It’s All About the Seeding

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• NBA Southeast
• National Basketball Association
• Miami Heat
• NBA Finals
• Puppets and Puppetry

Looks like your Miami Heat is playoff bound. That’s the good news. Now these final three games are about playoff seedings, which could very well be the bad news. If Miami falls to the sixth seed, it would face either the dangerous Orlando Magic or the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics. For the Heat, that would mean a first-round matchup on the road against a far superior team. Miami has pretty much crapped the bed on the road this season, going 13-23 overall and only 2-8 since the All-Star break. Needless to say, every game counts. “I don’t think at this point we can overstate any game,” Udonis Haslem told the Palm Beach Post last week. “Every game is critical.”

These last three could mean the difference between a winnable first round or an early exit. Tonight the Heat take on Dwyane Wade’s personal hand puppets, the New York Knicks. That’s a fine place to start.
Sun., April 12, 6 p.m., 2009