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Heat Notes: Play-In, Warriors’ Pick, Adebayo, Herro, Wiggins

April 12th, 2025 at 8:45pm CST by Arthur Hill

The Heat are locked into the East’s No. 10 seed as the play-in tournament approaches, but coach Erik Spoelstra is happy that his team will be part of the postseason at all, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. It’s been a difficult season in Miami, marked by a long dispute with Jimmy Butler before he was traded in February, and Spoelstra is ready for a fresh start.

“It’s the second season and this is something that I want everybody in the locker room, which they do have this, I want everybody to be appreciative of this opportunity,” Spoelstra said. “It could be something where you’re not even in the play-in or have an opportunity for this. We have an opportunity to win and move on to the next thing. I mean, this is exciting. This is great competition.”

The 10th-seeded Heat have to win two road games to reach the playoffs, starting Wednesday with the Bulls, who’ve beaten them in all three meetings this season. If Miami manages to pull out a victory at Chicago, the next obstacle will be the loser of the 7-8 game between Orlando and Atlanta.

“Win or go home. It’s like the NCAA Tournament. Anything can happen,” Bam Adebayo said. “You’ve seen teams in the tournament that got swept by a team in the regular season and you get that one shining moment and it’s a turnaround.”

There’s more on the Heat:

Miami fans will be keeping an eye on the Warriors as the season wraps up tomorrow, Chiang adds. The 2025 first-round pick that the Heat got from Golden State in the Butler deal is top-10 protected. The Warriors are tied with Minnesota for the league’s 10th-best record, so they would have to fall into the play-in tournament, get eliminated there and then land a top-four spot in the lottery to keep the pick from conveying.
Adebayo’s improvement as a three-point shooter has been a significant development, Chiang notes in a separate story. Adebayo went 4-of-6 from beyond the arc in Friday’s win over New Orleans and is now 50-of-115 (43.5%) in his last 34 games. “You’re always going to feel good when the shot is going in,” he said. “It’s just routine. I work on it pregame, obviously behind the scenes. Just seeing it go in, obviously defenses got to change up the coverages a little bit.”
With nothing at stake in Sunday’s game against Washington, Adebayo and Tyler Herro will be given the afternoon off to rest, tweets Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel. Andrew Wiggins, who returned Wednesday after missing five games with right hamstring tendinopathy, has also been declared out.

Southeast Notes: Larsson, Mitchell, Risacher, Middleton

April 12th, 2025 at 12:00pm CST by Tristan Tucker

The Heat lost rookie guard Pelle Larsson on Wednesday to a sprained ankle he suffered during a weightlifting incident, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald writes. The rookie out of Arizona called the incident a “freak accident.”

“I was lifting and just stepped and got my foot caught in something,” Larsson said. “So I just stepped on a twisted ankle, and it doesn’t feel great.”

Larsson isn’t sure if he’ll be ready for next week’s play-in tournament, according to coach Erik Spoelstra. It’s unfortunate timing, as he had established himself as a strong perimeter defender for Miami and started six games in a row with Andrew Wiggins sidelined, averaging 10.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.2 steals in those games, Chiang notes.

“It’s more frustrating than anything, especially when it happens off the court,” Larsson added. “It feels like you don’t have as much control. So it’s frustrating.”

We have more from the Southeast Division:

After playing 22 minutes in Friday’s matchup against the Pelicans, Heat guard Davion Mitchell crossed the 2,000-minute mark on the season and met the starter criteria. That means his qualifying offer this season will remain at $8,741,210 — it would have dipped to $7,976,830 if he had fallen short of 2,000 minutes.
Hawks No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher continued his late-season push for Rookie of the Year consideration on Thursday, scoring a career-high 38 points against the Nets. According to the team (Twitter link), Risacher’s 38 points were the most by any rookie in a single game this season.
Wizards forward Khris Middleton has been out since March 27 and will probably miss the team’s final game of the season on Sunday, according to The Washington Post’s Varun Shankar (Twitter link). In 14 games with the Wizards, all starts, Middleton averaged 10.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per night.

