Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is out for Wednesday’s play-in tournament game for the No. 7 seed against the 76ers in Philadelphia, the team announced Tuesday.
Rozier hasn’t played since Miami’s loss to the Indiana Pacers on April 7 because of a neck injury.
The winner of Wednesday’s game will head to New York for the start of a first-round series against the Knicks on Saturday, while the loser will host either the Chicago Bulls or Atlanta Hawks in the eighth-place play-in game Friday. The winner of that game will travel to Boston to face the top-seeded Celtics in a series that begins Sunday.
Rozier, 30, came to Miami in a trade back in January from the Charlotte Hornets, arriving in exchange for veteran guard Kyle Lowry and a future first-round pick. Charlotte then bought out Lowry, a Philadelphia native and Villanova product, and he signed with the 76ers for the stretch run.
In 31 games with the Heat this season, Rozier has averaged 16.4 points and 4.6 assists per game while shooting 37.1% from 3-point range.
In a good piece of Miami injury news, the Heat said guard Duncan Robinson will be able to play Wednesday after dealing with a back issue for the past few weeks. Robinson, one of the league’s elite 3-point shooters, missed the final four games of the regular season and has only played in five of Miami’s final 13 games.
On Philadelphia’s side of things, Joel Embiid went through practice Tuesday after sitting out Sunday’s season finale against the Brooklyn Nets as a precaution. Sixers coach Nick Nurse said after the game that the expectation is Embiid will be good to go for Wednesday.
Guard De’Anthony Melton, however, didn’t practice because of his own ongoing back issue. Nurse said Sunday that Robert Covington is unlikely to play again this season because of a bone bruise in his knee.
