Takeaways from night the Heat won the East. And a look at the matchup vs. LeBron and Lakers
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 125-113 win over the Boston Celtics on Sunday to clinch the Eastern Conference championship and a trip to the NBA Finals at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. Miami is 12-3 this postseason:
The Heat will play in the NBA Finals for the sixth time in franchise history, and for the first time since 2014. But this one feels different.
Miami’s first Finals appearance came in 2006, but that one wasn’t a total surprise considering the Heat were led by the All-Star duo of Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal and entered the playoffs as the East’s No. 2 seed.
Miami’s next four Final appearances came in four consecutive seasons from 2010-14 during the Big 3 era. A trip to the Finals became the expectation during this stretch, with superstars Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Wade on the roster.
But not many expected the fifth-seeded Heat, led by All-Stars Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, to win the East this season.
It marks the first time a team seeded fifth or lower has made it to the NBA Finals since 1999, when the eighth-seeded New York Knicks represented the East in the championship series during a lockout-shortened season. The eighth-seeded Knicks lost that Finals series 4-1 to the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs.
In addition, the Heat’s .603 win percentage in the regular season is the fourth-worst win percentage by a team to reach the Finals since seeding began in 1984, according to ESPN Stats & Info. Miami closed the regular season with a 44-29 record.
In the last 20 years, the only team with a lower net rating than the Heat (+2.7) to make the NBA Finals are the 2017-18 Cleveland Cavaliers (+1.0), according to Couper Moorhead from Heat.com.
“We understand how difficult this is to get to this point, and that’s what that locker room, of all the guys that have been here for so many years, we just want to enjoy it for a night,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Teams like this are unique and special, a group that really competes. A bunch of guys that have been overlooked in a lot of ways. A lot of guys in our locker room have been told that they are less than; they are the anti-AAU or new age analytics where you’re trying to figure out what a player can do statistically.
“These guys just want to compete. They just want to roll the ball out and play and compete and fight for it. That’s one of the reasons that I really, really admire and love being a part of this group.”
The Heat was also given long odds to reach the championship series throughout the season.
The Heat entered the season with the seventh-best odds to win the East at 20-to-1 behind the Milwaukee Bucks (8-to-5), Philadelphia 76ers (2-to-1), Celtics (7-to-1), Brooklyn Nets (10-to-1), Toronto Raptors (10-to-1) and Indiana Pacers (16-to-1), according to BetOnline. Miami was also tied with the 15th-best odds to win the NBA championship at 66-to-1 then.
Entering the July 30 restart, the Heat was given the fifth-best odds to win the East at 8-to-1 behind the Bucks, Celtics, 76ers and Raptors, according to BetOnline. Miami was also tied with the ninth-best odds to win the NBA championship at 33-to-1.
“Miami deserves a lot of credit,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “They’re super physical, super tough, very, very savvy. I think they’re the best team in the East and deserve to be representing the East in the way that they have played.”
The only two players on the Heat’s roster with previous Finals experience are veterans Udonis Haslem and Andre Iguodala. Haslem has been with the the franchise for each of its six Finals appearances and three NBA titles.
The 2020 championship series marks the 10th consecutive Finals that has included either the Heat or Iguodala, who played in each of the past five Finals as a member of the Golden State Warriors.
“I believe in our group,” Butler said. “I know that we can still win four more. We’re not satisfied. We’re not complacent. We know we’ve got a really good team to go up against. We can enjoy it for the night.”
The Heat’s reward for overcoming long odds to reach the Finals? A matchup with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
While the Heat wasn’t among the teams widely projected to reach the NBA Finals, the Lakers were and finished with the Western Conference’s top record at 52-19. Miami is expected to play the role of underdog for the third consecutive series after upsetting the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round and Boston in the conference finals on its way to the championship series.
Game 1 of the Finals between the Heat and Lakers is Wednesday at 9 p.m. on ABC.
That gives Miami two full days to prepare for the start of the series, while Los Angeles has a three-day gap in between series after winning the Western Conference finals 4-1 over the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night.
