Essentially locked into 10th in East, how will Heat handle final two games of regular season?
While it’s unlikely, the Miami Heat can technically still move up in the Eastern Conference standings. And as of Thursday afternoon, the Heat plans to continue to play most of its regulars Friday against the New Orleans Pelicans.
With Wednesday night’s 119-111 loss to the Chicago Bulls at United Center sinking the Heat deeper into 10th place in the East with just two regular-season games left to play, the Heat continues to move forward with plans to play most of its regulars in preparation to take part in the NBA’s play-in tournament for the third straight season.
“Win,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said when asked how he wants to approach the final two games of the regular season. “You want to go into the play-in on a positive note, understanding that we got to go in there to win two games and then go into the playoffs.”
The only Heat players ruled out for Friday’s game against the Pelicans at Smoothie King Center (8 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun) are Nikola Jovic (broken right hand), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery), Kevin Love (personal reasons) and Pelle Larsson (sprained right ankle).
The Heat also listed Isaiah Stevens (right foot discomfort) as questionable, and Alec Burks (lower back discomfort) and Tyler Herro (right thigh contusion) as probable.
The rest of the Heat’s roster is expected to be available for Friday’s game in New Orleans, including starting forward Andrew Wiggins.
Wiggins returned from a six-game absence to play in Wednesday’s loss to the Bulls. Wiggins, who has been dealing with a right hamstring injury, finished his return with 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes, six rebounds and five assists in 27 minutes while being used in his usual starting role.
After shooting 2 of 6 from the field and committing three turnovers in the first half, Wiggins went on to score eight points and dish out three assists to no turnovers in the second half.
“He was better in the second half,” Spoelstra said of Wiggins. “And look, it’s not easy being out and then all of a sudden going back in. If you’re going back into a normal NBA game, he probably would have had a much better flow. This had a playoff feel to it.”
But Wiggins, 30, also appeared to labor around the court at times and received treatment on his ailing hamstring following the game.
“I felt solid,” Wiggins said, downplaying the issue following his return. “If you’re out there on the court, then no complaints. You got to be 100 percent, so I felt good.”
The Heat enters Thursday in 10th place in the East, needing to win out and help in the form of multiple losses by the Bulls and/or Atlanta Hawks to move up in the standings and carve out an easier play-in tournament path in the final days of the regular season. The play-in tourney features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference
If the Heat finishes the regular season in ninth or 10th place, it would need to win two straight games in the play-in tournament just to qualify for the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed. Closing the regular season in eighth place means the Heat would get two chances to win one play-in game to make the playoffs as either the East’s No. 7 or No. 8 seed.
Finishing in 10th place would require the Heat to win two consecutive road play-in games to qualify for the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed and clinch a first-round matchup against the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.
According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat entered Thursday with a 79.1 percent chance of ending the regular season in 10th place in the East. No 10th-place team has ever advanced past the play-in tournament since this current format was first established in the 2020-21 season.
The Heat escaped each of its first two trips to the NBA’s play-in tournament with the East’s No. 8 playoff seed, making an improbable run that ended with a loss to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals in 2023 and then being eliminated by the top-seeded Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs last season. But the Heat entered the 2023 play-in tournament as the East’s seventh-place team and the 2024 play-in tournament as the East’s eighth-place team.
After taking on the Pelicans in New Orleans on Friday, the Heat closes the regular season on Sunday against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center. The NBA’s play-in tournament begins Tuesday and runs through Friday, April 18.
This story was originally published April 10, 2025 at 4:25 PM.
