Podcast: Can the Heat avoid play-in tournament? And trying to explain a confounding season

With just six games remaining in the regular season, the Miami Heat is still in danger of having to participate in the play-in tournament to qualify for the playoffs.

The Heat entered Thursday in seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings, with the play-in tournament including the teams with the seventh-highest through the 10th-highest winning percentages in each conference. Miami and the sixth-place Boston Celtics own the same record at 35-31, but the Celtics currently own the tiebreaker with a 1-0 lead in the season series as two important matchups between Miami and Boston loom on Sunday and Tuesday.

On this week’s episode of the Heat Check podcast, David Wilson and Anthony Chiang, the Miami Herald’s Heat beat reporter, are joined by Associated Press NBA writer Tim Reynolds to discuss where things stand and why this Heat season has been so confounding.

Among the topics discussed: Takeaways from Tuesday’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Is the Heat a top team in the East when Jimmy Butler is healthy? And a message for those doubting Bam Adebayo.

The episode again ends with the Heat Check’s new segment, “The Florida Panthers minute[s].” Wilson and Reynolds went over the latest happenings around the Panthers with the start of the playoffs looming, and Chiang reminisced about the Panthers’ 1996 run to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Listen to this week’s episode below. And please continue to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.