Postseason Seeding Set For Eastern Conference

April 11th, 2025 at 11:30pm CST by Luke Adams

Wins by the Orlando, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Chicago on Friday night have locked in the playoff seeds for all six Eastern Conference playoff teams, along with the four play-in clubs.

Here’s how the top 10 teams in the East will finish the regular season, as the NBA confirms (via Twitter):

Cleveland Cavaliers
Boston Celtics
New York Knicks
Indiana Pacers
Milwaukee Bucks
Detroit Pistons
Orlando Magic
Atlanta Hawks
Chicago Bulls
Miami Heat

The play-in tournament in the Eastern Conference will feature the Magic hosting the Hawks on Tuesday and the Bulls hosting the Heat on Wednesday. The Orlando/Atlanta winner will claim the No. 7 spot in the playoffs and face the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. The loser of that game will host the Chicago/Miami winner on Friday for the No. 8 spot and the right to face the Cavaliers in round one.

The Knicks will match up with the Pistons in the first round of the playoffs, while the Pacers and Bucks will meet in round one for a second consecutive year, with Indiana claiming home court advantage this time around.

We got a little more clarity on the Western Conference playoff picture by the end of Friday night, with the Lakers clinching the No. 3 seed by beating Houston and the Grizzlies now locked into the play-in tournament as a result of their loss to Denver. However, there are still several playoff berths and seeds up in the air, with the Nuggets, Clippers, Warriors, and Timberwolves vying for the final three spots in the West’s top six.

Southeast Notes: Magic, Hornets, Heat, Wizards

April 10th, 2025 at 8:38pm CST by Tristan Tucker

The Magic clinched home court in all potential play-in games by defeating the Celtics on Wednesday. In the process, they also clinched the Southeast Division title, Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel writes.

Orlando still needs to win a play-in game to clinch an official postseason slot, but it’s still an impressive feat for a team that lost its top three players – Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs – to lengthy injury absences over the course of the season.

“[I’m] extremely proud of this group,” coach Jamahl Mosley said. “Just being able to endure through all the things — the injuries, the bump back, guys in, guys out — and still come away getting the division and giving yourself a chance at a secured seventh [seed] for the opportunity to get into the playoffs. I’m proud of our group for that, for being as tough as they are, resilient as they are to continue to push through no matter the circumstance.”

As the current No. 7 seed, the Magic will host of the Hawks, Bulls or Heat on Tuesday and will see Boston again if they officially secure seventh place with a play-in win.

We have more from the Southeast Division:

The Hornets have decisions on multiple key players this offseason, cap expert Yossi Gozlan observes on his Substack. Some key points of reflection include whether Mark Williams is part of their future after the Lakers trade fell through, whether Tre Mann should be tendered his $6.96MM qualifying offer, and whether Miles Bridges should be traded, Gozlan writes.
The Heat had a chance to obtain home-court advantage in a play-in game, but fell to the Bulls on Wednesday. A missed Tyler Herro three that led to a made Matas Buzelis deep ball put the nail in the coffin for Miami, according to ESPN and the Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang. Herro had an open path to the basket with 43 seconds left and the Heat down five, but chose to stop at the three-point line rather than taking the easy layup. “What I’ll say is Tyler has a fearlessness that you can’t take for granted,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’s hit so many big shots. He wants to take on anything to help you win and he’s had a lot of big plays offensively, especially in fourth quarters, in his time with us. And it’s my job now to also coach him in situational basketball.“
While unlikely, it’s still possible for the Heat to move out of 10th place in the East, Chiang writes in a separate piece. They’ll continue to play their regulars for the final two games of the season.
The Wizards‘ plan to develop their young players and boost their lottery odds this season is a sound plan, but Candace Buckner of The Washington Post wonders whether it’s negatively impacting those currently on the roster. Even if players individually develop, Buckner opines that losing so often so early may harm their chances of developing winning habits.

Heat Notes: Anderson, Jovic, Herro, Larsson

April 9th, 2025 at 8:37pm CST by Arthur Hill

Kyle Anderson and the Heat are both happy that he wound up in Miami as part of the Jimmy Butler trade in February, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Anderson was originally slated to go to Toronto in the complex five-team deal, but that arrangement fell through and Golden State shipped him to the Heat instead. Coach Erik Spoelstra is glad to have him, as he told reporters before tonight’s game at Chicago.

