BY MIAMI HERALD SPORTS| PIERRE TAYLOR To earn a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference and avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament, the Miami Heat will need to do something it hasn’t done enough this season. The Heat will have to pick up wins against quality opponents, as five of its final eight regular-season games come against teams currently with winning records. In fact, the Heat’s next four games come against winning teams that are also jockeying for postseason positioning amid tight playoff races in both conferences. “We’re excited for this stretch,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said, with just two weeks left in the regular season. “We’re going to embrace it.” This challenging four-game stretch against good teams battling for postseason seeding begins Tuesday with a matchup against the New York Knicks at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). The Knicks, led by All-Star guard Jalen Brunson, are in fourth place in the East standings and just a half game behind the third-place Cleveland Cavaliers. Then it continues with a matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers in Miami on Thursday before hitting the road to take on the Houston Rockets on Friday and Indiana Pacers on Sunday. The eighth-place 76ers and sixth-place Pacers are the two teams that the seventh-place Heat is sandwiched between in the East standings, and the Rockets have made a late-season push to put themselves in contention to be one of the Western Conference’s four play-in tournament teams after a shaky 25-34 start to the season. “It will be the best to simulate how the playoffs are going to be,” Heat guard Terry Rozier said. “This is a great four-game stretch, but we got to take it one game at a time. The Knicks we play next, we got to worry about that one and get that one at home and protect home court.” BETTING CONTENT The problem is those four teams hold winning records, and the Heat is an underwhelming 17-24 this season against teams currently with a winning record. The Heat has built its record by taking care of business against inferior opponents, improving to 24-9 this season against teams currently with a losing record after Sunday night’s 119-107 road victory against the struggling Washington Wizards. The Heat also demolished a bad and short-handed Portland Trail Blazers team by 60 points in Miami on Friday. “Obviously, it’s tough to win in this league,” Rozier said following Sunday’s win over the Wizards when asked about the step up in competition this week. “Every game is not going to be easy like we showed tonight. But we feel like we can make our push and we will make our push.”
