Heat Enter Crucial Stretch in Bid to Bypass Play-In Tournament
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The Miami Heat have one goal for the final weeks of the regular season: finish in the Eastern Conference’s top six and skip the play-in round.
Miami opened the week in seventh place at 38-30, one spot short of automatic playoff entry. Head coach Erik Spoelstra said the situation leaves no room for complacency. “It’s getting really competitive right now,” he told reporters. “You’re either about it or you’re not. I think our locker room is.”
The schedule offers little relief. A weekend loss to the Orlando Magic started a demanding run that features six consecutive games against opponents with winning records, including meetings with the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets, and back-to-back contests in Cleveland against the Cavaliers.
“We’re about to go into the gauntlet,” team captain Bam Adebayo said. “These next four or five games—we’ve got to be prepared.”
Since the All-Star break, the Heat have gone 9-3 while ranking inside the league’s top 10 in both offensive and defensive rating. Even so, Spoelstra emphasized that the team’s identity begins on one end of the court. “We can’t get it twisted,” he said. “What sets the tone for us is defense.”
Miami has fewer than a dozen games left to secure a spot above the play-in line. Any slip could mean a return to the single-elimination scenario the franchise endured last spring.
Source: Hoops Wire
