the Bulls last season, scoring 11 points in 30 minutes. He signed a training camp contract with the Heat last August and won a two-way contract in October.<\/p>\n
The Heat roster now has the maximum 15 standard contracts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Heat\u2019s chances of hosting a play-in game improved, but its slim chance of landing a high draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[679,2574,500,495,676,7,684,559,491,296,572,113,10699,4959,229,1248,304,295,30690,6,558,114,2248,678,687,3303,1677,1176,494,30919,492,255,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-708023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-adebayo","10":"tag-andrew-wiggins","11":"tag-anthony-davis","12":"tag-atlanta","13":"tag-basketball","14":"tag-charlotte","15":"tag-clippers","16":"tag-davion-mitchell","17":"tag-detroit","18":"tag-dwyane-wade","19":"tag-indiana","20":"tag-jahmir-young","21":"tag-jaime-jaquez-jr","22":"tag-kasparas-jakucionis","23":"tag-keshad-johnson","24":"tag-knicks","25":"tag-miami","26":"tag-myron-gardner","27":"tag-nba","28":"tag-norman-powell","29":"tag-pacers","30":"tag-pelle-larsson","31":"tag-philadelphia","32":"tag-portland","33":"tag-simone-fontecchio","34":"tag-terry-rozier","35":"tag-the-heat","36":"tag-trae-young","37":"tag-trevor-keels","38":"tag-tyler-herro","39":"tag-warriors","40":"tag-washington","41":"tag-washington-wizards","42":"tag-washingtonwizards","43":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}