How did the Miami Heat respond to its ugly 10-game skid? By doing something only two other teams in NBA history have done.
With Monday night’s 120-94 blowout victory over the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena marking the Heat’s fifth straight win after ending its longest losing skid since 2008, the Heat (34-41) became just the third team in NBA history to immediately follow a losing streak of at least 10 games with a winning streak of at least five games. The other two teams that did it are the 2021-22 Houston Rockets (didn’t make the playoffs and finished with a 20-62 record) and the 2017-18 Chicago Bulls (didn’t make the playoffs and finished with a 27-55 record).
“It feels like we’re really connected,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said, with only seven games left to play this regular season. “It feels like everyone’s covering for each other and we’re all playing really well off each other right now.”
It’s hard to nitpick a five-game winning streak when it comes after 10 straight losses. It’s especially hard to nitpick a five-game winning streak when the Heat had not yet won five straight games this season prior to this stretch.
But it’s also hard to ignore the fact that the Heat’s five-game winning streak has not come against elite competition.
Four of the five victories during this string of wins came against teams currently with a losing record — and three of them (vs. Charlotte Hornets, vs. Philadelphia 76ers and vs. Wizards) came against teams that entered Tuesday with one of the five worst records in the NBA. The lone victory against a team with a winning record during this span came against a Golden State Warriors team missing 11-time All-Star guard Stephen Curry because of an injury.
The Heat is about to face tougher competition, though, with its next three games coming against winning teams that entered Tuesday with a combined 140-84 record. This segment of the schedule begins Wednesday against the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics at TD Garden (7:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun) and continues at home against the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday and Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday.
The Heat is just 9-26 this season in games against teams that entered Tuesday with a winning record.
“I mean, we’ll find out,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked Monday whether he feels his team is ready to face quality competition after winning the last five games. “Our guys are competitors, so they’re going to look forward to this. It’s not like we’re going to be ducking the competition or anything like that. But we’ve developed some much better habits, the process has been solid, guys are gaining confidence. I think all of this has built off the adversity and playing well.”
Not only have the Celtics been the far superior team this season with the Eastern Conference’s second-best record at 56-19, but they are also riding a nine-game winning streak.
In addition, the Heat has dropped six straight regular-season matchups against the Celtics — four of those six losses coming by double-digits. The last time the Heat won a regular-season game in Boston came on Dec. 2, 2022.
“It’s an opportunity for us,” Herro said. “We’re on a five-game winning streak. We’ve been through a bunch of different obstacles this year. Everyone knows how hard it is to get a win in Boston. Just going up there with a five-game winning streak, we’ve built a lot of confidence throughout the last five games and we feel we have an opportunity get a tough win on the road.”
It’s also an opportunity for the Heat to continue battling for a better position in the play-in tournament, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference. The play-in tourney will be conducted from April 15-18 during the week between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.
The Heat’s win over the Wizards paired with the Chicago Bulls’ loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night moved Miami from 10th place and past Chicago for ninth place in the East standings.
The ninth-place Heat entered Tuesday one game ahead of the 10th-place Bulls (33-42). The Heat also entered Tuesday 1.5 games behind the eighth-place Orlando Magic (36-40) and 2.5 games behind the seventh-place Atlanta Hawks (36-38).
The Bulls already hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Heat based on Chicago’s two wins over Miami in the first two games of their three-game regular-season series. The Heat likely needs to win the teams’ third and final meeting of the regular season, — April 9 in Chicago — to give itself a strong change of entering the play-in tournament ahead of the Bulls.
As for other tiebreakers that could become a factor, the Magic currently holds the tiebreaker over the Heat despite the two teams splitting their regular-season series 2-2 because Orlando has the superior division record at 10-3 compared to Miami’s 10-5 division record. The Hawks also currently hold the tiebreaker over the Heat despite the two teams splitting their regular-season series 2-2 because Atlanta is currently leading Miami’s division.
If the Heat finishes the regular season in ninth or 10th place, it would need to win two straight games in the play-in tournament just to qualify for the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed. Closing the regular season in seventh or eighth place means the Heat would get two chances to win one play-in game to make the playoffs as either the East’s No. 7 or No. 8 seed.
“That’s natural,” Spoelstra said of scoreboard watching in the final days of the regular season. “We’re all competitors, so it’s good to look at the standings at this point. But what we talk about 90 percent of the time is our process and continuing to develop the habits that are leading to winning and that stuff is getting more consistent.”
While the Heat is the third team in NBA history to immediately follow a losing streak of at least 10 games with a winning streak of at least five games, Miami is also hoping to become just the 10th team in NBA history to make the playoffs after losing 10 or more games in a row during that regular season. The only team in the last decade that has made the playoffs after enduring a losing streak of 10 or more games in the regular season is the 2021-22 Brooklyn Nets.
“We’re trending in a much better direction, it’s getting more consistent and we have something to play for and compete for,” Spoelstra continued. “That’s always a good thing and we just want to get to a point where we’re ready, wherever that spot may be that we’re not a team that anybody wants to face.”
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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.