Coach Erik Spoelstra and the Miami Heat will host Atlanta in the a play-in game Tuesday night with the chance to advance and face the Celtics in the first round. Chris Szagola/Associated Press
MIAMI — Getting to the play-in tournament probably wasn’t the goal of any team when training camps opened back in September.
It does, however, beat the alternative.
There are 12 teams with playoff spots right now, 10 teams whose seasons are over – and eight teams with a second chance. The play-in tournament starts Tuesday, with Atlanta going to Miami and Minnesota visiting the Los Angeles Lakers, with the winners going to the postseason.
Oklahoma City goes to New Orleans and Chicago visits Toronto on Wednesday for elimination games; loser goes home, winner moves on to face the loser of Tuesday’s games in another win-or-go-home contest.
“You have to embrace this new experience,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “To the old heads in our locker room, each of us have experienced long NBA careers and not have had this opportunity. I think it’s been great for the league. How harrowing this has been, the last six, eight weeks for (all the) teams in the West and the East. It’s just been great for competition and overall, it’s been great for the league.”
The NBA added it to boost end-of-season excitement, give more teams playoff hope — and discourage tanking. Dallas still had a chance at the play-in until its 81st game of the season on Friday, when it held several rotation players out and lost. The NBA is investigating the Mavericks’ motivations there and if Dallas lost to protect its draft odds.
The Heat were the No. 1 seed in the East last season and now need the play-in just to get back to the playoffs. But they’re also playing perhaps their best basketball of the season — just like the Lakers, who went a West-best 16-7 after the All-Star break.
“We put ourselves in a position where we can move on,” Lakers star LeBron James said. “That’s all we could ask for, to put ourselves in a position to be able to move on. We had obviously a very, very slow start, starting 2-10 … to know where we are today, we can be happy about that, but not satisfied.”
No team that has used the play-in tournament — Portland in 2020 in the bubble under a slightly different format; Boston, Washington, the Lakers and Memphis in 2021; Brooklyn, Atlanta, Minnesota and New Orleans last year — to reach the actual playoffs has ever won a first-round series.
But it still provides hope, and perhaps a shot in the arm for those who survive and advance.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Spoelstra said. “Our guys love competition. And this has high stakes to it. And that’s ultimately where you find out about yourself — when there’s stakes to it, when there’s consequences to it.”
TIMBERWOLVES: Minnesota suspended center Rudy Gobert for its play-in game against the Los Angeles Lakers, after the 10-year veteran threw a punch at teammate Kyle Anderson in an argument in the huddle during a timeout.
The Timberwolves announced that Gobert would serve his one-game punishment when they face the Lakers on Tuesday night. Gobert took a swing at Anderson and hit him in the upper chest in the second quarter of Minnesota’s game against New Orleans on Sunday, when the flustered Timberwolves were trailing by 12 points.
The Timberwolves rallied to beat the Pelicans 113-108 and take eighth place in the Western Conference. That gives them two chances to win a play-in game to qualify for the playoffs. If they beat the Lakers they’ll get the No. 7 seed and face Memphis in the first round. If they lose, they’ll host the winner of the New Orleans-Oklahoma City game on Friday night for the No. 8 seed and a first-round date with Denver.
The Wolves also lost forward Jaden McDaniels on Sunday to a hand injury after he hit a wall in the tunnel that leads to the locker room after being called for his second foul in the first quarter. Another key player, backup center Naz Reid, is done for the season with a broken wrist from a fall on the court in the game on March 29 at Phoenix.
HORNETS: Coach Steve Clifford said it’s critical for the team to start winning if it intends to keep star point guard LaMelo Ball, who is considered a cornerstone of the franchise.
Ball, the No. 3 overall draft pick in 2020, never has been in a playoff game. Charlotte hasn’t been to the postseason in seven years, the longest streak in the NBA.
“He badly wants to win,” Clifford said. “… When you’re at his level, there are certain expectations. You’re going to be compared to the other point guards his age that have had not incredible playoff success, but have had some.
“It’s important to his career.”
Clifford said Ball takes losing harder than most players he’s been around, and he occasionally has texted him after midnight following a bad game to say: “Hey, my bad. I’m sorry, I should have done better.”
When asked Monday about his long-term future in Charlotte, Ball said he “plays it by the day.”
“I love it here,” said Ball, who is from California. “I can’t really tell the future. We’ll just see how it goes and go from there.”
As for Clifford’s comments about it being critical for the Hornets to start winning to keep him here, Ball replied: “For sure. The main thing is winning. Life if better when you win.”
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