NEW YORK _ As Dwyane Wade said earlier in the day, there is a reason there is an elite pack at the top of the Eastern Conference race and a definitive tier at the bottom.
Games like this are the reason.
Given the opportunity to wrap up the Southeast Division and guarantee themselves no worse than the No. 7 playoff seed, the Miami Heat again did the seemingly unfathomable, falling 122-98 Friday night to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
As in the 28-51 New York Knicks. As in an opponent that had lost 23 of its previous 27. As in their second loss of the season to the Knicks, just as they have lost three times to the Brooklyn Nets, twice to the Orlando Magic and twice to the Sacramento Kings.
How do you beat the 2017-18 Heat? With lottery balls.
And yet, in the how-low-can-you-go bottom of the East playoff pack, the Heat still exited the night where they started, as the No. 6 seed, with the Washington Wizards just as inexplicably losing to the Atlanta Hawks and the Milwaukee Bucks idle.
Even with this loss, if the Heat win their final two games _ Monday against the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder and Wednesday against the visiting Toronto Raptors _ they still would be assured of the No. 6 seed.
The difference now is that with the Philadelphia 76ers defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night, No. 6 in the East is now seeded to face the 76ers and not LeBron James' team.
The Heat came out flat defensively against the Knicks and never regained their footing, even with New York, over the course of the game, losing Michael Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Emmanuel Mudiay to injury or illness.
Instead, Damyean Dotson, who entered averaging three points for the Knicks, closed with 30.
The Heat were back to their regular rotation, a game after giving Goran Dragic, James Johnson and Wade the night off Wednesday in Atlanta to rest nagging injuries.
That had the Heat with the lineup that sealed a playoff berth in Tuesday's victory over the Hawks, with Hassan Whiteside at center, James Johnson and Josh Richardson at forward and Dragic and Tyler Johnson at guard.
What the Heat did not have was any continuity with their defensive rotations.
The Heat trimmed their deficit to 10 early in the third quarter, but then went into the fourth down 96-78, trailing by as many as 23 in the third quarter.
After falling behind by 21 in the second period, the Heat went into halftime down 63-50.
By that stage, Dotston was up to a game-high 14 points for New York, rolling from there.
The Knicks closed the first half at 9 of 17 on 3-pointers.
The Heat came out as lethargically on the defensive end as they did in Wednesday's victory in Atlanta at the start of this two-game trip.
Down 13 at one point in the opening period, the Heat went into the second quarter down 34-23, with the Knicks at .619 from the field over the first 12 minutes. And that was with Beasley helped back to the New York locker room 18 seconds with a knee contusion.
Trey Burke, experiencing a career revival, has 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting for New York in the first quarter. He finished with 17 points.
