Miami Heat Emirates CupThe Miami Heat are a plus-46 in point differential heading into the final week of Emirates Cup group stage play. (Photo Courtesy of the NBA)

While it doesn’t mean a lot in the grand scheme of things, the Emirates Cup was a fun wrinkle to the NBA season that the league introduced ahead of 2023-24 to add more fan engagement in the early part of the season.

The Miami Heat haven’t advanced to the eight-team knockout stage in any of the two years it’s competed, falling just short in group stage play. Four teams from each conference — the winner of each group (Group A, B, C), with one wild card team.

The kicker is that the primary tiebreaker, outside of head-to-head between teams competing in the same group, is point differential.

And while anything can happen, the Heat have a leg up on (most) of their peers in that race heading into the final week.

Miami Heat have big point differential advantage compared to most of East:

Thanks to their dominant 143-107 win over the Chicago Bulls on Friday, the Miami Heat have a plus-46 point differential in the East heading into the final week. Only one team in the East — the Toronto Raptors, who are a plus-53 through three wins — has more. No other team comes within 12 points in the East.

Toronto Raptors (3-0), plus-53

Miami Heat (2-1), plus-46

Cleveland Cavaliers (2-1), plus-33

Detroit Pistons (2-0), plus-27

Orlando Magic (2-0), plus-20

Miami will host the 2-0 Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday for their final group stage game. A lot can happen in just one game; Miami could lose that advantage with a blowout loss and dominant wins by, say, Detroit or Orlando, who will likely be competing for the top spot.

We won’t know all of the permutations for the Heat to possibly advance until late next week. But what we do know is they have a serious leg up in the point differential race and could put themselves in a nice position to advance to their first knockout stage with a win Wednesday against a potentially Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks.

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