“I just can’t say enough about Kyle,” Spoelstra said. “Kyle is a winning basketball player. He really is. He’s an unorthodox player, so you have to view him differently. His skill set is not a traditional skill set. But if you can embrace what he does, he can unlock a lot of different strengths out of our team. I just love what he brings. He’s a competitor. I think above anything else, he competes and winning really matters to him. He competes on both ends. He’s a two-way basketball player and he does a lot of different things that impact the game.”

The move has beneficial for Anderson, who wasn’t seeing regular playing time with the Warriors. He has helped to fill a need with Nikola Jovic sidelined since late February due to a broken right hand, and Chiang notes that he has played at least 20 minutes off the bench in seven of Miami’s last eight games. During that stretch, the Heat are outscoring teams by 23.8 points per 100 possessions with Anderson on the court.

“Kyle is giving us something different,” Spoelstra added. “He’s a point guard. So he can set the table, he can control tempo, he can control and manipulate the defense. He can do it from the point guard position, he can do it from the low post. He just has a knack for those kind of plays and nuances. And we want to lean into that. Because it seems like a good fit right now with that second unit for him to be able to just kind of manipulate and orchestrate with his experience and IQ.”

There’s more on the Heat:

Jovic is making progress with his recovery and is traveling with the team, but Spoelstra isn’t sure if he’ll be able to play again this season, Chiang states in a separate story. “I don’t know yet,” Spoelstra told reporters. “He’s basically doing everything. It’s just whether his hand can take contact.”
The Heat are promoting Tyler Herro on social media for the Most Improved Player award, according to Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel. The sixth-year shooting guard is having his most productive offensive season, averaging career highs of 23.8 points and 5.5 assists per game. “His maturity offensively and his role for our team has grown the last couple of months,” Spoelstra said. “And that’s due to all these pressure situations that we’ve been in, where everything just feels heightened and where we had injuries and he had to play a different way for us to be successful. He’s just more patient. He’s allowing the game to happen. His skill set can just take advantage of those situations.”
Rookie guard Pelle Larsson was forced to miss tonight’s game after spraining his ankle while lifting weights, per Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press (Twitter link).

Heat Likely To Extend Qualifying Offer To Davion Mitchell

April 8th, 2025 at 9:21pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Heat want to retain Davion Mitchell and will likely extend a qualifying offer to the guard, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports.

That would make Mitchell a restricted free agent, allowing Miami to match an offer sheet, though a sizable multiyear offer could price the cap-strapped Heat out of the market.

Mitchell’s qualifying offer would be $8.74MM if he meets the starter criteria and $7.98MM if he doesn’t. He’ll need to play at least 50 minutes in the final three games of the regular season to reach the 2,000-minute mark for the season and meet the criteria.

Mitchell has excelled for the Heat after being acquired from the Raptors in a mid-season deal. He’ll have options if the Heat give him a QO. He could choose to accept it, sign an offer sheet from another club, or work out a multiyear deal with Miami.

Playing mainly the point for the Heat, Mitchell is averaging 10.3 points and 5.2 assists per game and shooting 49.5% from the field and 45.3% on three-point tries in 27 outings (14 starts) for Miami. Known primarily for his defensive prowess, Mitchell spent his first three seasons as a rotation player with Sacramento.

Heat Notes: Bulls Showdown, Adebayo, Ware, Herro, Burks

April 8th, 2025 at 12:26pm CST by Arthur Hill

The two teams are a combined 13 games under .500, but Heat coach Erik Spoelstra expects a playoff atmosphere when his team faces the Bulls on Wednesday night in Chicago, writes Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald.

At minimum, the game will go a long way toward deciding who has home court advantage in the East’s 9-10 matchup in the play-in tournament. Miami is currently the 10th seed at 36-43, while Chicago is ninth at 36-42 going into a game tonight in Cleveland. Both teams also have a chance to pass Orlando or Atlanta and move into the 7-8 game.

