NBA Basketball

2026-04-14 - Miami Heat at Charlotte Hornets

A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown

Miami Heat @ Charlotte Hornets
United States : NBA Basketball Play In Tournament
Tuesday 14th April 2026 - Scheduled 7:30pm EST
12:30am (British Time)

Preview

There was little drama on the final day of the NBA regular season and fans will be glad to see the back of the opening six months of the 2025/26.

Commissioner Adam Silver is working on plans to continue to make the regular season more meaningful, but everyone knows that all changes once we move into the post-season. The NBA Playoffs continue to provide bigger sporting headlines and it all begins with the Play In Tournament before the First Round gets underway on Saturday.

The opening game of the Play In Tournament is an Eastern Conference eliminator when the Charlotte Hornets (44-38) host the Miami Heat (43-39). Both teams are aware that the entire season is on the line with the winner moving on to play for the right to enter the First Round as the Number 8 Seed in the Conference, while the losing team books a holiday.

You cannot read too much into the regular season overall, but it is very hard to ignore how well Charlotte have played since the turn of the calendar year. They were expected to be involved in the Draft Lottery, but the team found a way to come together going into the All Star Break and have never really looked back.

Only a poor opening to the season has prevented the Hornets from finishing up with a higher Seed, while they won the most recent game against the Miami Heat. That will give them confidence, but Charlotte will do well to remember that was a Heat team that had been resting Bam Adebayo and the experience of this roster and Head Coach cannot be ignored.

Just three years ago, Miami lost the first Play In Tournament game, but won the second of those before making a run all the way to the NBA Finals. The Heat have come through the Play In Tournament in each of the last three seasons and last year they managed to do that in the pressurised situation of having to win TWO games rather than the 1-1 records produced at this stage of the post-season in the previous two campaigns.

Granted Miami have offered little resistance to the top Seed in either of the last two years since reaching the NBA Finals and they no longer have Jimmy Butler, but the Heat continue to prove to be a very dangerous team that deserves a lot of respect.

Miami ended the regular season with two blowout wins and they upset the odds by beating the Charlotte Hornets here a little over a month ago. That is the kind of result that will give the Heat a lot of confidence, while the recent Offensive performances are very encouraging against a Charlotte team that does not have the same kind of experiences as the visiting team in this kind of setting.

The Hornets are a team that are very confident with the ability to shoot the three ball and that is likely going to be a key to the final outcome of this Play In Tournament opener.

If they can find that rhythm from that distance early, the Hornets may feel they can get away from the Miami Heat and manage the situation. In previous years, Miami have shown the Defensive intensity to manage the shooters, but they have not been very effective at stopping the three pointers down the stretch in the last couple of weeks.

Despite the recent successes of the Miami Heat, there does seem to be a lot of expectation being shouldered by the Charlotte Hornets and that could be a factor in this game. Managing those expectations is never easy and not for a young roster that has simply not played enough post-season Basketball to know how to handle the occasion and that makes the underdog very dangerous.

Number 9 Seeds have struggled in the Play In Tournament, even if it is a relatively small sample with this addition to the post-season entering a fifth year. The Hornets will have to overcome the 2-6 mark against the spread that previous Number 9 Seeds have put together in the opener of the Play In Tournament and Miami's experience certainly makes them a live underdog.