The Miami Heat are seemingly accepting the fact that they are likely going to end up as the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference, listing Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Kyle Lowry as out for their next game.
Miami is playing the Washington Wizards on the second night of a back-to-back on Friday. The Heat surprisingly blew out the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night 129-101 behind big performances from Butler and Tyler Herro.
In order to climb up to the No. 6 seed, Miami would need to win its final two regular season games against the Wizards and Orlando Magic. It would also need losses from the Brooklyn Nets in their final two regular season games, which are against the Magic and 76ers.
However, it seems like the Heat aren’t fully interested in chasing that final outright playoff spot. If the Heat were to end up in the play-in tournament, they would either face the Atlanta Hawks or Toronto Raptors in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in game.
Miami won three of its four contests against Atlanta in the regular season while losing three of four games against the Raptors.
Should Miami survive the play-in and enter the playoffs as the No. 7 seed, it would face off against the Boston Celtics in the first round. The Heat are 2-2 this season against the Celtics after losing to them in seven games in last season’s Eastern Conference Finals.
Meanwhile, if the Heat were to claim the No. 8 seed for the playoffs, their first-round opponent would be the Milwaukee Bucks, who are also 2-2 against the Heat this season.
Butler recently said that the Heat can beat anybody when they’re playing the “right way.” He appears to be confident in his team’s ability to make some noise in the 2023 postseason.
It’s been a very up-and-down season for the Heat, and plenty of fans have pointed out similarities between this season’s team and the 2020-21 Heat squad, which got swept by the Bucks in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs.
The Heat organization is hoping for a different result this year. Everyone on the team will need to be on top of their respective games in order to make a deep postseason run.