There wasn’t much to be learned from this game for the Miami Heat, with Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Kyle Lowry and Kevin Love given the night off.
Except for what comes next.
With Friday night’s 114-108 loss to the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena, the Heat were locked into a seventh-place finish in the Eastern Conference, regardless of the result of Sunday’s home finale against the Orlando Magic.
That means a Tuesday 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. home play-in game against the Atlanta Hawks at the Kaseya Center, the new name for their arena.
Win that, and it’s on to the playoffs. Lose, and there is a second-chance all-or-nothing home game next Friday night, against the winner of a Toronto Raptors-Chicago Bulls play-in game.
“This is our reality and you have to embrace that,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of his team’s first-ever appearance in the play-in tournament for conference seeds No. 7-10. “This is a totally new experience for all of us. It’s not exactly where we wanted to be heading into this season if you go back to training camp. But that is totally irrelevant.”
Virtually eliminated from any chance of moving up in the standings in light of the Brooklyn Nets’ tiebreaker for the No. 6 seed in the East, Spoelstra opted for prudence with his leading men, who assuredly also will sit out Sunday’s regular-season finale.
Against that backdrop, the Heat offered even less than the Wizards, who are in tank mode to the degree that they held out Bradley Beal, Kristaps Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma, among others.
In the absence of their stars, the Heat got 30 points from Victor Oladipo, 17 from Cody Zeller and 12 from Jamal Cain.
Daniel Gafford scored 22 for the Wizards.
Five Degrees of Heat from Friday’s game:
1. Closing time: The Wizards led 26-23 at the end of the first period and 53-51 at halftime, powered by 18 first-half points from Gafford, who was 8 of 8 from the field in the first half.
The Wizards then pushed their lead to 20 midway through the third quarter, with Spoelstra calling time with his team down 79-59.
That’s when Spoelstra inserted Orlando Robinson, the first NBA action for the center on a two-way contract since Feb. 15, prior to the All-Star break. He had spent time with the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, in the interim.
The Wizards then went into the fourth up 89-71 and pushed the lead to 23, before Oladipo led a too-little, too-late rally.
“We never really were able to get our footing on this game and take control of it,” Spoelstra said. “The guys competed. It was not a case of not wanting this.”
Oladipo scored 20 in the fourth.
“I was just playing hard,” Oladipo said.
2. Playoff race: The loss locked the Heat into seventh place in the Eastern Conference, meaning they will host the Hawks Tuesday night in the play-in tournament’s Nos. 7-8 game.
A victory in that game will give the Heat the No. 7 playoff seed and a best-of-seven first-round series as the road team against the No. 2 Boston Celtics.
A loss Tuesday would drop the Heat into a Friday winner-take-all home game against the winner of Wednesday night’s Nos. 9-10 Raptors-Bulls game for the No. 8 playoff seed and a first-round matchup as the road team against the No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks.
“It’s the bed we made,” guard Gabe Vincent said of the team’s fate a year after closing as the No. 1 seed in the East.
The Heat eliminated the Hawks 4-1 in the first round of last season’s playoffs and won the series 3-1 this season.
“This will be a different format,” Spoelstra said. “So let’s go for it. Let’s do it.”
3. Heat Lite: Actions did not necessarily align with words when it came to the decisions to sit out Butler, Adebayo, Herro, Love and Lowry.
“All things considered,” Spoelstra said, “this is the best place our health has been all season long, and it couldn’t happen at a better time. We feel good about that. The last couple of weeks, we also had a couple days in between several of our games. That has really helped our guys. And that’s where we are.”
And still, out of an abundance of caution, with each listed with an ailment, the heart of the Heat rotation sat out, Adebayo with a strained left quadriceps tendon, Butler with a bruised right hand, Herro with a bruised right quadriceps, Love with a bruised right rib and Lowry with knee soreness.
“These are legit things that we want to take care of on a back-to-back,” Spoelstra said of the set that began with Thursday night’s victory in Philadelphia, “and that’s what our thinking was.”
4. For starters: It was a mixed bag at the outset for the Heat. While Max Strus and Vincent pushed forward as starters, the opening lineup was rounded out by Zeller, Haywood Highsmith and Duncan Robinson.
Strus played after testing the right second finger he hyperextended early in Thursday’s victory before returning to finish that game. He played Friday with the finger taped.
It was the Heat’s 25th lineup of the season, a quintet that had not played together as a group prior to Friday night’s opening tap.
By Sunday’s season finale, the Heat could well go to an even more streamlined approach when it comes to sitting rotation regulars.
5. In reserve: Among those added into the Heat mix were Oladipo, reserve center Omer Yurtseven and two-way forward Cain.
Yurtseven again found himself in foul trouble, this time with four in his first 10 minutes. He was forced to the bench with that fourth foul with 5:14 left in the second quarter.
Cain energized in his action with 10 points in his first six minutes. He is not eligible to play beyond Sunday while on his two-way deal, with the same the case for Orlando Robinson.
Oladipo again stepped in when Lowry sat, as has been the pattern over the last month.
()
