Butler Scores 24 points, Helps Bulls Secure Playoff Spot

And those doubters looked fairly prophetic a few weeks back.

MIAMI - Goran Dragic scored 28 points, Hassan Whiteside added 24 points and 18 rebounds, and the Miami Heat defeated the Washington Wizards while being eliminated from the National Basketball Association playoffs.

The Heat were the victims this time, their season drawing to a close earlier than they would have preferred despite a 110-102 victory over the Washington Wizards.

"Tough team, no question about it".

Stephen Curry added 20 points for the Warriors, who will begin the playoffs with home-court advantage in any matchup based on their best-in-basketball 67-15 regular-season record. But we're a confident team, especially against the best teams that we've played this year. I think it's going to be a tough series.

What a relief for the Bulls. Are the Spurs going to sit players if they know they have a bye on the line? OK, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration.

The Timberwolves closed the regular season with six consecutive losses.

Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson told the New York Post that they were planning to evaluate their young players against the Bulls.

The young coach who said earlier in the season that he "misses Dwyane Wade," said later that he was "grateful and blessed" to coach the players now on the roster. The Bulls also got a career high 21 points and five threes from Paul Zipser and 12 points and 10 rebounds from Bobby Portis.

Lin, Lopez and Booker all played in last Saturday's 107-106 victory over Chicago here at Downtown's Barclays Center, but had to watch from the bench Wednesday as they were "rested" with the entire offseason just 48 minutes away. Over the course of the season, they have battled internal drama and injuries and been part of inexplicable trades.

It wasn't a good enough excuse for the Miami Heat, who tied with the Bulls at 41-41, but lost the tiebreaker for the playoffs.

The Bulls and Pacers winning eliminated the Heat, who finished 41-41 after beating Washington.

Dwyane Wade is going back to the playoffs. Now the worst teams in the league are fracturing some of the league's credibility, although it's hard to use the word credibility in a league in which nobody knows the difference between a block and a charge, traveling doesn't exist, and a referee did time for fixing games. He finished the regular season averaging 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists to go along with his second scoring title. That's all we wanted to do.

"Not to say they don't have a right to be upset", he said of Heat supporters. Taking that confidence into this series. "The grind of the season I play for this time of year; I am looking forward to it". It makes the decision much more hard. They will face defending-champion Cleveland in the opening round.

And then it really got bad. Brooklyn didn't make it due to their last-place finish in the Eastern Conference. It seemed like chaos.

"He's probably playing the best out of any point guard", Rondo said.

Yet, somehow the Bulls pulled out of the nose dive, coach Fred Hoiberg pointing to a crucial stretch of four straight recent wins over the Bucks, Hawks, Cavs and Pelicans as the game changer. "We just found out we didn't make the playoffs". I give these guys a lot of credit. "I'm just going to say I'm proud of these guys through everything".

"Everybody had a challenging season".

"At the end of the day, our goal was to get to the playoffs and we were able to accomplish that". So I'm happy with this team now.

"We're still rooting for the young guys from Brooklyn".

"I know the role they want me to have", Lin said.

All games involving the Bulls' playoff seeding will tip off at 7 p.m. "I hope just with my off-the-court attributes, the way I've led, the way I've helped other players grow, I hope those were characteristics that really showed how important I am to this group".