Coaches have Celtics and Heat ready to go for Eastern finals
MIAMI — He grew up in Portland, basketball in his blood. Wasn’t a big-time recruit before eventually playing college ball in the WCC. Took a circuitous route into coaching, guided along the way by one of the game’s renowned sideline bosses. And last summer, he was part of the brain trust that helped USA Basketball win Olympic gold.
It is Erik Spoelstra’s story.
It is also Ime Udoka’s story. There is enormous respect between those men, who have known one another for decades. Spoelstra coaches the Miami Heat, Udoka is in his first season coaching the Boston Celtics, and one will represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals. Game 1 of the East title series is Tuesday, the top-seeded Heat hosting the second-seeded Celtics.
“We have great respect for what they’ve done during the regular season, to develop the right habits,” said Spoelstra, now in his 14th season after replacing Hall of Famer Pat Riley as Miami’s head coach. “This is the way it should be — the two teams that played most consistently at the top of the East for most of the year, and we’re meeting in the conference finals.”
The Heat needed five games to get past Atlanta in Round 1, then six games to oust Philadelphia in the East semifinals. Boston swept Brooklyn in Round 1, then ended Milwaukee’s reign as NBA champion by finishing off a seven-game-series win Sunday in the other East semi.
It’s a rematch of the 2020 East finals, held in the restart bubble at Walt Disney World, when Miami topped Boston 4-2 to earn a berth in the NBA Finals. That was the third East finals loss in a four-year span for the Celtics — and many players from those defeats, like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, are Boston’s core today.
“This is the group I feel like is poised enough to get it done,” Brown said. “I feel like everything that we’ve overcome — all these battles and challenges and adversity we’ve been through this season, as well as the challenge that we just had overcoming the defending champions — I think that we are prepared.”
For its part, Miami — seeking a seventh trip to the NBA Finals and what would be a sixth in 12 seasons — isn’t looking back at the bubble win or much of anything else, All-Star forward Jimmy Butler insisted.
“We just want to focus in on today, right now,” Butler said.
Players might not look back. It’s different for the coaches.
Udoka played sparingly for USF in the 1997-98 season. He remembers meeting Spoelstra when he was a kid — at 44, Udoka is seven years younger than Spoelstra — and watching him play in pro-am runs alongside other Portland basketball icons like Damon Stoudemire. Udoka played against Spoelstra-coached Heat teams four times before becoming a coach, spending years as an assistant under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio.
Hence, the Olympic ties they share: Popovich was USA Basketball’s coach in the last Olympic cycle, and asked Udoka and Spoelstra to be among his confidants for that journey.
“He’s always had success,” Udoka said of Spoelstra. “One of the best coaches in the league, in my opinion . ... I got to know him on a more personal level in that time spent in Tokyo in preparations for the Olympics, but I’ve known Erik for a while.”
They’ll know each other a little better after this series.
Point guards ailing: Miami point guard Kyle Lowry won’t be ready to start the series because of his balky hamstring, but the Heat went 4-0 against Philadelphia without him (and 0-2 with him trying to play while still clearly laboring). Smart has a mid-foot sprain and is questionable for Game 1.