The Miami Heat have their opponent for Friday’s winner-take-all NBA play-in game at the Kaseya Center, with the final remaining Eastern Conference playoff berth at stake.
With the Chicago Bulls recording a 109-105 road victory Wednesday night over the Toronto Raptors, rallying from a 19-point third-quarter deficit, the Heat will host Chicago at 7 p.m. Friday for the right to earn a No. 8 playoff seed and best-of-seven opening-round matchup against the No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks.
For the Heat, a playoff berth will require a breakthrough, swept 3-0 by the Bulls in the regular-season series.
After finishing seventh in the East, the Heat earned two chances in the play-in round to advance to the playoffs. They squandered the first opportunity with Tuesday night’s 116-105 loss to the visiting Atlanta Hawks.
Friday’s Heat-Bulls game will be solely televised on TNT, without local South Florida coverage on Bally Sports Sun.
The game was moved to an earlier time than Tuesday’s 7:30 p.m. play-in start because of Minnesota hosting the second game of Friday night’s nationally televised play-in doubleheader in the Central time zone.
The Heat were forced into a Friday game with Tuesday night’s 116-105 home loss to the Atlanta Hawks, who thereby secured the No. 7 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference and will play the No. 2 Boston Celtics in the best-of-seven opening round starting Saturday.
Should the Heat advance, they would open the first round a 5:30 p.m. Sunday game in Milwaukee, to be televised by both TNT and Bally Sports Sun. The second game of that series would be Wednesday in Millwaukee, before returning to Miami for games the following Saturday and Monday.
The Heat went 2-2 against the Bucks this season, winning twice in South Florida when Milwaukee All-Star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo sat out due to injury. The Bucks thrashed the Heat in both meetings in Milwaukee, even with Antetokounmpo leaving one of those games early due to injury.
Should the Heat lose Friday, they would be seeded into the NBA draft lottery, which will be held on May 16.
The Heat have a first-round pick for the June 22 NBA draft.
Should the Heat drop into the lottery, the Heat would be seeded last among the 14 non-playoff teams with a 0.5% chance of securing the top pick, with only a slightly higher chance of landing one of the top four picks in the random-but-weighted process.
A step forward
For as much as he had struggled during the regular season, Kyle Lowry arguably was the lone Heat player who exceeded expectations on Tuesday night, closing with 33 points in 32:36 off the bench, including 6 of 9 on 3-pointers.
Spoelstra credited the team’s patience in Lowry’s month back since missing a month due to knee pain.
“I think this has been a very intelligent, reasonable plan the last six weeks and it’s really allowed him to be healthy and to be able to move in a way like this for these kinds of moments,” Spoelstra said. “He can move. He’s a competitor; he’s had so many monster moments over the course of his career. It’s really about his health and being able to move.”
It was Lowry’s highest-scoring game in his two seasons with the Heat, his first 30-point game since May 2, 2021 while still with the Raptors. His 12-point second quarter Tuesday was just his second with that many in a period this season, with his 19 first-half points matching his high for any half this season.
“We did a good job of kind of managing the minutes over the last month,” said Lowry, who has played as a reserve since his March 11 return. “We understood what time of the year I wanted to be ready and going and firing.”
Simple recipe
Forward Jimmy Butler said there is a simple recipe for a Friday turnaround.
“We knew why we lost,” he said. “It’s easily correctable. But you got to want to do it. You got to put bodies on bodies, you got to jump up and grab the ball and not foul. Play a little bit harder. Play a lot of bit harder, actually, and come out with a win on Friday.”
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