South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Butler and Vincent celebrate Disney magic in blink of eye
The magic initially was created just outside of the Magic Kingdom, as the Miami Heat bided their time in the NBA’s 2020 COVID bubble at Disney World.
Left with little to do other than basketball in the quarantine setting, downtime was filled with scrimmages and preparations for late-game situations.
Such as the one that came during Friday night’s 97-95 victory over the Houston Rockets at Miami-Dade Arena, when, off a timeout with seven-tenths of a second to play in a tie game, guard Gabe Vincent launched a perfect alley-oop inbounds pass from the far sideline for Jimmy Butler’s buzzer-beating, game-winning dunk.
“That play was a play that CQ gave me actually, in the bubble,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of lead assistant Chris Quinn. “I used it for that first month. We were scrimmaging all the time. We were doing late-game situations. We were doing a scrimmage. It was basically the same exact situation and Jimmy got the dunk on the play and hung on the rim and pointed at me and said, ‘We’ve got to use this play.’
“And it just took us three-plus years to get back to it. But that’s one of those benefits of all that time we had in the bubble. It was a school of basketball for those 98 days.”
And when school was in session for real late Friday night, Vincent and Butler, who both endured those three-plus months in the Disney bubble, executed to perfection, just as the Heat had in the Summer of ’20, when Quinn and fellow Heat assistant Malik Allen coached opposite sides during scrimmages at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex.
“We never can use it again, so I get it,” Spoelstra said with a laugh, as the Heat turned their attention to Saturday night’s game against the Orlando Magic at the Amway Center. “It was Quinny’s team that beat Malik’s team. So Malik, as soon as we ran it, he knew exactly what the play was.
“But I call that play ‘CQ’ on my card. Really, that’s what it says on my game card. And it’s been three-plus years, three years.”
With 6-foot-11 Rockets first-round pick Jabari Smith defending the inbounds pass, and with Heat center Bam Adebayo one of the play’s options, it turned out to be blind faith from Vincent.
“Did I see him open? No,” Vincent said of his launch to Butler. “But when the biggest guy on the court was in front of me and when Bam was in my eyesight, I knew he’d been open.”
So it was one point guard implementing a play designed by a former Heat point guard, with Quinn’s six-season NBA career having begun with the Heat in 2006.
“Quinny is smart,” Butler said. “As good a coach as he is, he’s going to be a head coach one day very very soon. Kudos to Gabe, throwing a wonderful pass.”
With Butler saying he then played the role of former NFL receiver Chad Johnson.
“I’m always open. I’m like a football player,” Butler said. “Ochocinco said it best. He was always open.”
Spoelstra said it was the ultimate two-man game at the ultimate moment.
“I thought Gabe threw an amazing pass,” Spoelstra said. “And Jimmy showing that he still has some vertical. Whatever he tested at the [pre-draft] combine, he used all of that, and some. That was top-of-the-backboard type stuff.”
To the league-worst Rockets it was another bad moment in a bad season, with coach Stephen Silas telling his players not to switch defensively on the play.
“We wanted to stay home. The first screen was the cross screen and there was confusion whether we were switching or not,” Silas said afterward.
“I said in the huddle, ‘Stay home, stay home, stay home.’ We didn’t stay home, and then there was an avalanche after that.”