MIAMI — Max Strus and Jimmy Butler scored 31 points apiece, and the Miami Heat got into the playoffs by rallying in the final minutes to beat the Chicago Bulls 102-91 in an Eastern Conference play-in game Friday night.

Tyler Herro added 12 points and Bam Adebayo grabbed 17 rebounds for Miami, which trailed by six midway through the final quarter but finished with a 15-1 run.

Butler scored while getting fouled with 2:17 left to put Miami ahead for good. He found Strus for a 3-pointer – his seventh of the night – a minute later to push the lead to five, and Strus sealed it with three free throws after getting fouled on a try from beyond the arc with 40 seconds remaining.

The win gives Miami the No. 8 seed in the East, and a first-round matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA’s top overall seed, starting Sunday.

DeMar DeRozan led the Bulls with 26 points and nine assists. Alex Caruso added 16 points, Zach Lavine had 15 but shot just 6 for 20, and Coby White scored 14. Chicago got a road win at Toronto on Wednesday to extend its season, but couldn’t get the second road victory it needed to make the playoffs.

The Heat led by 14 in the first quarter, held as much as a 10-point lead in the third quarter, then found themselves down by six with 7:12 remaining.

NOTES

MAVERICKS: The NBA fined the Dallas Mavericks $750,000, saying the team engaged in “conduct detrimental to the league” by sitting out most of its key players against the Chicago Bulls on April 7 despite still having a chance to reach the postseason.

The league’s investigation, which took less than a week, said Dallas violated the league’s policy on resting players and had a desire to lose that game to the Bulls “in order to improve the chances of keeping its first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.”

Dallas sat Kyrie Irving for the entire game against the Bulls. Luka Doncic played about one quarter, presumably getting minutes because the Mavericks had scheduled a tribute to Doncic’s home country, Slovenia.

The Mavericks blew an 11-point fourth-quarter lead, lost and were eliminated from postseason consideration.

“The Dallas Mavericks’ decision to restrict key players from fully participating in an elimination game last Friday against Chicago undermined the integrity of our sport,” said Joe Dumars, the head of basketball operations/executive vice president for the NBA. “The Mavericks’ actions failed our fans and our league.”

Losing that game and missing the play-in tournament could help ensure that Dallas has a top-10 draft pick this summer – and with it, potentially a chance of winning the lottery and getting the opportunity to select French phenom Victor Wembanyama.

Having a top-10 pick is important, because otherwise, Dallas wouldn’t have it at all. If the Mavs’ pick is between No. 1 and No. 10, Dallas keeps it. If it is No. 11 or deeper in the draft, it conveys to New York as part of the compensation agreed to in the Kristaps Porzingis trade in 2019.

The league said it did not find that the Dallas players who participated in the game were not playing to win. Dallas Coach Jason Kidd said before the game that the decision to sit players was made by “the organization” and after the game referenced the decision as being made by his bosses – owner Mark Cuban and General Manager Nico Harrison.

Dallas had Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr., Maxi Kleber, Josh Green and Christian Wood all out for that win-or-else game, plus limited Doncic. The Mavs cited right foot injury recovery for Irving, right hamstring injury recovery for Kleber, left ankle soreness for Hardaway and rest for both Wood and Green.

AWARDS: Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla is a finalist for the NBA Coach of the Year award and guard Malcolm Brogdon is a finalist for Sixth Man of the Year.

Brogdon, acquired in a trade in the offseason, averages 14.9 points and 3.7 assists for the Celtics, who earned the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Bobby Portis of Milwaukee and Immanuel Quickley of New York are the other finalists.

Mazzulla took over as interim coach just days before the season when Ime Udoka was suspended. He led Boston a 57-win regular season and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Mike Brown of Sacramento and Mark Daigneault of Oklahoma City are the other finalists

Nikola Jokic is a finalist to win a third straight NBA MVP award, with Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo the players who can stop him.

HORNETS: Forward Miles Bridges will need to serve a 10-game suspension once he signs a contract with an NBA team and returns to the league.

The league officially suspended the restricted free agent for 30 games following a domestic violence incident last summer. But the NBA said 20 games of the suspension have been served since Bridges sat all out 82 regular-season games.

Bridges, 25, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. He last played for the Charlotte Hornets two years ago, leading the team in scoring at 20.2 points per game and rebounding.

He appeared headed for a contract worth in excess of $100 million last summer as a restricted free agent, but was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with multiple domestic violence offenses just days before the start of free agency.

Bridges entered a plea of no contest in November to a felony domestic violence charge and the remaining counts against him were dismissed. The contract offers never came and Bridges, the 12th overall pick in 2018 out of Michigan State, remains a restricted free agent.

BUCKS: Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam’s purchase of Marc Lasry’s 25% stake in the Milwaukee Bucks has received approval from the NBA’s board of governors.

The approval announced enables the Haslams to join Wes Edens and Jamie Dinan as co-owners of the team. Edens, who purchased the Bucks with Lasry in 2014, will succeed Lasry as the Bucks’ governor and will fill that role for the next five years.