Butler to rest for finale and playoff scenarios
Sunday’s Heat-at-Magic meeting in Orlando’s Amway Center is about as insignificant an NBA game as imaginable.
And the Heat likely will treat it as such.
The team announced Saturday that Jimmy Butler did not travel with the team and is out Sunday to allow his body to rest in advance of the playoffs.
Forward P.J. Tucker — who’s out at least a week with a calf strain — also did not travel.
Dewayne Dedmon (ankle sprain), Markieff Morris (hip strain) and
Gabe Vincent (toe contusion) are questionable, as is rookie Haywood Highsmith (left hip strain).
It’s unclear if Kyle Lowry, Bam Adebayo and
Tyler Herro will play; none are listed on the injury report and all traveled.
Due to injuries, the Magic will be without starters Cole Anthony and Franz Wagner.
The Heat already has clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, while the Magic has clinched a spot in the draft lottery. Meanwhile, the Heat won’t know the identity of its first-round opponent until sometime Friday night.
Excluding the Heat, among the nine other Eastern Conference teams that will play beyond Sunday, there’s a possibility the Heat could play any of them in the first two rounds with two exceptions: Chicago and Milwaukee. It’s impossible for Miami to play either of those two teams before the Eastern Conference finals.
HEAT’S FIRST-ROUND OPPONENT
The Heat will play the winner of Friday night’s game between the loser of Tuesday’s 7-8 play-in game and the winner of Wednesday’s 9-10 play-in game. three seasons. He averaged 15.5 and 20.0 points the other two seasons that he won the award.
Some Sixth Man winners have approached Herro’s scoring average in the year they won it, including Jason Terry (19.6 in 2008-09), Manu Ginobili (19.5 in 2007-08), and McHale, who won the award the second and third year of its existence with averages of 18.4 and 19.8 points per game.
The past two winners of the award — Montrezl Harrell and Jordan Clarkson — averaged 18.6 and 18.4 points those two seasons.
Harden averaged 16.8 points in the one season that he won the award, before later becoming a starter.
The first Sixth Man winner, former Philadelphia 76ers forward Bobby Jones in 1982-83, averaged 9.0 points, one of two winners who averaged less than 10 points per game in winning the award.
The other: Anthony Mason, who averaged 9.9 points and 8.4 rebounds when he won it in 199495.
As the season has unfolded, “I think Tyler figured out that we need him to get 18 to 25 points for us to be a successful group long term,” Kyle Lowry said.
And Herro has done it pretty efficiently, shooting 44.7 percent from the field and 39.9 on threepointers, while averaging 5.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists.
Entering Sunday, the No. 7 Nets (43-38) and the No. 8 Cavaliers (43-38) were on course to meet in the 7-8 play-in game, but that could change because No. 9 Atlanta (42-39) and No. 10 Charlotte (42-39) could move up.
The Nets will clinch the seventh seed if they beat visiting Indiana at 3:30 p.m. Sunday on ESPN. Cleveland can clinch the eighth seed if it beats visiting Milwaukee on Sunday. Also on Sunday, the Hawks play at Houston and Charlotte hosts Washington.
If there’s a four-way tie
Despite being limited to 66 games overall (with 56 coming off the bench), Herro is just the third player since 1975 to score at least 25 points off the bench in at least 20 games in a single season, joining Pierce (who did it twice) and Bailey.
He also recently passed Dwyane Wade’s record for most points off the bench by a Heat player in a season.
Williams and Crawford are the only players to win the Sixth Man award more than twice. McHale, Schrempf and Pierce are the only players who have won the award exactly twice.
Whether Herro gets the chance to win another remains to be seen, with Erik Spoelstra’s lineup decisions next fall — and the Heat’s 2022-23 roster construction — set to shape that decision.
Herro has embraced the sixth-man role but has said, when asked over the past two years, that starting is his long-term goal.
Asked last month by ESPN’s Malika Andrews if he believes he deserves the Sixth Man award, he said: “That’s for you guys to decide, but I believe so. There’s a bunch of great bench players, but at this point I feel like I’ve done my part. I’m on the best team, and I should be Sixth Man of the Year.”
