As the teams ranked 5th to 8th all won their match on Sunday evening, the ranking did not change. A status quo which offers us an exceptional “play-in” poster: Sixers – Heat. Two franchises that were expected to be at the forefront at the start of the season. The winner will meet the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. The loser will get a second chance against the Bulls or Hawks. If he wins this final play-off, he will earn the right to face the Celtics in the playoffs.
For the Heat, this situation has an air of déjà vu. A year ago, Erik Spoelstra's players had already gone through the “play-in” box. They lost the first game against the Hawks before qualifying against the Bulls. Then, they continued with a historic journey to reach the Finals.
“The playoffs will let us know, but we have clearly experienced a lot together”, underlines Erik Spoelstra. “It’s been an eventful season. A lot has happened… As long as your team approaches all these experiences in the right way, you get something out of it and then you develop collective tenacity and toughness and all that.”
Jimmy Butler promises a show
Obviously, a lot has changed since last year. The workforce is no longer quite the same. There was the addition of Terry Rozier, who arrived in exchange for Kyle Lowry at the end of January. There is also the emergence of young talents like Jaime Jaquez Jr. or Nikola Jovic. As for Tyler Herro, who was largely absent from the playoffs last year, he appears to be a wild card to defy the predictions.
“We are not the same group as last year, and we leave that aside”believes Jimmy Butler. “We are moving forward with the group we have. We have great confidence in our guys and we know what we are capable of. »
The Heat want to replicate what they did in previous playoff series, and for Butler, it's first and foremost a chance to play high-stakes games. “It’s one more opportunity to play high-level basketball in front of the world, in front of our fans, in front of their fans. So it will be a spectacle” Butler resumes. It starts Wednesday evening in Philadelphia, with the goal of getting his ticket to face the Knicks.
“We will have to stand up to them, play basketball the right way and do something very difficult: win on the floor of Philadelphia”concludes Butler. “But this is the time of year where you have to do it if you want to win a title. “It’s obvious that we’ll have to do that if we want to reach being the number 7 seed.”
