Forward Scottie Barnes #4 of the Toronto Raptors soars in for a dunk as the Toronto Raptors play the Miami Heat at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. April 7, 2026.
Steve Russell
Toronto Star via Getty Images
TORONTO
The Miami Heat’s primary goal this regular season was to finish as one of the top six teams in the Eastern Conference to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament for the first time in four years. But the Heat won’t meet that goal.
Instead, the Heat’s disappointing season continued with a 121-95 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena that locked Miami into the play-in tourney for the fourth straight season.
“We’re disappointed for sure that we weren’t able to bring another level of competitive spirit to this,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after Tuesday’s defeat when asked about the disappointment that comes with another play-in tournament appearance. “That’s what’s disappointing. We’re not thinking about the next step right now.”
But with losses in nine of its past 12 games and only three games left on its regular-seasons schedule, the Heat will need to turn its attention to the play-in tournament soon. The play-in will take place next week April 14-17 just days after Sunday’s close to the NBA regular season.
“We have to figure it out or our asses are going to be home,” Heat captain and three-time All-Star center Bam Adebayo said.
With the play-in tournament featuring the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference, the Heat enters Wednesday in 10th place in the Eastern Conference with a 41-38 record.
The Heat can still finish anywhere between seventh and 10th place in the East, but it won’t be easy to improve its play-in position and move up the standings.
According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat entered Wednesday with a 72.7% chance of finishing at No. 10, 21.4% chance of finishing at No. 9, 5% chance of finishing at No. 8 and 0.9% chance of finishing at No. 7 in the East.
“I never stop believing,” Heat forward Andrew Wiggins said, with the team remaining in Toronto to complete its late-season two-game set against the Raptors on Thursday (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “I never stop believing. We can score with anybody. We can defend like anybody. We’ve just got to put it together. And once we do that, we’ll be alright.”
The Charlotte Hornets represent the Heat’s best chance of moving up the East standings.
The No. 10 Heat (41-38) entered Wednesday just one loss behind the Hornets (43-37), and Miami holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Charlotte after winning the regular-season series 3-1.
The Heat’s three remaining games this regular season: at Raptors on Thursday, at Washington Wizards on Friday and vs. Atlanta Hawks on Sunday.
The Hornets’ two remaining games this regular season: vs. Detroit Pistons on Friday and at New York Knicks on Sunday.
If the Heat wins each of its final three games and the Hornets lose at least one of its final two games, Miami would finish ahead of Charlotte for ninth place in the East if the Orlando Magic doesn’t finish with the same record as the Heat and Hornets.
Even if the Heat loses one of its final three games, it could still pass the Hornets for ninth place in the East if Charlotte drops its final two games and the Magic doesn’t finish with the same record as the Heat and Hornets.
One thing is for sure: The Heat can’t be locked into 10th place in the East even if it drops a second straight game to the Raptors on Thursday. But a Heat loss in Toronto on Thursday paired with a Hornets win over the Pistons on Friday would mean Miami can’t finish the regular season ahead of Charlotte in the East standings.
So, the soonest that the Heat could be locked into 10th place in the East for a second straight season is Friday.
“Honestly, I don’t got the answers,” Heat guard Norman Powell said of the team’s recent slide after standing nine games above the .500 mark just last month. “But we got to come up with some in between now and Thursday if we want to try to continue to move up or get to a little better position in this play-in.”
How does the play-in tournament work?
The seventh-place team in each conference hosts the eighth-place team in a play-in game. The winner of this matchup earns the seventh playoff seed.
The ninth-place team in each conference hosts the 10th-place team in another play-in game. The loser of this matchup is eliminated from playoff contention, while the winner of this matchup goes on the road to take on the loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in game for the right to the eighth playoff seed.
The teams that are eliminated in the play-in tournament before getting to the playoffs are seeded into the NBA Draft lottery based on regular-season record.
Entering Wednesday, the play-in seedings are: No. 7 Philadelphia 76ers, No. 8 Magic, No. 9 Hornets and No. 10 Heat. In addition, the fifth-place Atlanta Hawks and the sixth-place Raptors could also still drop into play-in tournament territory in the final days of the regular season.
Finishing in 10th place in the East would require the Heat to win two straight road games in the play-in tournament just to make the playoffs as the conference’s No. 8 seed.
The Heat has escaped the play-in tournament in each of the last three seasons to qualify for the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed.
“It’s another opportunity, man,” Adebayo said of again needing to take part in the play-in tournament. “The best thing about it is we got a chance to still punch our ticket somehow.”
The issue is the Heat has been trending in the wrong direction recently, as it has the league’s 14th-ranked offensive rating, 28th ranked defensive rating and 24th-ranked net rating during its current 3-9 stretch. While the Heat is an impressive 20-8 this season against teams currently with a losing record, it is just 21-30 this season against teams with a .500 record or better.
“We have a spirit,” Spoelstra said adamantly. “Our guys bounce back, but we have to rise to the level of the competition. That’s the bottom line right now. We have these opportunities to meet our competition, and we come up short. The spirit is fine. We had a great practice yesterday, a productive shootaround today, and then it becomes the moment of truth where we have to respond and we have to conquer that.”
The Heat has especially struggled against the Raptors’ size and length, falling to 0-3 against Toronto this season after Tuesday’s loss. When the two teams facing off for the fourth and final time this regular season on Thursday, the Raptors will look to clinch a four-game sweep of their regular-season series against the Heat for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign.
With the Heat scoring just 95 points in Tuesday’s loss to the Raptors, Toronto has been held Miami under 100 points in each of the teams’ first three meetings this season. Miami has been limited to fewer than 100 points in six games this season, and Toronto accounts for half of those.
“We didn’t play with enough effort and that was bottom line,” Adebayo said after Tuesday’s loss in Toronto.
The NBA’s play-in/playoff seeding will be figured out in the coming days, but the Heat is now trying to figure out why it continues to run into disappointing losses. Miami is just 27-31 since its strong 14-7 start to the season, and it’s heading to the play-in tourney for the fourth straight year.
“We got to figure it out,” Wiggins said after Tuesday’s loss to the Raptors. “This was a playoff-type game. High stakes. We needed it, they needed it, and they played harder than us. They wanted it more.”
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Anthony Chiang covers the Miami Heat for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and was born and raised in Miami.