Though The Athletic’s John Hollinger, a former Memphis Grizzlies executive, made a case this past week for Cleveland’s Kevin Love to win the award, that would be
— which would mean losses on Sunday by Brooklyn and Cleveland and wins by Atlanta and Charlotte — the seedings heading into the play-in round would be Brooklyn seventh, Atlanta eighth, Charlotte ninth and Cleveland 10th.
If Brooklyn, Atlanta and Charlotte win and Cleveland loses, the Nets would be seventh and Cavaliers would be 10th.
The great likelihood is that Brooklyn stays seventh or finishes eighth.
But there’s one scenario which would drop the Nets to the 9-10 play-in game.
If the Nets lose to the surprising. TNT’s Stan Van Gundy, among others, has said Herro is clearly the most deserving candidate.
Besides Herro and Love, others who could receive top three votes include Charlotte’s Harrell and Kelly Oubre and Utah’s Clarkson.
Among other potential awards, Herro stands as a long-shot for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award and Spoelstra is an underdog to win Coach of the Year for the first time.
Memphis’ Ja Morant and Desmond Bane, Orlando’s Cole Anthony, San Antonio’s Dejounte Murray, Charlotte’s Miles Bridges, Golden State’s Jordan Poole, Herro and Cleveland’s Darius Garland are all contenders for most improved.
Memphis’ Taylor Jenkins and Phoenix’s Monty Williams are top contenders for Coach of the Year, with Cleveland’s J.B. Bickerstaff also likely to warrant consideration and Spoelstra likely to receive some top-three votes.
Bam Adebayo is considered an underdog for Defensive Player of the Year. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert are considered the favorites, with Adebayo, Mikal Bridges, Marcus Smart and Draymond Green likely to receive some second- and thirdplace votes.
Barry Jackson: 305-376-3491, @flasportsbuzz
Pacers, Cleveland beats Milwaukee, Atlanta loses to Houston and Charlotte beats Washington, Brooklyn would fall to ninth because the Hornets own the tiebreaker with the Nets. And then Brooklyn would play Miami in the first round if it won two play-in games.
POTENTIAL SECOND-ROUND OPPONENT
Boston, Philadelphia and Toronto are in all play for the fourth and fifth seeds, with the winner of that 4-5 opening round series to play the winner of the 1-8 series in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Toronto (48-33) will be the fifth seed.
The fourth seed will be the 76ers if they lose to host Detroit on Sunday night or if the Celtics win at Memphis on Sunday night (7 p.m., TNT).
The fourth seed would be the Celtics if they lose at Memphis and the 76ers beat Detroit.
Boston and Philadelphia have the same record, but the Celtics own the twoteam tiebreaker with the 76ers.
It would be the Celtics second, Bucks third and 76ers fourth if those three teams finish tied.
Either the 76ers or Celtics would be short-handed in a first-round series with Toronto.
Per SI.com’s Chris Mannix, Celtics guard Jaylen Brown is unvaccinated and would not be permitted to play in games in Toronto. (Boston’s Al Horford disputed an SI.com report that Horford is unvaccinated.)
Philadelphia’s Matisse Thybulle, a skilled defender, is unvaccinated and wouldn’t be permitted to play in games in Canada.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra isn’t spending his weekend figuring out playoff permutations.
“I was never good at math and [we] had everybody explain all the different scenarios,” he said after Miami’s 113-109 win against Atlanta. “That’s when you lose me in 30 seconds. It will play out the way it was supposed to play out.”
Of potential first-round opponents, Herro said:
“I’m not paying too much attention to it. Obviously, Brooklyn is the team that we’re looking at, seeing who they’ll match up against. I mean, whoever we’ll play in the first round, it is what it is.”
Bam Adebayo said he’s already eyeing potential opponents: “I’m watching film. I’m looking at guys’ tendencies, reading plays, seeing how they play in transition, how they play on certain schemes. So I’m paying attention.”