Miami Heat Rookie Ends Season on High Note

It has not been a memorable season for the Miami Heat, who finished the year 37-45, good enough for the No. 10 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Though, in the NBA Play-In tournament, the Miami Heat topped the Chicago Bulls to eventually oust the Atlanta Hawks, punching its ticket to the NBA Playoffs.

That set up a date with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed with a 64-18 record the second best mark in the NBA.

Cleveland overmatched Miami in the entire series, sweeping the Heat in four game fashion without particularly close affairs. The Heat were beat by the widest margin in NBA Playoff history, 122.

This was made possible by the Cavaliers embarrassing the Heat in South Beach in Game 4, 138-83.

In this final game of the First Round series, the Heat played a pair of rookies from the 2024 NBA Draft class, Kel'el Ware and Pelle Larsson.

Ware got the start and logged 15 mintues of action en route to two points, seven rebounds and a poor 1-for-6 shooting from the floor to end what was a productive rookie campaign in discouraging fashion.

His first year counterpart, Larsson, was more productive off the pine notching 23 minutes, posting 12 points, hauling in five rebounds, dishing out three assists and going 5-for-8 from the floor while making one of his three 3-point tries.

The Miami Heat have an interesting offseason coming this summer after this campaign got thrown off the rails by the trading of Jimmy Butler midseason in a messy break up. Though, these two rookies should be part of the plan to move forward.