{"id":704735,"date":"2026-04-08T06:36:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T06:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/704735\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T06:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T06:36:24","slug":"heat-officially-lock-themselves-into-play-in-again-hot-hot-hoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/704735\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat officially lock themselves into play-in, again &#8211; Hot Hot Hoops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"569\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_0539-1024x569.jpeg\" alt=\"Miami Heat\" class=\"wp-image-15172\"  \/>(Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n<p>Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this before: The Miami Heat will officially be in the play-in.<\/p>\n<p>OK, I see that I have been stopped. But that\u2019s because the Heat have now officially clinched a play-in berth for the fourth-straight year as a result of their 121-95 loss to the Toronto Raptors. As a result, they became only the third team in NBA History to appear in the play-in four times, let alone four-straight. <\/p>\n<p>Miami is 4-2 in play-in games and was the first team in the tournament\u2019s history to win two-straight on the road to advance to the postseason, besting the Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta and Chicago frequently accompanied the Heat in the play-in in the past. Though both will (likely) miss it this year. Chicago is already eliminated from playoff contention, while the Hawks, currently the No. 5 seed, are two games up on the Philadelphia 76ers for the No. 7 seed.<\/p>\n<p>The Bucks eliminated themselves from the play-in conversation two weeks ago, automatically gifting the Heat a play-in bid, at minimum. Though they <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBAPR\/status\/2041538714258534902?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">entered the week<\/a> with the possibility of securing a top-5 seed, albeit a very slim one.<\/p>\n<p>Evidently, that wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n<p>Against the other three teams currently positioned to appear in the play-in, Miami is 5-7. It took three of four from Charlotte and two of three from Philadelphia, but it went a dismal 0-5 against the Orlando Magic, with four losses in the regular season and one in the Emirates Cup knockout stage.<\/p>\n<p>The Heat went 7-12 against the East\u2019s top-6. They are also just 21-30 against teams with a .500 or better record, while they\u2019re 20-8 against the inverse. Their 21-30 record is the second-worst among the top-10 in the East (Philadelphia is 18-32) and the 15th-best in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>Heat will have another game in Toronto Thursday before closing their final three-game road trip of the season against the Washington Wizards on Friday, their final back-to-back of the season.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>To check out our other content, click\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hothothoops.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter\/X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hothothoops?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hothothoops?fbclid=PAAaZK-uxa3cMPUQcM2z6aGmK3faJ-G1R7YKtEOcPJNPO4VwfOvw1epBIoCyk_aem_Ad_aZ7zQwWkfVN5rHfd0UkIWrYEnU4j4Ulz0SRK__Qt1738L-NeQ3cZC5voFks7V6K8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Check out Hot Hot Hoops on Facebook\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/1GUQbKhsRp\/?mibextid=wwXIfr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our YouTube channel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/hothothoops\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images) Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this before: The Miami Heat will officially be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[8457,88268,7,144,3948,88269,295,189,3953,88270,3881,6,5637],"class_list":{"0":"post-704735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-2025-26-miami-heat-season","9":"tag-2025-26-play-in-tournament","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-heat","12":"tag-heat-news","13":"tag-heat-play-in","14":"tag-miami","15":"tag-miami-heat","16":"tag-miami-heat-news","17":"tag-miami-heat-play-in","18":"tag-miamiheat","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-play-in-tournament"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116367706541443525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}