Heat's winning streak ends at six, falling to Grizzlies on Ja Morant game-winner

Anthony Chiang, Miami Herald on Apr 3, 2025

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MIAMI — Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 110-108 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday night at Kaseya Center to begin a three-game homestand on the back end of a back-to-back set. The Heat continue this stretch at home on Saturday against the Milwaukee Bucks:

With both teams battling for postseason position in the final days of the regular season, the Heat-Grizzlies matchup produced an ultra-competitive game. But in the end, the Heat’s season-long six-game winning streak is over.

The Heat opened the game on a 9-0 run, with Bam Adebayo scoring all nine points for Miami. But the Grizzlies pushed back in a competitive first half to take their first lead of the night at 41-39 with 4:38 left in the second quarter.

The Heat still managed to enter halftime with a one-point advantage.

What followed was a competitive second half that included 15 lead changes and six ties.

The Grizzlies took an eight-point lead midway through the third quarter and the Heat responded by closing the period on a 23-14 run to enter the fourth quarter ahead by one point.

Miami and Memphis continued to trade punches down the stretch, with the Heat taking a 106-105 lead on a Davion Mitchell 3-pointer with 2:01 to play.

But Jaren Jackson Jr. put the Grizzlies back ahead, hitting a corner 3 off an assist from Scotty Pippen Jr. to give Memphis a two-point advantage with 1:07 left in the fourth quarter.

The Heat again had an answer, though, as Tyler Herro (35 points) made a 11-foot floater to tie the score at 108 with 14.2 seconds to play.

That proved to be too much time for the Grizzlies, as they came out of a timeout and let their two-time All-Star guard Ja Morant go to work.

Morant took the ball up the court, got Kel’el Ware to switch onto him and made a game-winning nine-foot fadeaway jumper over Ware that rolled in as the final buzzer sounded.

In Morant’s first game against the Heat since October 2021, he finished with 30 points on 11-of-22 shooting from the field, 3-of-7 shooting on 3s and 5-of-6 shooting from the foul line, five rebounds, three assists and one steal.

While the Grizzlies ended the Heat’s winning streak, Miami still made some history by winning six straight games after dropping 10 straight games.

The Heat 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 six 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).

The Heat became the first team in NBA history to immediately follow a losing skid of at least 10 games with six straight double-digit wins. The Heat’s average margin of victory during its six-game winning streak was a dominant 20.5 points per game.

The Heat lost despite one of the highest-scoring quarters in Herro’s NBA career.

After a quiet eight-point first half on 3-of-9 shooting from the field, Herro exploded for 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 shooting on 3s in the third quarter.

The 19-point third quarter is tied for the third-highest scoring quarter of Herro’s NBA career, only ranking his 21-point second quarter against the Houston Rockets on March 7, 2022 and his 21-point third quarter against the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 4, 2024.