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Heat’s consecutive matchups against Celtics comes with high stakes for playoffs

khobi price, south florida sun-sentinel
·4 min read

For Bam Adebayo, the impact of the Miami Heat’s home victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in conjunction with the Boston Celtics’ loss to the Chicago Bulls Friday night didn’t immediately grab his attention.

The Heat’s win and the Celtics’ defeat placed Miami at No. 6 in the East standings right ahead of Boston, which are entering Sunday at No. 7.

“When I grabbed my phone, I text my mom,” Adebayo said. “So, therefore, Boston wasn’t my worry.

“We’ve got to take it one game at a time. We can’t worry about the future.”

Despite not wanting to look too far ahead, the Heat (36-31) are well aware of the stakes in their upcoming matchups against the Celtics (35-32) on Sunday and Tuesday at TD Garden.

If the Heat win both games in Boston, they would win the season series against the Celtics, jump three games ahead of Boston in the standings and would give themselves the best chance at avoiding the play-in tournament for seeds seven through 10, with the tournament deciding which teams will occupy the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the playoffs in both conferences.

If the Heat split the matchups in Boston, they would lose the tiebreaker in the standings against the Celtics and put themselves in a tough spot heading into their final three games of the season: versus Philadelphia on Thursday, at Milwaukee on May 15 and at Detroit on May 16.

In their lone matchup of the season on Jan. 6, the Celtics beat the Heat 107-105 thanks to a Payton Pritchard game-deciding put-back layup.

Lose both games, and the Heat would essentially guarantee that they’ll have to take part in the play-in tournament to clinch a spot in the playoffs.

The Heat enter Sunday one game ahead of the Celtics, with Boston closing out its regular-season schedule with road games at Cleveland (Wednesday), at Minnesota (May 15) and at New York (May 16).

The Heat are a half-game behind the Atlanta Hawks (37-31), who enter Sunday at No. 5 in the East.

The Hawks own the standings tiebreaker over the Heat after winning the season series against Miami 2-1. They close out their regular-season schedule with home games versus the Washington Wizards on Monday and Wednesday before hosting the Orlando Magic on Thursday and Houston Rockets on May 16, with both the Magic and Rockets eliminated from play-in tournament contention.

The Heat are one game behind the No. 4 New York Knicks (37-30), with Miami winning the tiebreaker over the Knicks after sweeping the season series 3-0. New York’s final five regular-season games: at Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday; at Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday; versus the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday with back-to-back home games versus the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday and the Celtics on Sunday.

The Heat are three games ahead of the No. 8 Charlotte Hornets (33-34).

The play-in tournament will start on May 18, after the regular season is over, and will end on May 21, one day before the playoffs begin.

The format for the tournament:

— The No. 7 seed will host the No. 8 seed, with that game’s winner securing the No. 7 seed in the playoffs’ best-of-seven, opening-round series against the No. 2 seed;

— Meanwhile, the No. 9 seed will host the No. 10 seed, with the winner of that matchup playing a road game against the loser of the No. 7-No. 8 matchup. The winner of that game will be the No. 8 seed in the playoffs.

For Jimmy Butler, the play-in factor of this season’s playoffs isn’t something he’s concerning himself with.

“You don’t ever want to put your fate in anybody else’s hands,” Butler told Bally Sports Sun’s Jason Jackson. “We’ll see where we end up, but I don’t think anybody on this team is scared of anybody.”

Added Tyler Herro: “Jimmy’s our leader and that’s the mindset of the team. We’re not worried about who we play, we’re just ready to compete every single night.”

With Herro also making it clear he’d prefer avoiding the play-in at all costs.

“Me personally, I don’t want to be in a play-in game,” he said. “I’d rather just be in the playoffs. I’m trying to give everything I have to get in that top-six seed.”