Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 114-109 loss to the Chicago Bulls (26-38) on Saturday at Kaseya Center to complete the back-to-back set at home and fall to 0-2 on its five-game homestand. The Heat (29-34) continues this stretch at home on Monday against the Charlotte Hornets:
The Heat’s nightmare stretch continues, blowing another big lead in an ugly loss to an injury-depleted Bulls team.
The Heat entered Saturday having blown a fourth-quarter lead in six of its last seven losses and in a total of 13 losses this season.
The Heat also entered Saturday having blown a double-digit lead in 15 losses this season. That’s the second-most such collapses in the NBA this season behind only the Utah Jazz (17 blown double-digit leads).
It happened again, as the Bulls rallied from a 17-point first-half deficit and an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to hand the Heat its third straight loss.
“It was a bad loss,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said.
After the Heat began the fourth quarter ahead by 11, the Bulls opened the fourth quarter on a 19-5 run to take their first lead since early in the game and pulled ahead by three with 5:52 to play.
The two teams then traded baskets for a few minutes before the Heat bounced back to regain a three-point lead with 2:47 left in the fourth quarter.
But the Bulls closed the game on a 12-4 run to turn that three-point deficit into a five-point win.
Chicago dominated the Heat 36-20 in the fourth quarter to complete the comeback, as Miami shot just 9 of 23 (39.1 percent) from the field and 1 of 11 (9.1 percent) on threes in the final period.
Meanwhile, Tre Jones (13 points) and Coby White (10 points) combined to score 23 points in the fourth quarter to spark the Bulls’ rally.
This latest collapse was the result of the Heat allowing a Bulls team missing a chunk of their rotation to hang around through the first three quarters.
The Heat led by as many as 17 points in the first half, but entered halftime ahead by just seven points after scoring only four points over the final 7:13 of the second quarter..
The Bulls then made two quick threes to score the first six points of the second half, cutting the deficit to just one. That forced Heat coach Erik Spoelstra to call a timeout just 42 seconds into the third quarter.
The Heat then pushed its lead back up to 11 points a few minutes later before the Bulls again responded to pull within two points with 3:47 remaining in the third quarter. But the Heat closed the period on an 11-2 run to enter the fourth quarter with an 11-point advantage.
The Bulls then took control of the game in the final period to complete the comeback despite missing Ayo Dosunmu (left shoulder surgery), Lonzo Ball (right wrist sprain), Nikola Vucevic (right calf strain) and Patrick Williams (right quadricep tendon tendinosis) against the Heat.
“We’ve been battling for several games and I really liked a lot of the things that were going on even in some of these losses,” Spoelstra said. “Today was a regression for one night.”
Not only is the Heat just 12-20 in its past 32 games, but it has also been outscored by an NBA-worst 14.5 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter during this span. Twelve of the Heat’s 16 blown double-digit leads and 11 of its 14 blown fourth-quarter leads have come during this stretch.
Bam Adebayo (22 points), Andrew Wiggins (22 points) and Herro (21 points) each scored over 20 points for the Heat in the loss. But the Heat shot just 30.2 percent on threes, falling to 3-14 this season when shooting worse than 31 percent from behind the arc.
Josh Giddey led the Bulls with a triple-double performance that included 26 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists.
The Heat is now five games under the .500 mark for the first time this season and for the first time since the 2020-21 season.
“It’s definitely a tough loss,” Herro said. “We had a lead, lost it again. We put ourselves in position to have another chance to win the game at the end. But we fell short.”
Heat starters Kel’el Ware and Wiggins returned from injuries and were productive for stretches in their first game back.
Ware finished Saturday’s loss with seven points on 3-of-7 shooting from the field and 0-of-2 shooting on threes, 12 rebounds, two steals and two blocks in 26 minutes after missing the previous three games because of a left knee sprain. But he did not play in the fourth quarter despite finishing the contest as the only Heat player with a positive plus/minus at plus 5.
