Miami knows biggest tests are still ahead

— During the dog days of the regular season, the Miami Heat often spoke about the need to not take any shortcuts on the way to the playoffs. And that’s true. That doesn’t mean they necessarily enjoyed the 82-game run- up to the best time of year.

“None of us,” Heat forward LeBron James finally confessed, “are here for the regular season.”

When this core of Heat players was assembled, the only stated goal was winning NBA titles, which also explains why even getting through the first two rounds of these playoffs basically unscathed only merited a short celebration.

Miami is back in the Eastern Conference finals for the fourth straight season, and will visit Indiana in Game 1 on Sunday afternoon. The Heat got there by ousting the Brooklyn Nets in five games, the end of that series Wednesday night being briefly accompanied by a few hoots and hollers in the immediate moments after the clinching 96-94 win was completed.

Before long, order was re- stored to the Heat locker room.

Two series wins are nice, but they know the road only gets tougher from here.

“Like LeBron said, to be in this position four years in a row, this is the reason we came together four years ago,” Heat guard Dwyane Wade said. “We’ve got a lot more work to do but we’re a team that doesn’t take it for granted. We’re a team that worked very hard to get to this point, so we’re going to go to the next round, the Eastern Conference finals and continue to do what we’ve done, play this game as hard as we can and try to continue to move forward.”

Indiana ousted Washington on Thursday night. The Heat and Pacers split four meetings in the regular season.

“We know what Indiana’s capable of,” Heat forward Chris Bosh said. “Best defense in the league. Despite their struggles, we still see the same opponent in those guys as we did last year and throughout this year.”

The Heat are now 32- 7 in first- and second-round games in the last four postseasons, that stretch coinciding with the start of the “Big 3” era featuring James, Wade and Bosh teaming up in Miami.