The Miami Heat barely lost to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday night, meaning they are still the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.

With just a few games left in the regular season, it has become very likely that the Heat will once again be in the Play-In Tournament this year.

Following Sunday’s loss, Miami’s Jimmy Butler spoke about that possibility.

“If we end up in the play in, we end up in the play in… we’ve never made it easy, why make it easy now?” Butler said, per Naveen Ganglani via NBACentral.

 

The Pacers and Heat have incredibly close records, which means that Sunday’s game was a very important one.

The Heat now hold a 43-35 record, placing them right behind the Philadelphia 76ers, who have won five games in a row.

If the standings remain like this over the next week, the Heat will again be in the Play-In, just like they were last year.

Of course, Miami was able to have a very impressive postseason last year despite being in the Play-In.

They overcame multiple teams and pushed to the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets.

Can they do that again?

It’ll be tougher this year because the Eastern Conference has gotten much stronger.

If the Heat make it through the Play-In, they will have to battle either the Boston Celtics or Milwaukee Bucks.

They overpowered both of those teams last season and they would try their hardest to do it again this year.

That would definitely not be an easy task, especially with a fully healthy Bucks team and the Celtics in the red-hot state they’ve been in lately.

But as Butler said, the Heat have never made things easy and they’re just used to that.