Takeaways: Heat closes tumultuous regular season with loss on career day for Jaime Jaquez Jr.

Miami Herald

13-04-2025

A Miami Heat regular season that will be remembered for the Jimmy Butler drama is over. But the Heat hopes its postseason is just beginning.
The Heat's tumultuous regular season came to an end in a 119-118 loss to the Washington Wizards on Sunday afternoon at Kaseya Center. Up next for the Heat is a win-or-go-home play-in tournament game against the Chicago Bulls at United Center on Wednesday.
The Heat closed the regular season with an underwhelming 37-45 record. It marks the Heat's worst regular-season record since finishing the 2014-15 season at 37-45 and it's only the sixth time the Heat has finished the regular season with a losing record in Pat Riley's 30 seasons with the organization.
With the Heat entering the final day of the regular season already locked into 10th place in the Eastern Conference and a play-in tournament matchup against the Bulls, Miami sat a chunk of its usual rotation on Sunday.
The Heat was without Bam Adebayo (rest), Tyler Herro (rest), Andrew Wiggins (right hamstring tendinopathy), Alec Burks (lower back discomfort), Pelle Larsson (sprained right ankle), Kevin Love (personal reasons), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (right foot discomfort) against the Wizards.
That left only eight Heat players available on Sunday: Kyle Anderson, Josh Christopher, Haywood Highsmith, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Keshad Johnson, Davion Mitchell, Duncan Robinson, Terry Rozier and Kel'el Ware.
Meanwhile, the Wizards also had little to play for Sunday after already clinching one of the worst three records in the NBA for the best lottery odds at the top pick in this year's draft. Washington played just seven players in the regular-season finale.
The Heat lost Sunday's game in dramatic fashion, using an 11-1 run to rally from a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit and take a four-point lead with 8.5 seconds to play.
But after Wizards forward Justin Champagnie made a three to cut the deficit to one with five seconds left, the Heat committed a costly backcourt violation that resulted in a turnover. Washington then completed the miraculous comeback on a game-winning floater by Bub Carrington as the final buzzer sounded.
The Heat finishes the regular season with an NBA-high 21 blown fourth-quarter leads in losses.
Five takeaways from the Heat's loss to the Wizards on Sunday:
With so many regulars out, the Heat went with its 28th different starting lineup of the season and played two-seldom used developmental players for extended minutes.
The Heat opened Sunday's game with a lineup of Davion Mitchell, Duncan Robinson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Haywood Highsmith and Kel'el Ware.
The Heat then used Kyle Anderson, Terry Rozier, Keshad Johnson and Josh Christopher off the bench to play all nine of its available players.
With little to play for, Sunday's regular-season finale represented a rare opportunity for a pair of Heat developmental players to log extended minutes.
Johnson, who was promoted from a two-way contract to a standard deal earlier this season, finished the loss with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting on threes, seven rebounds, one assist and three steals in 28 minutes. He appeared in 16 games for the Heat this season, spending most of his rookie season in the G League.
Christopher, who is on a two-way contract, closed the defeat with 17 points on 7-of-16 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting on threes, seven rebounds, one assist and three steals in 29 minutes. He appeared in 14 games for the Heat this season and also spent most of this season in the G League.
Two Heat players who were expected to play big roles this season but fell out of the rotation in recent weeks got the chance to play extended minutes on Sunday. One took full advantage and one did not.
Jaquez, who received four DNP-CDs (did not play, coach's decision) in the previous nine games, finished the regular-season finale with a career-high 41 points on 17-of-25 shooting from the field, 2-of-6 shooting on threes and 5-of-7 shooting from the foul line to fo with 10 rebounds and seven assists.
It's been a disappointing sophomore NBA season for Jaquez after he became just the seventh Heat rookie in franchise history to be selected for the All-Rookie First Team. But Jaquez ended the regular season on a positive note with Sunday's performance.
However, Rozier's struggles continued. He closed the last game of the regular season with two points on 1-of-9 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting on threes.
