All Eyes On Me

Heat lose to the Sixers, Knicks beat the Kings. We’re still 4 but tied with the Knicks. Magic number to clinch a top 6 seed and avoid the play-in is 4 games. That’s a combined Magic wins and Heat/Sixers losses.

Need to start this post with a disclaimer, we should be doing whatever we can to win as many games as possible and let what happens happen… but because of this 2-8 logjam, there are some potential scary matchups. If we do somehow wind up with the 2 we more than likely face a now healthy Sixers team or the Heat. The 3 seed could get us the Heat as well. I’m hoping we wind up with home court either against Indiana, Cleveland or New York in that order. Winning too much just to get rewarded with a date with Embiid in the first round just feels wrong. I honestly hope the Sixers wind up as 8 and them and Boston have a slugfest first round matchup for the ages

Knicks rule out Randle for the rest of the season. They might be my favorite potential first round opponent, even if I know the refs are gonna march Brunson to the line 30 times a game

Glad to see my Pacers jinx worked! Also, Cavs lose to Phoenix, and the Bucks drop back to back to Washington and Memphis. Unreal. We’re only 2 games out of the 2 seed, and as we’ve mentioned a bunch, we get Milwaukee twice to end the season

Pacers look like they’re gonna run away with it and spank Brooklyn already. Cavs have a tough one in Phoenix on the 2nd night of a back to back. Tonight is huge for us. Assuming the Pacers win and Cavs lose, if we win, we’re 1/2 GB of the 3 seed, if we lose, we’re 1/2 game ahead of the 6 seed.

Heat beat the Knicks. Sixers get Embiid back and beat the Thunder. Cavs beat the Jazz. Bucks lose to the Wizards. New 2-8 East standings for the stretch run Bucks 47-28 Cavs 1.5 GB Magic 3 GB Knicks 3 GB Pacers 4.5 GB Heat 5 GB Sixers 6.5 GB We took back the 4 seed tonight due to tiebreaker with NY, but the Heat are now only 2 games behind us for the division. We’re also only 3 games back of Milwaukee and play them twice to end the year. We have little to no room for error to avoid the play-in at this point, especially with Embiid’s return. It’s gonna be a crazy end to the year in the East.

I see your point, and I think I’d argue that the offensive side of the ball has been a slumpfest for a while now. We played elite D against good offensive teams in the Warriors and Clippers, and both of those losses should have been wins if we could execute the basics like free throws and not turning the ball over. Paolo and Franz both have been well below what we need from them lately. Since the all-star break, we’re 14-6 which is great, but if you dive into those numbers: 12-1 against teams below .500 2-5 against teams above .500 I think part of what’s happening is having such a light schedule has allowed bad habits to develop, and since we’re winning we’re getting away with it. We’ve got a pretty tough last 7 games, I’m hoping last nights close call was enough of a wake up call to turn it around and finish strong.

https://x.com/nbapr/status/1775192838550040837?s=46&t=O_48d3F9zIM7WbaIMp7sdQ Good for Markelle. He’s had a bad season on the court and I don’t know if he’s part of our future plans, but you can’t understate what he means to that locker room. Hopefully he wins teammate of the year.

DLo could be fun cause I don’t think we’ve had a guard that could randomly go for 40 on any night since TMac (and don’t anybody dare say Evan Fournier lol). I’d put DLo and Monk on the same level tbh. They’re the targets if we tackle our weaknesses via FA. I’d rather trade, esp cause I don’t want our first round pick this year, but we could do a lot worse than Russell.

I guess it’s better to be slumping now than 3 weeks from now, but yeah, I don’t have a lot of optimism on the playoff run. If we wind up in the play-in, I’m not even sure we make it past ATL or Chicago with how we’ve been playing. It was great to finally see Mose show some emotion and call out the team for poor play.

Woof, that was a close one. Let’s just be glad that wasn’t the L we deserved and erase it from the memory banks.

We’ll have to go at him while he’s in street clothes on the bench. He’s out tonight with a knee injury. Sharpe, Grant, Brogdon also all out for Portland

Jett’s being called back up to the big leagues tonight. Here’s to hoping we put it away early enough that he can get double digit minutes

I mean, Scoot was like a -58 the other night or something obscene, so we could very much blow their doors off and I hope we do.

Maybe I’m just not remembering correctly because we’ve been bad for so long, but it feels like the discrepancy between the bad teams in the good teams right now in the league is massive. We’re 16.5 point favorites tonight, Boston is 17.5 point favorites over charotte, Indiana is 12.5 point favorites over Brooklyn. I’ve given our team a hard time about bullying the bad teams and struggling against the good teams, but every team in the 4-8 chase in the East with us has done the same thing as we have.

Sounds like Embiid is back this week.

Cavs and Knicks lose, Heat and Sixers win. It’s getting spicy… 3. Cleveland 45-30 4. New York 44-30 5. Orlando 43-31 6. Indiana 42-33 7. Miami 41-33 8. Philadelphia 40-35 We’re 2 games ahead of Miami for the division, reminder they have the tiebreaker with us. If we somehow wind up in a 3 way tie for 3rd with Cleveland and NY, we’d be the 3 seed thanks to winning the Southeast division. Gonna be a fun last 2 weeks

I think the league used to auto-review out of bounds calls in crunch time but it went away quietly a few years ago

Happened twice in the last minute where the Clippers were incorrectly awarded the ball, and he didn’t challenge either. I also think critical calls in close games like that need to be automatically reviewed in the last 2 minutes like the nfl does. Or the refs just need to be better

100%. We still have a serious problem against real teams

Good to see we’re taking care of business

Yeah, especially after a 3 game losing streak. At least we’re consistent, I saw this ish coming a mile away

Isaac and Harris out, Fultz in

Yeah, if we want to avoid the play-in, tonight and Monday are both must win

Any theories on what’s going on with Franz? His game has fallen off a cliff. I know I’ve been banging the fatigue drum, but curious if anybody is seeing anything else.