MIAMI – As the Miami Heat lost their ninth straight game of the season, this time to the Detroit Pistons, 116-113, it came off a game-winning shot by star Cade Cunningham. While the Heat has been trying to figure out how to snap the skid, they’ll continue to, but off a heartbreaking night as even star Tyler Herro had to give credit to Cunningham.

Miami once again blew another double-digit lead, making it the 19th time this season which leads the entire NBA, and the 17th time the team lost a fourth-quarter lead, also first in the league. Herro, who finished with 29 points, would have an NSFW response about the team’s nine-game losing streak.

“S***, it’s tough,” Herro said. “You’re going through the highs and the lows emotionally, you know, throughout a game, and I thought we weathered the storm, you know, back and forth. Both teams went on runs. We had a chance to win at the end, Cade made a tough shot, banked it in, great defense. Just got a tip your hat and unfortunately, it’s another loss. But if it’s a regular game that’s without a losing streak, it’s a tough loss, obviously, but you try to just take it on the chin, and learn from it. You know, move on to the next one.”

Bam Adebayo’s blunt reaction to the Heat’s heartbreaking loss

Though the Heat will be tested on their mental discipline from a ninth-straight loss and even a sixth-straight defeat at home, tied for the largest in franchise history, a bright side was the performance of Bam Adebayo. The captain led the team with 30 points to go along with nine rebounds and eight assists as there was no doubt some frustration after the loss as he had a simple answer to his general emotions.

“Obviously you want that win, you’re right there,” Adebayo said about the loss.

Looking at Cunningham, the Detroit star guard finished with 25 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists in what was an electric outing to go along with the game-winner. Adebayo would even say that when speaking to Cunningham earlier, the Pistons player would say that he would owe him a game-winner as the Heat big man had one against him in March of 2024.

“You tip your hat off to a play like that,” Adebayo continued about the game-winner. “Me and Cade [Cunningham] have had a conversation before where he definitely said, he owed me a game-winner. So, there he is. But you can see we can get to that point where it can be a possession game. That point we just need to stop at the bucket.”

Heat’s Tyler Herro on coming up “short” once again

Despite 13 games left in the regular season, the Heat are hoping for a turnaround late in the season to give them some positive momentum, but another gut-punch of a loss sets them back. Herro would express how disappointing of a loss it is since the team was “competing out a***s off.”

“Not much to be said. Obviously, it’s a tough loss,” Herro said. “We’ve lost the last eight or nine, like you said. There’s been different losses throughout the whole losing streak tonight, felt like one of those games where we were competing our a***s off, playing hard, and just came up short.”

At any rate, Miami is now 11 games under .500 at 29-40 which puts them 10th in the Eastern Conference as they once again look to snap their current skid Friday night against the Houston Rockets.