While the Miami Heat prepare for their first game of the NBA Playoffs on Sunday, their opponents have yet to be determined. A part of what will go into determining their final opponents in the first-round matchup between the one-seeded Heat and whomever the eighth seed are has been completed though.
In a heck of a game on Tuesday night, the Brooklyn Nets proceeded to show you the best of themselves and the worst of themselves. They would start out delivering a tidal wave on the scoreboard, then to be caught in the end and mainly due to their defensive deficiencies.
They would only pull it out in the end via Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant heroics. It was typical Brooklyn Nets over the last month of the season.
That’s not the point here though. The point is that the Nets won their initial play-in game, meaning they are the seventh seed in the playoffs and therefore, facing the second-seeded Boston Celtics.
The Miami Heat are resting and waiting on their first-round opponents to be determined. However, you know it won’t be the Brooklyn Nets at this point.
Now, if you look at that side of the bracket, it features a Boston/Brooklyn matchup and a Milwaukee/Chicago matchup. The Miami Heat’s side has them against the winner of the final set of play-in games and then a Philadelphia/Toronto duel.
Listen, any team can go on a run and win the whole thing, so that’s why the wording is chosen wisely here. However, if there were a preferred path or bracket, a “less hostile” one if you will, it would be the side that the Miami Heat currently find themselves on right now.
They won’t have to face any of Boston, Brooklyn, or Milwaukee until the Eastern Conference Finals. Only one of them can make it out of that though.
Again, the Miami Heat have the personnel and the mentality to beat any team in a seven-game series, as they shouldn’t and aren’t running from anyone. However, you also have to be real about things too, realizing matchups are important and some paths might yield more potential than others.
The Miami Heat currently find themselves on one of those paths at the moment. It all begins on Sunday though and against one of three teams that the Miami Heat beat in the closing months of the season.
Whomever it is, the Heat will be ready. Sunday just can’t get here fast enough.