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Heat close regular season against Raptors, look to avoid play-in

Heat Wizards
Heat close regular season against Raptors on Sunday inside Kaseya Center. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

The Miami Heat will close the 2023-24 regular season Sunday inside Kaseya Center against the Toronto Raptors in hopes of avoiding the play-in tournament.

The two teams met Friday, which resulted ina  125-103 Heat victory and helped Toronto–who are not trying to win games–secure its top-6 protected pick. The Heat, meanwhile, remain alive for a top-6 seed heading into Sunday’s chaotic action.

By design, the league has pinned teams up against others from their respective conferences with similar time slots–every East game will begin at 1:00 p.m. EST and the West will play at 3:30 p.m. EST. This is done so that not as many teams rest players based on the results of other games–just in case there are seeding implications for each game.

Miami must win Sunday to avoid the play-in, but it will need help from at least one of Milwaukee and Brooklyn if it wants to avoid the No. 8 seed. The more those teams win, assuming a Heat win, the lowest it could finish is a No. 7 seed, which would lock up a home play-in game either next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here are the scenarios:

 

Crazy, I know!

What do you think happens? Let us know in the comments!

Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):

Miami Heat:

  • Terry Rozier (neck) — OUT
  • Duncan Robinson (back) — OUT
  • Josh Richardson (shoulder) — OUT

Toronto Raptors:

  • Bruce Brown (knee) — QUESTIONABLE
  • Gary Trent Jr. (back) — QUESTIONABLE
  • Scottie Barnes (hand) — OUT
  • Chris Boucher (knee) — OUT
  • Jakob Poeltl (hand) — OUT
  • Jontay Porter (personal reasons) — OUT
  • DJ Carton (ankle) — OUT

Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):

Miami Heat:

  • Tyler Herro, G
  • Caleb Martin, G
  • Jimmy Butler, F
  • Nikola Jovic, F
  • Bam Adebayo, C

Toronto Raptors:

  • Immanuel Quickley, G
  • Gary Trent Jr, G
  • RJ Barrett, F
  • Bruce Brown, F
  • Malik Williams, C

Betting Lines:

  • Check the current odds out at FanDuel!

Broadcast Info:

  • Tipoff: 1:00 PM EST
  • TV: Bally Sports Sun (Eric Reid, John Crotty)
  • Radio: AM 560 Sports WQAM & The HEAT Radio Network (Jason Jackson)
  • Spanish Radio: WAQI 710 AM & The HEAT Spanish Radio Network (José Pañeda)

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