Play-In Bound

The Atlanta Hawks will play in the Play-In Tournament, as they are locked into either the nine or ten seed in the East. This means they will play in the 9-10 game, and need to win back to back elimination games to grab the 8th seed in the next round. Atlanta still has a chance to surpass the Bulls for the ninth seed, but their matchup is locked, as the Hawks will play the Bulls in that game, but home court advantage has yet to be decided. In their last game, they were led by Clint Capela with 19 points and 12 boards in the loss to the Nuggets.

Trae Young has still been out of the lineup with his finger injury, and a clear timetable for a return has not been decided. Without Young, their top scorer is Dejounte Murray with 22.4 PPG. He also gets 6.4 APG, 5.3 RPG and is their top perimeter defender with 1.4 steals per game. Murray has cooled off a little bit as of late, scoring under 20 in three of his last four. Bogdan Bogdanovic was formerly used as a scorer off the bench, but he has been inserted into the starting lineup with Young out. Bogdanovic is an outside shooter getting 16.9 PPG and makes 3.1 threes per game. They are long an athletic at the forward spots, DeAndre Hunter gets 15.7 PPG from the three-spot, and Jalen Johnson is a stretch four getting 16.1 PPG and 8.7 RPG.

Clint Capela averages a double-double inside with 11.5 PPG and 10.7 RPG. Vit Krejci has been increasing his role recently, and Bruno Fernando is used as a big off the bench. Atlanta ranks 11th in offensive efficiency and 27th in defensive efficiency, they play much faster than the Heat ranking 6th in the league in tempo.

Tough Loss for Heat

The Heat only have four games remaining on their schedule, they cannot fall down to the 9th spot in the standings, but they still have a small chance to climb up to 6th with a strong finish. The 6th spot gets to avoid the Play-In Tournament, but they just lost to the exact team they are trying to catch in the Pacers. Indiana has a 1.5-game lead over the Heat, with the 76ers sandwiched in between the two. In the Pacer game, Miami lost by two and were led by Jimmy Butler with 27 points and eight assists in the close loss.Butler is the leading scorer for Miami with 21.1 PPG while adding another 5.3 RPG and 4.9 APG. He has scored 20 or more in his last three games, and the fans will be waiting to see if “Playoff-Jimmy” will return this year, as he has been better in the postseason than the regular season lately. Tyler Herro finally made his return from injury, he has been coming off the bench in his two games back, but has played meaningful minutes logging 25 in his return and 31 against the Pacers. Herro is averaging 20.7 PPG on the season, and had 21 against Indiana. Bam Adebayo is a steady force inside for the Heat, he is a strong defender and underrated scorer getting 19.6 PPG and 10.7 RPG. Terry Rozier has been an excellent midseason addition, he is averaging 16.4 PPG in his 31 games with Miami.

Duncan Robinson is a shooter in the starting lineup getting 12.9 PPG, and 6’10 Nikola Jovic starts as well scoring just 7.1 PPG. It is unclear how the rotation will shift if Spoelstra decides to start Herro in the playoffs. Miami ranks 21st in offensive efficiency and 5th in defensive efficiency according to dunksandthrees.com. The play very slow offensively, ranking 29th in the league in pace of play.