Heat gave it all they had until nothing was left
Don’t ask.
No, seriously, don’t ask.
You don’t really want to talk about the Miami Heat’s performance in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, do you?
Therewas only one question to ask about this 106-93 seasonending loss, anyhow, And it was asked to Jimmy Butler in the minutes after Game 5’s emotional win on Friday. What did he have left?
“Nothing,” he said. There’s your answer. They had nothing left Sunday night. They emptied their basketball souls on the journey in reaching a height no one expected and, when they reached for something more for one more tipoff, therewas nothing left.
What a run they had. What a surprise. If the Los Angeles Lakers’ achievement was meeting expectations in winning a title, the Heat’s achievement was more improbable, bordering on impossible.
Think of it. They didn’t make the playoffs last year. They won one postseason series in the previous five years. While the Lakers had two No. 1 draft picks at the top of their game in LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the Heat roster had one top-10 pick in the rotation: 36-year-old journeyman Andre Iguodala. Hewas the ninth pick in 2004.
Does that put their achievement into perspective? It should, because it had never been done before. No
Finals team had such little blue-blood pedigree as the heat.
Their big draft picks were mid-round gambles on BamAdebayo and Tyler Herro, a rookie no less. Their big signingwas for Jimmy Butler, who three other teams let go. The other two players who contributed mightily in Game 5, Duncan Robinson andKendrickNunn, came off the scrap heap.
That’s why you sing no sad songs for theHeat for this loss. If their other two Finals losses from The Big Three Erawere met with disappointment, even doubts, this one is met with full applause. Just as it deserves.
Don’t forget coaching. If you don’t think good coaching makes a difference in theNBA, look what Spoelstra did.
He first recognized how a team stocked with shooterswas theHeat’s bestway. Then he helped recognize and embolden a shooter like Robinson who no one had believed.
Come the playoffs, he developed a strategy out of Bill Belichick. He took away the opposing team’s best players away in reaching these Finals.
Remember the roadblock Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo faced every time he drove the lane?
Remember the up-anddown series of Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown?
Even when they lost Adebayo and Goran Dragic in Game1of the Finals, they made no excuses. didn’t use that as a crutch. They dug in. Down 2-0, they stole a game as Butler had a game to remember.
Down 3-1, Butler outplayed LeBron and they won another.
Suddenly, the thought was Pat Riley’s team could pull off the storybook finish. But here’s the thing: They did pull it off in reaching this. They showed more andwon more than anyone imagined.
The Lakerswere bigger, stronger, flat-out better.
LeBronwon his fourth title at 35 and isn’t done. Davis was dominant, in part because coach Frank Vogel finally put him at center for Game 6, where he paid little attention to theHeat’s BamAdebayo when he went outside.
Davis clogged the lane. He swatted shots all night. This one vulnerability of theHeat, a lack of size, was finally called out. Aswas their expending so much just getting to this night.
The end of their season, delayed for so long, couldn’t come quickly enough Sunday night. Even as it did, it felt like the end of a good book you really didn’twant to end.
That’s good news of this Heat season. It doesn’t really feel like anything is ending. It feels like something new is beginning with so many young players.
So while the Lakers got the crowns and the moment, the final page of the Heat season left amessage to appreciate as you look howfar they came this year and look over this roster.
To be continued.