NBA - Main

Miami probably missing the knockout stage even with a win against Milwaukee without Butler and Herro is just sad and not a good look for this tournament when their only loss would be to a missed buzzer beater. They're mostly getting punished because they played the Wizards and Hornets when the bad teams were in better condition to compete.

Tournament would be much better with either 2nd place in every group making the knockout stage, with the top 2 seeds getting a bye into the round of 8 (like 12-team NFL playoff format), double wild card play-in match to play the top seed (like 10-team MLB playoff format), or if they're insistent on the Top 8 cut (Magic the Gathering playoff format) then points defeated by in losses would be a better tie breaker than scoring margin since that is something a team can fully control.