Wiggins closed Saturday’s defeat with 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 shooting on threes, three rebounds, one assist and one block in 28 minutes after sitting out the last five games because of a right ankle sprain. He scored a team-high seven points for the Heat in the fourth quarter.
“There was a loose minutes restriction that I kind of stretched with the two of them,’ Spoelstra said when asked about the returns of Ware and Wiggins. “But they both looked great out there physically and right now they feel very good.”
With the Heat moving closer to full health, it was able to use its preferred post-trade starting lineup on Saturday for the first time in nearly two weeks.
The return of Ware and Wiggins allowed the Heat to get back to its preferred starting group of Davion Mitchell, Herro, Wiggins, Adebayo and Ware on Saturday for the first time since using this group to begin its Feb. 26 home win over the Atlanta Hawks.
It marked the sixth time that the Heat has used this starting lineup this season, falling to 2-4 in those games.
The Heat’s preferred starting lineup opened Saturday’s game strong, starting the contest on a 21-15 run before Miami made its first substitution of the night with 4:37 left in the first quarter.
The Heat’s starters then outscored the Bulls by three points during the first 6:17 of the second half before Miami turned to its bench.
Even in Saturday’s bad loss, the Heat’s starting lineup was a big positive. Miami outscored Chicago by nine points in 14 minutes with its starters on the court.
The return of this starting lineup provided some stability to the rotation after the Heat used a different starting group in each of the previous five games because of the team’s injury issues.
With the Heat getting two starters back, some players who had been playing during this injury-filled stretch fell out of the rotation on Saturday.
The Heat used Haywood Highsmith, Duncan Robinson, Terry Rozier and Jaime Jaquez Jr. off the bench to complete it’s nine-man rotation against the Bulls.
Rozier was a bright spot for the Heat amid a frustrating night, snapping out of a rough season-long shooting slump on Saturday — at least for one game. Rozier finished the loss with 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting from three-point range in 27 minutes.
But Rozier was on the court for the entire fourth quarter on Saturday and it didn’t go well. He missed both of his shots in the period, as the Heat was outscored by 16 points in the game-deciding quarter.
That left Kyle Anderson, Pelle Larsson, Kevin Love, Keshad Johnson and Isaiah Stevens out of the Heat’s rotation on Saturday despite all of them being available to play.
Anderson had played in 10 straight games prior to Saturday’s DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision).
Larsson and Love had each played in three straight games before receiving a DNP-CD on Saturday.
The only Heat players unavailable for Saturday’s game were Alec Burks (lower back pain), Josh Christopher (G League), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand) and Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery).
Saturday’s game could be a preview of next month’s NBA play-in tournament.
Not only have the Heat and Bulls faced off in the play-in tournament in each of the last two seasons, but they are both again on track to be part of the play-in tourney this season.
With the NBA’s play-in tournament featuring the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference, the Heat fell from seventh to ninth place in the Eastern Conference on Saturday. The Bulls sit in 10th place in the East.
The Heat is percentage points behind the eighth-place Orlando Magic (30-35) and one-half game behind the seventh-place Atlanta Hawks (30-34). Any hope that Miami had of earning a top-six seed in the East and avoiding the play-in is pretty much gone, sitting 5.5 games behind the sixth-place Detroit Pistons (35-29).
“We have to stick with it and keep fighting,” Herro said.
How is the play-in tournament structured?
The seventh-place team in each conference hosts the eighth-place team in a play-in game during the week of April 14. The winner of this matchup earns the seventh playoff seed.
The ninth-place team in each conference hosts the 10th-place team in another play-in game that week. The loser of this matchup is eliminated from playoff contention, while the winner of this matchup goes on the road to take on the loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in game later that week for the right to the eighth playoff seed.
The Heat has just 19 regular season games left to play. The Bulls have 18 games left on their regular-season schedule.
This story was originally published March 8, 2025 at 10:36 PM.
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Anthony Chiang covers the Miami Heat for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and was born and raised in Miami.