“I think it’s a lot of fun,” Spoelstra said after Monday’s win over Philadelphia. “Nobody in our locker room is cynical enough to think otherwise. … This is what the league is right now. Just embrace it and enjoy it. This is going to be a great night. It’s going to feel like a playoff game and that’s fun.”

The Heat had larger aspirations when the season began, but they were derailed by injuries and a lingering dispute with Jimmy Butler that led to him being traded to Golden State in February. With the season winding down, the players are trying to put themselves in the best possible position to survive the play-in and earn a spot in the playoffs.

“We know what’s at stake,” Tyler Herro said. “It will be much harder to win two play-in games on the road as opposed to hopefully trying to get one at home.”

There’s more from Miami:

The Heat’s victory Monday night came without Bam Adebayo, as back spasms forced him to miss his third game of the season, Jackson adds in a separate story. Spoelstra said the issue began after Saturday’s game, and Adebayo is being considered “day to day.” Kel’el Ware moved into the starting lineup and tied a Heat single-game record for a rookie by grabbing 17 rebounds. Miami also got 20 points from Herro, who returned to action after sitting out Saturday with a thigh injury that he said was “still a little sore” when Monday’s game began. “As the game kept going, it loosened up a little bit more,” Herro added. “It feels good now. I will be ready to go against Chicago. I’m trying to play as many games as possible.”
In another piece, Jackson talks to a pair of longtime NBA scouts about several issues involving the Heat, including their assessment of who among Miami’s younger players has the brightest NBA future.
The Heat have asked Alec Burks to be flexible in his first season with the team as he fills in for various injured players, per Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel. Lately they’ve needed him to provide scoring, and he responded with a season-high 24 points on Saturday. “There aren’t a lot of guys, to be frank, that really are willing to sign up for this kind of role,” Spoelstra said. “We’re really appreciative of him, because he is that pro’s pro. He’s always ready, takes care of himself and he can produce in a lot of different kind of roles.”

Florida Notes: Wiggins, Heat, KCP, Magic

April 6th, 2025 at 10:04pm CST by Rory Maher

Heat forward Andrew Wiggins has been plagued by a variety of ailments since he was traded to Miami in February, with the latest being right hamstring tendinopathy, which has cost him the past five games.

According to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel, Wiggins said the injury “had been kind of lingering a little bit,” but he plans to return sometime this week — he’s questionable for Monday’s contest vs. Philadelphia.

“Definitely been frustrating, just because I want to be out there, playing with the guys and just fighting,” Wiggins said. “I feel like this is a new thing for me. I feel like usually I play throughout the season a lot of games, but being hurt sucks.”

We have more on the NBA’s two Florida-based teams:

Injuries and an inability to hold leads are the primary reasons the Heat are heading to the play-in tournament for the third straight season, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. The Heat were shorthanded in Saturday’s overtime loss to Milwaukee, as Wiggins, Tyler Herro (right thigh contusion) and Nikola Jovic (broken right hand) were all out. “We’re going through adversity, we’ve been through it before,” guard Davion Mitchell said, with the team also enduring a 10-game losing skid last month. “I think it’s good for us, especially with the postseason coming up. You know there are going to be close games and we’ve been through the fire before. So this is a good loss for us, honestly. We’re going to learn from it and we’re going to keep going.”
In the five seasons leading up to 2024/25, veteran shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had shot a combined 40.3% from three-point range, with his lowest mark in a single season over that stretch being 38.5%. Through the end of February — a span of 58 games — Caldwell-Pope was shooting just 30.6% from deep in his first season with the Magic, which would have been a career low. However, he has caught fire since the start of March, per Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel (subscriber link), converting 50.0% of his triples over the past 16 games, and the Magic desperately need his hot outside shooting to continue to have a chance at postseason success.
The Magic have leaned heavily on their defense to get back on a winning track with the postseason quickly approaching, Beede writes in another story. Orlando has gone 9-5 over its past 14 games in large part due to its third-ranked defense. “It’s us getting closer to the end of the season, understanding that we need to be hitting our peak now,” big man Wendell Carter said. “I know we had a lull in terms of our defensive rating but we’re one of the top defenses in the league. And we’re going to continue to get better on that end of the court.”

