WASHINGTON — Observations and other notes of interest from Sunday’s 132-101 victory over the Washington Wizards:
– For Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, the moment at hand is one positioned between indifference and desperation.
– Sunday, he found his team facing a Washington team prioritizing lottery seeding to the degree that no one is quite sure when recent trade additions Trae Young and Anthony Davis will make their Wizards debut.
– That included the Wizards coming off a Saturday loss in Brooklyn, when just about anybody and everybody of note was held out in a loss to the Nets.
– Then, miraculously, most of those injured and ailing players suddenly were healthy for Sunday’s Wizards home game.
– Shortly after the Wizards’ Saturday loss, the Jazz were pulling leading men Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. as a lead in Orlando then turned into a loss to the Magic, a team the Heat are battling for East seeding.
– Utah needs to lose enough to guarantee one of the first eight lottery picks, or else that lottery pick is lost to Oklahoma City.
– To say all the tanking around the league isn’t leading to an uneven playing field would be a massive understatement.
– “I think the one thing that we all have to keep in mind is that there isn’t just one way to do things,” Spoelstra said remarkably diplomatically before Sunday’s game, “and it’s not on me or us to judge how other organizations are running their operations.”
– Spoelstra added, “You are free to do however you feel is the best that you think for your organization, and people will criticize it one way or another. People criticize us. We’re going to compete every single night, every night.”
– The Heat next play the Jazz on Monday night at Kaseya Center.
– So does Utah play that one for keeps, unlike Saturday night against the Magic?
– The standings, Spoelstra said, remain in his team’s control.
– “They’re free to do whatever they want,” Spoelstra said, “and I’m not hoping for other teams to beat teams so that we can get to where we want to get to. It’s up to us.”
– For the Heat, the goal remains to avoid the play-in round for a fourth consecutive season.
– “If we want to get a guaranteed playoff spot, then it’s on us,” he said. “It’s not on these teams that are playing guys or not playing guys, and we’re just hoping that they can hang on for a win. We don’t want anybody’s help. We want to handle it ourselves.”
– With Pelle Larsson sidelined, the Heat opened with Myron Gardner as the emergency starter, in an opening lineup rounded out by Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell and Davion Mitchell.
– It was the Heat’s 18th lineup in their 54th game.
– The Wizards, opened with Justin Champagnie, Bilal Coulibaly, Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington and Kyshawn George.
– There was no Young or Davis for the Wizards, who now will attempt to balance more of an immediate future while also prioritizing the upcoming draft lottery.
– With Gardner called for two fouls in the opening 1:27, Jaime Jaquez Jr. made an early entrance as Heat sixth man.
– Early minutes then followed for Kel’el Ware.
– Simone Fontecchio and Kasparas Jakucionis followed together, for nine deep.
– Jakucionis this time played ahead of Dru Smith.
– With Ware and Adebayo then paired together as Nikola Jovic sat.
– Eventually, there was time for anyone and everyone on the first night of the back-to-back set.
– The Heat are now 7-3 all-time on Super Bowl Sunday, with the Wizards 5-4 when playing the same day as the Super Bowl.
– The Wizards became the final Eastern Conference team the Heat met for the first time this season.
– That comes with the Heat already having completed their 2025-26 season series against 11 teams, including Eastern Conference rivals Chicago and New York.
– The game opened the Heat’s 13th of a league-high 17 back-to-backs this season, moving on to Monday night’s home game against the Jazz with a 9-3 record on the second nights of such sets.