For the second straight season, the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls will face off in the NBA play-in tournament.
Miami eliminated Chicago with a 112-91 win in the No. 8 seed game last April, advancing to the postseason for the fifth consecutive year. Wednesday’s matchup is once again an elimination game, but this time, it’s a No. 9 vs No. 10 matchup that will only determine which team moves on to the No. 8 seed game on Friday. The winner will still need to beat the loser of the Magic/Hawks matchup to make the postseason as the eighth seed.
How Miami Got Here
The Miami Heat might be playing in their third consecutive NBA play-in tournament, but the path they took to get there has been anything but orthodox.
The Heat spent the first half of the season navigating an untenable situation with star Jimmy Butler before finally dealing him to Golden State at the trade deadline. Despite managing to compile a .500 record to that point, things started to get rocky for the Heat in the coming months.
After barely staying afloat with a 5-7 record in the first month after Butler was traded, Miami eventually bottomed out and lost 10 consecutive games from March 5 to March 21. That streak pushed the Heat to a deeply concerning 29-41 record, though they were never really at risk of missing the play-in tournament due to the sheer incompetence of the 11-15 teams in the Eastern Conference.
After losing that tenth consecutive game, however, something clicked. Miami immediately ripped off a six-game winning streak and ended the regular season by winning eight of their last 12 games, and it rested their starters in one of those losses.
Tyler Herro emerged as the Heat’s top offensive option, even before the Butler trade. Herro made his first NBA All-Star Game appearance this season and averaged a career-high 23.9 points per game.
How Chicago Got Here
Frankly, the Chicago Bulls have been one of the most exciting teams in the NBA for about the last month and a half. After a March 4 loss to Cleveland pushed the Bulls record to a concerning 24-38, Chicago won nine of its next 11 games, a stretch that culminated with Josh Giddey’s improbable half-court buzzer beater against the Los Angeles Lakers on March 27.
That stretch saw Chicago overtake Miami as the ninth-place team in the East after beating Utah on March 17. After Giddey’s buzzer-beater against the Lakers, the Bulls lost two straight before ending the regular season with seven wins in their final eight games. Ironically, the entirety of this late-season turnaround came after trading Zach Lavine to Sacramento as part of the De’Aaron Fox deal at the deadline.
Coby White leads the Bulls’ active roster in scoring with 20.4 points per game in 74 appearances this season. Nikola Vucevic is still a formidable force as well. The big man averaged a double-double for the eighth consecutive season, tallying 18.5 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. Vucevic’s scoring average this season was also his highest since averaging 21.5 points per game in 2020-21. Giddey’s contributions have also been huge for Chicago, as the Australian is averaging 14.3 points, 8.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists in his first season as a Bull.
Key to the Game
Miami needs to find a way to keep Giddey in check. Chicago won all three matchups against the Heat this season, with Giddey registering the game-high in scoring in two of those wins and a 28-point, 16-rebound, 11-assist triple-double in the third. It’s hard to imagine Miami earning its first win against the Bulls this season if Giddey continues to kill them.
