The Miami Heat took on a Memphis Grizzlies team without one of its best players, guard Ja Morant, yet Miami still lost in embarrassing fashion. Miami got outscored in all four quarters of the contest and ended up losing by a whopping 34 points on Saturday.
The Heat didn’t play well on either end of the floor, as they allowed the Grizzlies to score 125 points while mustering just 91 points themselves.
In light of Miami losing its seventh game in a row on Saturday, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra called out the team for not meeting a “certain standard” of play.
“Enough has been said in the locker room,” Spoelstra said. “But we have a certain standard of how we expect to play and compete and we did not meet that standard (Saturday). When we meet that standard, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to win. Obviously we’re struggling to figure out how to win games.”
Not a single player for Miami scored 20-plus points. Rookie big man Kel’el Ware led the way for the Heat in the scoring column with 19 points while shooting 8-of-14 from the field and 2-of-6 from 3-point range.
To boot, the Heat shot just 39.8 percent from the field and 24.3 percent from deep as a team.
As for the less glamorous end of the floor, Miami had no answer for Grizzlies star Jaren Jackson Jr., who totaled a game-high 31 points while converting all but five of his 18 shots from the floor.
The Heat have fared particularly poorly away from home in the 2024-25 season. Miami has a road record of 14-21 on the campaign and suffered its most lopsided road loss of its 82-game slate to this point against Memphis.
The Heat’s recent string of losses has put the team in jeopardy of dropping to the No. 10 seed in the Eastern Conference standings. Miami is just one game ahead of the Chicago Bulls, who own a record of 28-39 on the season. Chicago has been playing much better basketball than the Heat have lately as well, as the Bulls are winners of six of their last 10 games.
Unfortunately for Miami, the team is set to take on one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference in its next contest on Monday. The New York Knicks own the No. 3 seed in the conference and are hoping to get back to their winning ways after they suffered a loss to the Golden State Warriors in their most recent game played on Saturday.