Heat Notes: Wiggins, Herro, Arison, Tiebreakers

April 5th, 2025 at 6:15pm CST by Arthur Hill

There’s still no set timetable for Andrew Wiggins to return from right hamstring tendinopathy, but the Heat continue to hope that he’ll be back before the regular season ends, according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Wiggins will miss his fifth straight game tonight due to the hamstring issue, and Chiang notes that it’s the 13th time he has been unavailable since he was acquired from Golden State in early February. He has also been sidelined by a stomach illness, a sprained right ankle and a lower left leg contusion.

In the 15 games he’s played since coming to Miami, Wiggins has been productive, averaging 19.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.1 steals while shooting 46.5% from the field and 36.7% from three-point range. Miami has four games remaining after tonight and is locked in a tight battle for positioning for the play-in tournament. The Heat are tied with Chicago at 35-42, two games behind Orlando and one game back of Atlanta.

Chiang points out that Miami has won three of the four games Wiggins has missed because of the hamstring while using a starting lineup of Tyler Herro, Alec Burks, Pelle Larsson, Kel’el Ware and Bam Adebayo.

There’s more on the Heat:

Herro will miss tonight’s game due to a right thigh contusion he suffered in Thursday’s contest against Memphis, Chiang tweets. It will be the fourth time Herro has been unavailable this season. Haywood Highsmith is questionable with left Achilles soreness, while Isaiah Stevens is also questionable after hurting his right foot while warming up. “(Herro) was doing as much treatment as he could,” coach Erik Spoelstra said in a pre-game session with reporters (Twitter link). “You guys saw the play. It was on that fast break. He just had a contusion there. We’ll treat him day to day.”
Heat owner Micky Arison has been elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in his first year as a finalist, Chiang adds in a separate story. The franchise has won three titles and reached the NBA Finals seven times during his 29-year tenure. “My management style is get the best people and let them go to work and don’t get in their way,” Arison said during today’s Hall of Fame press conference in San Antonio. “… I’m really uncomfortable being up here because I think the best owners are the most invisible owners and I’d rather be invisible than be up here.”
Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald reviews the Heat’s tiebreakers against the other three play-in teams and examines their chances of moving into the seventh or eighth seed.

Anthony, Howard Headline 2025 Hall Of Fame Class

April 5th, 2025 at 11:41am CST by Rory Maher

Former NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard headline the 2025 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). The organization has confirmed the news.

The full list of inductees is as follows:

Carmelo Anthony – 10-time All-Star, six All-NBA teams, three Olympic gold medals with Team USA, NCAA championship with Syracuse, member of the 75th Anniversary team.
Dwight Howard – Eight-time All-Star, eight All-NBA teams, three Defensive Player of the Year awards, five rebounding titles, NBA champion, Olympic gold medal.
Sue Bird – 13-time WNBA All-Star, eight-time All-WNBA, four-time WNBA champion, five Olympic gold medals.
Maya Moore – Seven-time All-WNBA, six-time WNBA All-Star, four-time WNBA champion, 2013 Finals MVP, 2014 MVP.
Sylvia Fowles – Eight-time All-WNBA, eight-time WNBA All-Star, four-time WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, two-time WNBA champion, two-time Finals MVP, 2017 MVP.
Danny Crawford – Officiated over 2,000 regular season games and 30 NBA Finals.
Billy Donovan – Currently head coach of the Bulls, Donovan will be inducted for his accomplishments at the college level, including winning back-to-back national championships with Florida in 2006 and ’07.
Micky Arison – The longtime Heat owner was inducted as a contributor. Miami has won three NBA titles and made the NBA Finals seven times during his tenure.
2008 U.S. Olympic Men’s Team – Known as the “Redeem Team,” the Americans went 8-0 en route to a gold medal in Beijing after finishing with a surprising bronze in 2004.

As Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press notes, Anthony and Howard will essentially be inducted twice in the same year, as both were members of Team USA in 2008. Dwyane Wade, Jason Kidd, Chris Bosh and Kobe Bryant, all of whom were already in the Hall of Fame, were also members of that team, as were LeBron James and Chris Paul — both of whom are still active NBA players.

The 17 finalists for the 2025 class were announced in February.