Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 102-98 loss to the Houston Rockets (46-25) on Friday night at Kaseya Center to fall to 0-2 on its five-game homestand and drop its 10th straight game. The Heat (29-41) continues this stretch at home on Sunday against the Charlotte Hornets:
The Heat’s fourth-quarter struggles, losing skid and misery continue.
The Heat has now lost 10 straight games for just the eighth time in the franchise’s 37 seasons. This 10-game skid is the Heat’s longest losing streak since dropping 11 consecutive games from Jan. 29, 2008 through Feb. 23, 2008.
The Heat has also now lost seven straight home games for the first time since March 2008. This is tied for the third longest home losing streak in franchise history.
“We got 12 games left in the regular season. You can’t let go of the rope now,” Heat captain and three-time All-Star center Bam Adebayo said after the team’s latest defeat. “To me, I just think why quit? That’s unreasonable. To me, that’s something that’s in your character to be a quitter. And, obviously, I’m not a quitter, so I’m not going to let my teammates quit.”
The Heat and Rockets played a competitive first half that included 11 lead changes and seven ties. But after falling behind by one point with 3:09 left in the second quarter, the Heat closed the first half on a 12-3 run to take an eight-point lead into halftime.
The Heat even extended its lead up to 11 points early in the third quarter, but the Rockets closed the period on a 24-15 run to cut the deficit to two entering the fourth quarter.
Then the Heat’s concerning fourth-quarter struggles continued.
After Adebayo made a jumper to push the Heat’s lead to four in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, the Rockets went on a 18-4 run to flip the script and pull ahead by 10 points with 6:35 to play.
The Heat, which has now lost nine of the 10 fourth quarters during its skid, lost Friday’s fourth quarter 24-18 on its way to the four-point defeat.
The Heat has been outscored by 60 points in the fourth quarter during its 10-game losing streak. Since the start of February, the Heat has been outscored by an NBA-worst 26.9 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter while posting an ugly 6-18 record.
Friday’s game was decided in the fourth quarter, but the Heat lost the game in the margins as the Rockets closed the win with a 23-8 edge in second-chance points and 24-15 edge in points off turnovers. Houston did that by outrebounding Miami 15-5 on the offensive glass and taking advantage of sloppy play from the Heat that resulted in 21 turnovers.
“That’s the game right there, rebounding and turnovers,” Adebayo said.
Those advantages helped the Rockets overcome their dismal 10-of-21 (47.6 percent) shooting from the foul line. Houston’s efficient 14-of-28 (50 percent) shooting from three-point range also helped.
“The biggest thing for the separation was any kind of turnover that led to something easy going down the other end or a second-chance opportunity,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It was really just kind of a possession game. If you’re just talking about execution for execution, I’ll put our game up there with their game.”
After Friday’s defeat, the Heat has now blown a double-digit lead in an NBA-high 20 losses this season. The Heat has also now blown 18 fourth-quarter leads in losses this season, which is tied for the most such collapses in the league.
Fred VanVleet led the Rockets with a game-high 37 points on 13-of-17 shooting from the field and 9-of-11 shooting on threes. VanVleet scored 25 points in the second half and the nine made threes are his new season-high.
“He had one of those nights,” Spoelstra said of VanVleet. “He’s a competitor, so it can look a lot of different ways when he just makes winning plays. It can be a deflection, steals. It can be 20 points. I think he had nine threes, that’s not totally typical. He was hitting some bombs.”
The Heat now stands 12 games below the .500 mark for the first time since Jan. 30, 2017 when it was 18-30 during the 2016-17 season.
The Heat is still almost a near lock to make the NBA’s play-in tournament, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference. With just 12 games left to play this regular season, the Heat remains in 10th place in the Eastern Conference and five games ahead of the 11th-place Toronto Raptors.
But with the Orlando Magic winning and the Chicago Bulls idle on Friday, the Heat fell one game behind the ninth-place Bulls and 3.5 games behind the eighth-place Magic in the East standings. Finishing the regular-season in 10th place would require the Heat to win two road games in the play-in tourney just to make the playoffs as the conference’s No. 8 seed.
“It’s tough because no one likes to lose,” Heat forward Andrew Wiggins said. “And we’re all playing hard, playing the right way and the end result is just not winning right now. If you’re winning for the first three quarters, you got what it takes to win the whole game. We just got to put a whole game together.”
Wiggins made his return and played well, but it again didn’t matter.
Wiggins was back in the mix on Friday after missing the previous two games with a left lower leg contusion, finishing with a team-high 30 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field, 2-of-4 shooting on threes and 8-of-9 shooting from the foul line while playing in his usual starting role for the Heat. It’s the most points that he has scored since joining the Heat.
