Dave Hyde: The Miami Heat were the better team
Across America’s television screens, the night and the microphone and especially the moral of the Miami Heat’s story in a Game 7 that will be remembered for as long as the Heat plays Game 7’s was in Erik Spoelstra’s hands.
That’s where it belonged. This was as big a statement the Heat has made, maybe that it ever will make, and Spoelstra got right to the point with his words, just as he always seemed to be on the sideline again this series.
“I think a lot of people can relate to this team,’’ the Heat coach said before an emptied Boston arena as his team was awarded the Eastern Conference trophy. “Because sometimes you have to suffer for things you really want.”
You come to sports to watch a night like this, and a game like this, and certainly a team like this because of everything it showed in a 103-84 win in Monday’s Game 7.
They showed they’re a team of Spoelstras on this night, a team of undrafted or lowly drafted players who worked their way up, just like their coach did from the video room to the top of his profession.
A certain toughness comes with that journey. You saw it in Caleb Martin, signed off waivers, hitting one big shot after another in Game 7. You saw it in Jimmy Butler, who three teams gave up on. A definite mindset comes in having “that perseverance to pick yourself up, have that collective spirit to keep forging on,’’ as Spoelstra said.
He wasn’t just talking about the Heat’s win this night but what they were hit by in Game 6. You can’t talk of this win Monday without talking of that loss two nights earlier. The Heat took as big a punch as you can in sports when Boston’s Derrick White put back a rebound with one-tenth of a second left to win that night.
Boston wasn’t just set up for a Game 7 party. It was set up for a party of historic proportions, considering no team had won a series after being down 3 games to none like Boston had. The record was 150-0.
“No one said it would be easy,’’ Bam Adebayo said.
No one expected a Heat win, much less one this easy. A 19-point cushion? The game full of bench players by the end? Kyle Lowry throwing the ball away in the final minute and shrugging and smiling?
There were many reasons for this, from Butler’s 28 points to Martin’s 26 points and 10 rebounds. But it all started in the immediate aftermath of Game 6, when Spoelstra didn’t strike a woe-is-us tone after White’s game-winning haymaker.
Spoelstra showed what the best leaders do. He talks of how it’s “impossible to quantify the confidence,” Butler gives the team. That’s true. It’s the same for the coach. He struck a defiant tone – a positive one built around the hard truth, too.
“At 11:35 right now, I have no idea how we’re going to get this done,’’ he said. “I’m as shocked by that play as anyone. I just know in the next 48 hours we are going to figure this out.”
How did he know what tone to strike? He was asked this after Game 7.
“I didn’t,’’ he said. “Those are just raw emotions. When you have such an intimate relationship with the locker room, with each other, it’s whatever’s raw and real at the time.”
It’s who you are. It’s what you are. It was Spoelstra at his finest across this whole series from strategy in the opening games to toughness by the end. Martin was unwrapped as a star this series. But listen to him. He talks of signing with the Heat after Charlotte cut him two years ago. He met Spoelstra, who told him, “I’m going to be the Chief Complaint Officer about your game.”
“He pushed me, and told me what I needed to do to get better,’’ Martin said.
Game 7 was the finished product. When Boston cut it to 71-64, Martin hit a 3-pointer followed by a driving shot. The night was safe again. So, it was the timing of his 26 points on 11-of-16 shooting and 10 rebounds as much as the numbers themselves.
Sure, the play of Game 7 came on the first possession when Boston star Jayson Tatum went up for a shot and twisted his ankle in coming down. He wasn’t right from that moment.
The Heat knows the random play in a series. It lost lost Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo in the Milwaukee series. That’s sports. But sports also is a warm night like this for Heat fans, a night where the talk is the Heat and Florida Panthers going to their respective finals at the same time.
With four minutes left, Max Strus looked at Gabe Vincent and said, “We’re going to the finals.”
“It’s not over,’’ Vincent said.
“It’s over,’’ Strus said.
There’s time to talk of Denver, another time to talk of this crazy South Florida double-dip in the finals of hockey and basketball. But this was a night of nights for the Heat.
“We know we have more work to do,” Spoelstra said. “But, damn, it’s hard. It’s hard to survive three rounds to get to that final round … the longer you’re around in this business, you realize how hard it is to do something like this.”
The better team won. That’s the epitaph to this series. The tougher team, the more determined team, sure. This team of Spoelstras was all that. But as they showed in a Game 7 that filed Game 6 to the trash bin: They were better.