The Toronto Raptors lost to the Miami Heat in the regular season finale

MIAMI (AP) – After a 46-win regular season, the Miami Heat still haven't made the playoffs. One more victory is needed to complete this task.

If necessary, they will have two options.

Thomas Bryant scored 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, Jaime Jaquez Jr. added 18 points and the Heat beat the Toronto Raptors 118-103 on Sunday to advance to the playoffs.

Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro each scored 17 for Miami, while Jimmy Butler had 15, Caleb Martin had 12 and Delon Wright had 11 points and five rebounds for the Heat (46-36). Miami travels to Philadelphia to open the playoffs on Wednesday, with the winner securing the No. 7 seed.

“It should be a lot of fun,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

The loser of the Miami-Philadelphia game will host either Atlanta or Chicago on Friday and determine the 8th seed and who will face No. 1 Boston in the 1st round.

“We've just got to go out there and compete, play the right basketball and do something really hard to win on Philly's floor,” Butler said. “But this is the time of year, if you want to win a championship, you've got to do it anyway. Obviously, if we're going to make it to 7, we've got to do it.”

Gary Trent Jr. scored 18 points for Toronto. Jordan Nwora and Grady Dick scored 14 goals each, Kelly Olympic scored 11 goals, and Ochai Agbaji scored 10 goals.

Toronto finished 25-57, the fifth-worst record in franchise history. There was some early hope; The Raptors started 8-8 and a three-game winning streak in late February pushed their record to 22-36.

They went 3-21 the rest of the way, playing much of the final stretch without Scotty Barnes — a former player of the year who made his first All-Star team this year — due to injury.

“I think we were able to pull the group together, stay positive and really focus on the development of our young core players,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said. looking for a way to the future”.

It was level after a quarter and the intrigue didn't last long. Miami outscored Toronto 43-22 to take a 67-46 halftime lead. The 21-point margin in the second quarter was Miami's second largest of any stretch this season; The Heat outscored Portland by 24 points in the second quarter of what turned out to be a 60-point victory on March 29.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA