Knicks clinch No. 2 seed; Sixers to host Heat in play-in

PHILADELPHIA — Long after the 76ers emerged with a comfortable 107-86 victory over the Brooklyn Nets in their season finale Sunday at Wells Fargo Center, most of Philadelphia’s roster was standing in the locker room watching the final moments of the New York Knicks–Chicago Bulls game 100 miles up Interstate 95.

If New York won, it would clinch the second seed and be Philadelphia’s potential first-round opponent next weekend. If Chicago won, the Knicks would be third and the Milwaukee Bucks would get the second seed.

Ultimately, the Knicks escaped with a thrilling 120-119 overtime victory after DeMar DeRozan‘s potential game-winning jumper went wanting. The 76ers — relegated to the play-in tournament close to an hour earlier by the Orlando Magic‘s 113-88 victory over the Bucks — will shift their focus to Wednesday’s 7-8 play-in game at home against the Miami Heat.

“Obviously we’ve had some great battles with them and we always expect that facing them,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said after the win of the prospect of facing Miami. “The mindset is we’re playing well and do everything we can, like we’ve been doing the last month of the year … digging in and playing our guys and doing whatever we have to, whatever we got to do to win.

“We’ve got a good mindset and we’ll take that into Wednesday.”

While Philadelphia ultimately finished in a tie with both the Magic and Indiana Pacers, who walloped the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday, Orlando earned the fifth seed by winning the Southeast Division, the three-way tiebreaker.

Indiana then won the head-to-head tiebreaker with Philadelphia thanks to winning the season series 2-1, and thus got the sixth seed and a matchup with the Bucks in the first round.

That relegated Philadelphia to seventh, where the 76ers finished despite ripping off eight straight wins to end the season. They will entertain the Heat after Miami won a second straight game against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday to close the season in eighth.

It was a wild day of results around the Eastern Conference. The Cleveland Cavaliers seemingly went out of their way to ensure that they were the fourth seed by using their end-of-bench players down the stretch and losing to the hapless Charlotte Hornets, who had basically their entire rotation ruled out before the game. The Hornets outscored Cleveland 32-14 in the fourth quarter.

“Yeah, I mean we were trying,” Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff told reporters after the game. “Again, in live time it’s hard to get all that information. We were aware as some of that stuff was going on.

“But once we sat our guys at the end of the third quarter and they had the mindset of not going back in, I didn’t want to take any risks of putting them back into the game. When everyone had already cooled down and then something else happens.

“So, you are always aware of it, you are always taking a peek at it but I thought the safety of our guys was the most…