The Telegram (St. John's)

Count out the Heat at your own peril

- MIKE GANTER

Momentum in sport is a real and powerful thing.

But it is not insurmount­able.

The Miami Heat are proof of that.

When their Eastern Conference Final with the Boston Celtics began, it was tough to find anyone outside of the state of Florida and probably more precisely outside those Heat locker room doors willing to give Miami a real chance of taking down the Celtics.

But three games into the series that thinking changed as the Heat first walked into Boston and stole two and then came home and got one more to snatch all the momentum and put the Celtics’ season on death’s door down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series.

The next momentum swing was equally as stunning.

With the entire sports world screaming that a 3-0 hole was as good as done and that no team in league playoff history had ever climbed out of that deficit, the Celtics crawled all the way back into this one.

A win in Game 4 in Miami was followed by a win in Boston in Game 5 and suddenly momentum belonged to Boston. It was further hammered home in Game 6 when the Celtics, against all odds, pulled off a last-second comeback on a Derrick White putback with just fractions of a second on the clock off a Jayson Tatum three-point miss.

It was the sort of devastatin­g turnaround that leaves teams barely able to function and it was why, for the second time in the series, the Celtics were once again considered the heavy favourites to win it all returning to their familiar surroundin­gs in Boston for an expected return to the NBA Finals.

SEVEN-POINT FAVOURITES

The Celtics were seven-point favourites to complete the comeback and become the first team in 151 attempts to rally from an 0-3 deficit in an NBA playoff series.

As we know now, the momentum turned again but this time it got a little kickstart courtesy of a game-opening sequence that saw the Celtics biggest scoring threat in Tatum land awkwardly on the foot of a fallen Gabe Vincent in the game’s opening minute.

Tatum was not himself the rest of the night.

Even when he would make a play, the cost in pain and discomfort it would take was evident on his face.

He would go on to shoot just 5-for-13 from the field and 1-of-4 from three for a 14-point night.

No one on the Celtics would score more than 19 in the game.

And while Tatum’s discomfort was a huge part of the result, so, too, was the overall perseveran­ce shown by the Heat.

Respected around the league for their hard play and even harder resolve, the Heat needed all of that to get back on track in this one.

Even with the Tatum mishap to begin the game, the Celtics still got off to a solid start and were up early before Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra went back to the zone defence that had given Boston problems earlier in the series.

From that point on, about the midway point of the first quarter, the Heat were in control of the game.

Jimmy Butler, the man primarily responsibl­e for getting the Heat that early 3-0 lead in the series, was properly rewarded with the series MVP trophy, ironically named after one of Boston’s all-time greats Larry Bird.

Butler did have a gamehigh 28 points along with seven rebounds and six assists in the Game 7 clincher but for the entirety of the series the Heat’s most consistent contributo­r was Caleb Martin.

The 27-year-old forward was second in team scoring in the series with just over 19 points a game but shot a ridiculous 60.2 per cent from the field and just under 49 per cent from behind the arc.

Without Tyler Herro, who did not play a minute in the series — though there is talk of a Game 3 Finals return — the Heat leaned heavily on their second-tier players and none came up bigger than Martin.

Martin was actually waived by the Charlotte Hornets back in 2021 and had to accept a two-way contract with the Heat just to stay in the league. He had that twoway converted in February 2022 and signed a multi-year contract with the Heat that summer.

 ?? USA TODAY SPORTS ?? Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and centre Bam Adebayo celebrates with the trophy and teammates after defeating the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals for the 2023 NBA playoffs at TD Garden on May 29.
USA TODAY SPORTS Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and centre Bam Adebayo celebrates with the trophy and teammates after defeating the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals for the 2023 NBA playoffs at TD Garden on May 29.

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