If the Heat do manage to snag the No. The winner will advance to face the New York Knicks in the first round, while the loser will face the winner of the Atlanta Hawks-Chicago Bulls game in an elimination game Friday. The Miami Heat made it to the NBA Finals last season after climbing out of the play-in tournament. It would be foolish to rule out the possibility, especially if the Heat beat the 76ers to claim the seventh seed, putting Miami on the opposite side of the bracket from Boston. The former is the pace of a 65-win team; the latter is the pace of a 30-win squad. The Sixers are 3-13 in the playoff games that Embiid has played against the Celtics. Atlanta finished sixth in the league in 3-pointers while the Bulls were 27th. The Chicago Bulls last made the playoffs in 2022, and they will look to make a run against the Atlanta Hawks in the play-in tournament. The Hawks finished 10 games back of the Heat, but are still in the play-in. The play-in has been a major boon to the NBA business. A big part of the drama of the play-in involves the teams fighting to get to No. Because of scheduling changes, the last time a team went 6-0 before the playoffs against an opponent was the 1994 Denver Nuggets against the Minnesota Timberwolves. If he's not on the floor, the Kings are the easy pick. Herring: Give me the Kings.
