MIAMI — Of the Miami Heat’s four remaining regular-season home games, none will mean as much as Thursday night at Kaseya Center.
There is nothing regular about it.
The matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers will go a long way toward determining:
— If the teams will meet again in the treacherous play-in round.
— Which team might host such a repeat matchup.
— Or which team might escape the play-in bracket altogether.
“It’s the pre-playoffs, you could say,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said.
With regular-season stakes arguably never higher, plotlines never more robust.
First, the math.
The Heat enter 42-33, at No. 7 in the East entering Wednesday’s play.
The 76ers enter 41-35, at No. 8.
With a victory, the Heat would clinch the season-series, with a 2-1 lead in the matchup going into Thursday night.
With a loss, the tiebreaker would move to conference record or division title, if the Heat somehow are able to catch the Orlando Magic (44-31).
All of which could have the Heat and 76ers meeting yet again on April 16 in the Nos. 7-8 play-in game, with the higher seed getting homecourt advantage.
The winner of that game faces the No. 2 seed in the East in the best-of-seven opening round of the playoffs, most likely the Milwaukee Bucks.
The loser of such a Nos. 7-8 game would then have homecourt advantage on April 19 against the winner of the Nos. 9-10 game between the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks. The winner of that all-or-nothing game two days later would face the No. 1 Boston Celtics in the best-of-seven opening round of the playoffs.
Or the Heat or 76ers could roll into one of the top six seeds and not have to worry about such desperation.
“Obviously, still have work to do,” said Heat backup center Kevin Love, who returned in Tuesday night’s 109-99 home victory over the New York Knicks, after missing five weeks with a heel injury. “Things still could fall in our favor. We can either be in the top six or we could be in the play-in.
“But, again these last seven games are huge for us. We’ve got two weeks to really do some work, show what we’re about.”
With no better home showcase than Thursday, with all its built-in subplots, including:
— The return of Kyle Lowry for the first time since he was dealt to the Charlotte Hornets along with a first-round pick for Terry Rozier. Lowry then received a Hornets buyout and moved on to his hometown 76ers.
It was Lowry who hit the late daggers when the 76ers defeated the Heat 98-91 March 18 in Philadelphia, saying afterward, “I still root for them except for when I’m playing against them.”
For his part, Rozier is coming off a Heat-high 34-point performance against the Knicks.
— The second step in the comeback of 76ers Joel Embiid, who made his return Tuesday night after missing eight weeks due to a knee injury. Embiid is coming off a 24-point, seven-assist, six-rebound performance in going 29 minutes in Philadelphia’s 109-105 victory over the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder.
“Still not where I’m supposed to be, especially mentally,” Embiid said, “but I just love to play and love basketball and I want to play and any chance that I can be out there, I’m going to take it.”
— The Jimmy Butler factor, with Butler famously having mocked the 76ers after the Heat eliminated his former team in the 2022 playoffs. He has yet to play in this season’s series, missing the first three matchup. He enters amid an uneven stretch, having failed to score more than 17 points in any of his last five appearances.
Butler declined comment after Tuesday night’s victory over the Knicks, just as he did after Sunday’s road victory over the Washington Wizards.
Win Thursday, and the Heat move closer to a realistic shot to avoid the play-in round, with arguably their most important road game of the season then to follow on Sunday against the Indiana Pacers.
Lose Thursday, and it could require a repeat of last season, of having to make it through the play-in round before attempting to replicate the run to the 2023 NBA Finals.
“We know that we’re capable of anything,” Love said, with the Heat having won seven of their last 10. “We can beat anyone, we can beat anybody in a seven-game series.
“So we just naturally would like to stay out of the play-in, but whether we’re there, or we’re in the top six, we know that we have work to do. So we always have that underdog type of mentality, but understanding that when it comes time and we have healthy bodies and we’re locked in, we can beat anybody.”
