Trae Young #11 of the Atlanta Hawks battles Pelle Larsson #9 of the Miami Heat during the fourth quarter at State Farm Arena on December 26, 2025 in Atlanta. Todd Kirkland Getty Images
It didn’t take long for the Miami Heat duo of forward Nikola Jovic and guard Pelle Larsson to make their presence felt in their returns.
After missing four straight games because of a right elbow contusion/laceration, Jovic returned to play 21 minutes off the bench in the Heat’s 126-111 win over the Hawks in Atlanta on Friday night.
Larsson returned to play 30 minutes in a starting role in Friday’s victory after missing the previous five games with a sprained left ankle.
But Jovic, 22, and Larsson, 24, had very different nights.
Jovic struggled to make shots, finishing Friday’s win with 10 points on 3-of-14 shooting from the field, 1-of-6 shooting on threes and 3-of-3 shooting from the foul line while wearing a protective sleeve on his injured right arm. But he still made a positive impact, recording seven rebounds, four assists and one steal while posting a plus/minus of plus 12.
“I’ll say this about Niko, I think this was a good step for him to be able to contribute and impact the game without making shots,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the team back in Miami to complete the back-to-back set by hosting the Indiana Pacers on Saturday night. “And you didn’t see some of the body language that sometimes has happened if he misses layups or misses open threes or has a turnover. He just got on to the next play and tried to help contribute to the next play. And he did some very good things.”
Nikola Jovic #5 of the Miami Heat drives against Onyeka Okongwu #17 of the Atlanta Hawks during the first quarter at State Farm Arena on December 26, 2025 in Atlanta. Todd Kirkland Getty Images
With starting Heat big man Bam Adebayo unavailable on Friday because of lower back soreness, Jovic even needed to play as the team’s center when second-year center Kel’el Ware was on the bench against the Hawks. The Heat outscored the Hawks by nine points in the 15 minutes that Jovic played as the team’s center on Friday.
“It felt good,” Jovic said of re-entering the Heat’s rotation in his return from injury. “Maybe my shot didn’t feel good today, but it felt good to be out there. Just competing. That’s what I’m here to do. That’s what I like to do and that’s why I play this sport. I knew Bam was out, so I had to do a little more dirty stuff. When I was a little younger, I hated it. But now you have to do it. That’s your job and that’s how you’re going to help the team.”
The elbow is still not pain free, saying before Friday’s game that his injured elbow “still hurts, but it doesn’t hurt that much. I can play.” That could help explain Jovic’s shooting struggles against the Hawks.
But Jovic was just happy to be back on the court and playing extended minutes, as he had fallen out of the Heat’s rotation just before hurting his elbow during a Dec. 15 loss to the Toronto Raptors. Friday marked just the third time that Jovic has logged double-digit minutes in the Heat’s last 17 games.
“I’m someone who when I miss shots, I get pretty mad,” said Jovic, who signed a four-year, $62.4 million extension with the Heat in October. “I’m pretty fired up. But during this time that I was injured, I talked a lot to assistant coaches and some of the people from the Heat and they helped me find a way to get back into [the game] quicker. ... So, yeah it for sure helps and I think it helped me tonight. Even though I didn’t make a lot of them, I still felt great even shooting them.”
But Larsson made most of his shots in his return, totaling a career-high 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field and 3-of-4 shooting from three-point range in Friday’s win over the Hawks.
Larsson also did the little stuff he has become known for, recording six rebounds, five assists and one steal while providing quality defense.
“Man, he’s a gamer,” Heat guard Norman Powell said of Larsson. “And he’s not only a gamer, he’s a game changer just with his physicality, his energy and effort on both sides of the floor. He kept plays alive, made it tough and difficult for every matchup that he was on, putting his face in the plays, getting fouls. We missed that about him, just continuing to make winning plays whenever he’s on the floor in his minutes.”
Spoelstra credited Larsson’s work behind the scenes for his strong performance in his return from a sprained ankle.
“You should have seen his rehab sessions, whether it was on the bike initially, it was just all out,” Spoelstra said. “Almost a level of throwing up. I walked in on one of those sessions, and then also his court sessions. He just pushes the envelope. And so, he had the conditioning. It’s different than game conditioning. But he was able to handle those 29 minutes. And you just see the glue intangibles that he provides.
“This time it’s a little bit easier because you see the stats. But regardless of the stats, he just does so many of the intangibles on both sides of the court. He cuts, he moves for you offensively. It helps all your better players. We’re missing a ton of that. It just seems so easy. But it’s something we’ve been working on, everybody being that kind of role player when somebody else has the ball. He just does it naturally. And then defensively, he just does so many tough things.”
Larsson admitted he was “still pretty gassed” in his first game in more than two weeks, but also enjoyed playing extended minutes in his return.
“I kind of prefer just getting thrown right in the fire to see what you’re made of and see how it goes,” said Larsson, who is in his second NBA season. “So yeah, it was good.”
Larsson isn’t always going to score 20-plus points, but it’s everything else he provides that makes him a valuable piece of the Heat’s rotation.
“We’re so happy to have him back in this lineup,” Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. said. “He’s the ultimate energy guy, really just gives everybody life and the spark that we desperately needed. So the fact that he was able to come in after so many games missed and just play like that just shows how hard of a worker and how great of a player he is.”
The Heat hopes the return of Jovic and Larsson is the start of a healthier stretch for the team after dealing with injury issues for the first two months of the season.
“Hopefully we can get healthy going into the turn of the year and really start putting together how we want to play as a whole and start stacking these wins,” Powell said.