All the more reason to not have the play-in when there are terrible teams in it.
Butler's injury had nothing to do with the play-in. He had a wide open lay-up but decided to wait for the defender to go up and Butler's jump into contact. It was a typical Butler dirty play to get an and-one. Play stupid games, you get stupid prizes, and his was an injury.
It was an extra game that was only being played because of the play-in
Play better in the regular season & you don't have to deal with the play-in game.
They were 7 games clear of the Bulls and won 46 games. The Bulls belong no where near the playoffs
So what? This structure has been in place a few years now. Teams know it. You don't play well enough in the regular season and you risk being subjected to the whims of a play-in. There are plenty of less fair things in life.
Don't like it, play better.
Yep. If the Heat want to pretend the regular season doesn’t matter, and get themselves into a win-or-go-home situation, that’s on them.
Yeah I was gonna say, people praise the Heat and Butler for turning it up during the playoffs and say that they can "afford" to stroll through the regular season because they got "Himmy" Butler and "Heat Culture" to turn it up during the postseason. And now someone gets hurt in that extra game they have to play and suddenly it's the fault of the play-in format which has been there already for 3+ years now? Lol sure.
They can certainly amend the format a bit and I don't disagree that a team that's well below .500 shouldn't make it. But Miami really only have themselves to blame for being in the format to begin with.
I'm curious to hear what the thoughts are though about not having teams with bad records in the play-in. Like how would that work? It'd be odd if one conference has to play a play-in tournament but another conference can just sit idle because everyone is locked into seeding and the 9-10 seeds were garbage. That'd cause uproar. But I don't think they should get rid of the whole format either.