Rozier, who began the season as a starter and is the fourth-highest paid player on the roster, has received nine DNP-CDs in the previous 15 games.
The good news is the Heat escaped the regular-season finale relatively healthy.
None of the nine available Heat players needed to leave Sunday's game early because of an injury.
But with Larsson, Love and Jovic all also missing time leading time ahead of the final day of the regular-season, it remains to be seen if any of them will be available for Wednesday's play-in game in Chicago.
Smith is out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on his ruptured Achilles in December.
Christopher and Stevens aren't eligible to take part in the playoffs because they are on two-way contracts.
The Heat now waits to learn where it will pick in the first round of this year's draft.
The Heat will enter the May 12 NBA Draft Lottery with either the 10th or 11th lottery seed depending on the result of the Sunday's game between the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings.
If the Suns lose, the Heat would be locked into the 11th lottery seed that comes with a 9.4 percent chance of landing the top pick and a two percent chance of snagging a top-four pick during next month's draft lottery
If the Suns win, the Heat and Suns would be tied for the 10th-worst record in the league. The 10th lottery seed comes with a 13.9 percent chance of getting a top-four pick and a 3 percent chance of landing the top pick during the draft lottery.
What happens if multiple lottery teams finish with the same record? Their lottery ball combinations are merged and then divided equally. For example, if two teams are tied, they would each get half of the combined combinations. A random drawing is then held to break the tie and determine the draft order if none of the involved teams jump into the top-four selections during the lottery.
But if the Heat wins two road play-in games this upcoming week and makes the playoffs, it would not be part of the lottery and its first-round pick this year would go to the Oklahoma City Thunder — a lottery-protected selection first sent out by Miami in the 2019 trade to acquire Butler.
But the Heat is still monitoring the Golden State Warriors' pick that it acquired in the Butler trade in February.
Miami will get Golden State's first-round selection this year as long as it falls between No. 11 and No. 30. The only chance of the Warriors keeping their first-round pick this year would be if they end up in the play-in tournament, lose in the play-in and then overcome long odds to get a top-four pick during the lottery.
The Warriors enter Sunday in sixth place in the Western Conference and will only fall to seventh place and play-in tournament territory if they lose at home to the Los Angeles Clippers and the the Minnesota Timberwolves also beat the Utah Jazz on the final day of the regular season. Both those games begin at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The Warriors enter the final day of the regular season tied with the Timberwolves for the league's 20th-worst record. When teams finish with the same regular-season record but aren't in the lottery, their draft order is determined by a random drawing.
Next up for the Heat are two must-win games to extend its season.
As the East's 10-place team, the Heat will need to win two consecutive road play-in games just to qualify for the playoffs as the conference's No. 8 seed and clinch a first-round matchup against the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.
With the East's play-in seeding set at No. 7 Orlando Magic, No. 8 Hawks, No. 9 Bulls and No. 10 Heat, here's the challenging path to the playoffs that Miami faces ...
The East's play-in game between the No. 7 Magic and No. 8 Hawks will be played on Tuesday in Orlando at a time still to be determined and aired on TNT. The winner of this matchup earns the conference's seventh playoff seed and will face the second-seeded Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.
The East's play-in game between the No. 9 Bulls and No. 10 Heat will be played on Wednesday in Chicago at a time still to be determined and aired on ESPN. The loser of this matchup is eliminated from playoff contention.
Then the East's play-in game between the loser of the Magic-Hawks matchup and the winner of the Bulls-Heat game will be played on Friday in either Orlando or Atlanta and aired on TNT. The winner of this matchup earns the conference's eighth playoff seed and will take on the top-seeded Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs.
To make the playoffs this season, the Heat will need to do something no other team has done. No 10th-place team in either conference has ever advanced past the play-in tournament since this current play-in format was first instituted for the 2020-21 season.