A year ago, the Miami Heat’s finale at the Las Vegas NBA Summer League was high theater, with the Heat stealing into the night with a sudden-death overtime victory in the event’s championship game.
This time, a muted conclusion, with the Heat finishing their weeklong run in the Nevada desert with a 93-92 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on the UNLV campus, sparked by 10 fourth-quarter points from former FAU center Vlad Goldin.
With the win, the Heat closed out their Vegas run at 2-3, with Goldin securing Friday night’s win with a driving layup with 11.3 seconds to play.
“It was open,” Goldin said, “I decided that was the best decision at the moment.”
Unlike last year, when the primary components of the Heat summer roster insisted on playing through to a finish that included championship rings, it very much was Heat Lite on Friday night.
With Kel’el Ware and Pelle Larsson previously having departed Las Vegas, the Heat not only again went without Keshad Johnson, but also gave closing night off to Kasparas Jakucionis, the guard taken at No. 20 out of Illinois last month in the first round of the NBA draft.
Among those who played through, the Heat on Friday night got 18 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots from Goldin, 16 points and six rebounds from Myron Gardner, 14 points and five assists from Javonte Cooke and 14 points and five assists from Erik Stevenson.
Five Degrees of Heat from Friday night’s game:
1. For starters: With the summer-league finale typically a time to feature those who received minimal time previously, the Heat opened with a lineup of Goldin, Stevenson, Gardner, Kira Lewis Jr., and JC Butler, the son of Heat assistant coach Caron Butler.
Of those five, only Goldin is under contract to the Heat for the coming season, with the two-way deal he signed after going undrafted last month out of Michigan.
2. Jakucionis endgame: Jakucionis’ final summer appearance turned out to be his 15 points on 4-of-12 shooting in Thursday’s 108-88 loss to the Detroit Pistons.
Overall, in his three appearances in Las Vegas, Jakucionis averaged 15 points on .448 shooting from the field, including .353 on 3-pointers, in 27.1 minutes per game.
Among the issues in Las Vegas, as it was at Illinois, was turnovers, with Jakucionis averaging 3.0 assists to 3.3 turnovers in his three appearances.
That was after Jakucionis averaged just 4 points on .067 shooting during his three-game struggle in his NBA debut in the California Classic summer league in San Francisco. In those three appearances, he had six assists and 12 turnovers.
3. Shooting star: While there are no guarantees of continuing with the Heat, Stevenson continued to show a deft 3-point stroke, this time closing 4 of 10 from beyond the arc.
Having converted a decisive 3-pointer in the Heat’s Monday victory over the Celtics, Stevenson entered Friday’s game at .571 on 3-pointers in Las Vegas.
“Just trying to get to space, trying to get my feet spaced ready to shoot,” Stevenson said during an in-game interview of his approach.
A 6-foot-4 26-year-old guard, Stevenson has spent the past two seasons in the G League and France after going undrafted out of West Virginia in 2023.
Stevenson took a blow to his left index finger Friday, eventually forced out for the night in the third period.
4. No Warren: A member of the Heat roster that won last year’s championship in Vegas, Bryson Warren never made it to the court this time around in Vegas.
A hamstring injury sustained in his 18-point performance in the Heat’s second game at the California Classic on July 6 wound up sidelining Warren, 20, for the balance of the summer schedule.
The 6-foot-3 guard who bypassed college in favor of Overtime Elite has spent the past two seasons with the Heat’s G League affiliate, including a 40-point game this past season for the Sioux Falls Skyforce against the New York Knicks’ G League affiliate.
5. Up next: Typically the next step after summer league is to fill out the team’s three-player limit on two-way contracts and round out the offseason roster, with as many as 21 players allowed under contract.
Currently, Goldin is the lone Heat player signed to a two-way contract, with Dru Smith holding a qualifying offer for such a deal.
Otherwise, the Heat have 14 players under guaranteed standard contract on the roster: Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Haywood Highsmith, Pelle Larsson, Simone Fontecchio, Terry Rozier, Keshad Johnson and Jakucionis.
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