Wiggins caught fire in the second quarter, totaling 20 points on 6-of-6 shooting from the field, 2-of-2 shooting on threes and 6-of-7 shooting from the foul line in the period.
But Wiggins scored just eight points on five field-goal attempts in the second half. Wiggins was also limited to 29 minutes, as the Heat managed his workload in his return from injury.
“You can see the possibilities,” Spoelstra said following Wiggins’ encouraging return. “I said that before he got injured. We look like a different team when he’s mobile. He can do a lot of things that our team needs. The plays in between, he can create his own shot, he can get downhill, he spaces the floor. Defensively, he fits right into our system. So all of that, if we just can get him on the floor, there’s going to be good things that happen.”
Friday marked the 12th game that Wiggins has played with the Heat since the Golden State Warriors dealt him to Miami in the Jimmy Butler trade on Feb. 6. But Wiggins has already missed eight games due to injury or illness since joining the Heat.
The Heat is 2-10 in the games that Wiggins has played in since the trade.
“It felt good to be back out there, especially fighting with the guys to try to get out of this losing thing that we’re going through right now,” Wiggins said. “We did a lot of good things. It didn’t result how we wanted it to go.”
With Wiggins back, the only Heat players unavailable for Friday’s game were Josh Christopher (G League), Keshad Johnson (G League), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (G League).
The Rockets were without N’Faly Dante (G League), Jack McVeigh (G League), David Roddy (G League) and Reed Sheppard (right thumb fracture).
Wiggins was hot, but the Heat’s leading duo was relatively quiet.
After combining for 59 points in Wednesday’s loss to the Detroit Pistons, Adebayo and Tyler Herro combined for just 24 points in Friday’s defeat.
Adebayo finished with 16 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field, 2-of-4 shooting from three-point range and 2-of-3 shooting from the foul line, seven rebounds and six assists in 37 minutes. He had just nine points through the first three quarters before scoring seven points while playing the entire fourth quarter.
There was a scary moment late in the contest when Adebayo appeared to hurt his left knee while setting a screen, but he stayed on the court to finish the game.
Herro ended the night with eight points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field, 0-of-1 shooting on threes and 2-of-2 shooting from the foul line, three rebounds, four assists and six turnovers in 39 minutes. He scored just two points in the fourth quarter.
The eight points match Herro’s season-low and he finished with no made threes for just the fourth game this season. The one three-point attempt is also a new season-low for Herro.
“They’re up and into him,” Spoelstra said when discussing how defenses are guarding Herro. “We have to find different ways to find him some cleaner looks.”
With Wiggins back, the Heat went with another new starting lineup.
The Heat opened Friday’s game with a starting group of Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Wiggins, Kel’el Ware and Adebayo. It’s the first time that this lineup has started a game, marking the 23rd different starting unit that the Heat has used this season.
In fact, this lineup had yet to play together before starting Friday’s contest.
But after starting against the Rockets and playing the first 6:59 of the first quarter, Jaquez didn’t re-enter the game in the first half.
That substitution pattern continued in the second half, as Jaquez played the first 7:39 of the third quarter before being subbed out and never re-entering the contest.
Jaquez finished Friday’s loss with four points on 2-of-5 shooting from the field, two rebounds, two assists and two turnovers in 15 minutes. The Heat was outscored by eight points in his limited playing time.
But Ware was impressive in the loss, finishing with 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 from three-point range, 14 rebounds, one assist, two steals and two blocks in 35 minutes. The Heat’s coaching staff also trusted the 20-year-old rookie enough to play him seven minutes in the fourth quarter.
The Heat continues to rotate through different starting groups because of injuries and poor play, using six different starting lineups in the last six games and 11 different starting lineups in the last 13 games.
The Heat used Davion Mitchell, Duncan Robinson, Haywood Highsmith, Alec Burks and Kevin Love off the bench to complete its 10-man rotation against the Rockets.
Kyle Anderson, Pelle Larsson and Terry Rozier didn’t get into Friday’s game despite being available for the Heat.
While the Heat’s losing skid continued, another streak ended.
Friday’s result snapped the Heat’s nine-game winning streak over the Rockets.
It marked the Heat’s first loss to the Rockets since Nov. 27, 2019 in Houston. It also marked the Heat’s first home loss to the Rockets since Feb. 7, 2018.
Meanwhile, the Rockets have already clinched their first winning season since the 2019-20 season. Houston has now won night straight games and is in second place in the Western Conference.
This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 10:35 PM.