With the Finals beginning Wednesday, the rest of the series schedule (all games on ABC) looks like this: Game 2 on Friday 9 p.m.; Game 3 on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m.; Game 4 on Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 9 p.m.; Game 5 on Friday, Oct. 9 at 9 p.m.; Game 6 on Sunday, Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m.; and Game 7 on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 9 p.m.
One of the biggest storylines surrounding the 2020 Finals will be: James vs. his former team. James spent four seasons with the Heat from 2010-14, advancing to the NBA Finals in each of those four seasons and winning two NBA titles in 2012 and 2013.
James left the Heat as a free agent in July 2014 to return to the Cavaliers. The four-time MVP has one won championship since leaving Miami — in 2016 with the Cavaliers.
After winning that title with Cleveland, James told ESPN’: “When I decided to leave Miami — I’m not going to name any names, I can’t do that — but there were some people that I trusted and built relationships with in those four years [who] told me I was making the biggest mistake of my career.
“And that [expletive] hurt me. And I know it was an emotional time that they told me that because I was leaving. They just told me it was the biggest mistake I was making in my career. And that right there was my motivation.”
Heat president Pat Riley admitted to an immediate feeling of anger after James’ decision to leave the organization, but he also said that he did not tell James he was making the biggest mistake of his career.
“I was very angry when LeBron left. It was personal for me,” Riley said to ESPN in 2017. “It just was. I had a very good friend who talked me off the ledge and kept me from going out there and saying something like Dan Gilbert. I’m glad I didn’t do it.”
In a book released in 2018 written by Ian Thomsen titled, “The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown between LeBron, Kobe, Doc and Dirk that Saved the NBA,” Riley said: “I had two to three days of tremendous anger. I was absolutely livid, which I expressed to myself and my closest friends... My beautiful plan all of a sudden came crashing down. That team in ten years could have won five or six championships. But I get it. I get the whole chronicle of [LeBron’s] life.
“While there may have been some carnage always left behind when he made these kinds of moves, in Cleveland and also in Miami, he did the right thing. I just finally came to accept the realization that he and his family said, ‘You’ll never, ever be accepted back in your hometown if you don’t go back to try to win a title. Otherwise someday you’ll go back there and have the scarlet letter on your back. You’ll be the greatest player in the history of mankind, but back there, nobody’s really going to accept you.’”
Six years after James left the Heat, he’ll face his old team in the Finals. The Heat was 0-2 against the Lakers in the regular season, but both matchups came before Miami’s midseason trade.
“We’re just going to have to play hard,” Butler said of facing the Lakers. “We’re going to have to play damn near perfect because they are such a good team. They do so many things well. Obviously, you know the star power that they have. We are not going to back down, though. We are going to worry about us. We are going to lock into this film. We are going to be ready to go. I think it will be some must-see TV.”
After a quiet fourth quarter in Friday’s loss, the All-Star duo of Adebayo and Butler stepped up in Game 6 to push the Heat to the Finals. Adebayo was especially dominant in the closeout game.
Adebayo and Butler combined to score three points on four shots in the fourth quarter of Friday’s defeat, and each one played the entire period. They combined for 30 points on 22 shots in Game 5.
On Sunday, Adebayo and Butler took a much more aggressive approach and controlled the game. The duo combined for 54 points on 19-of-34 shooting, 16 rebounds and 13 assists in the series-clinching win.
In the fourth quarter of Game 6, Adebayo and Butler combined for 19 points on 6-of-11 shooting.
After the Game 5 loss, Adebayo took the blame and said that he “played like [expletive].”
On Sunday, Adebayo played like the opposite of [expletive]. He finished with a career-high 32 points to go with 14 rebounds and five assists in 39 minutes.
In the fourth quarter, Adebayo recorded 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Celtics guard Kemba Walker said after the game: “Bam, he’s a star, and he played like it.”
“Adebayo deciding he’s just going to drive the ball put us in a real bind with the shooters around him,” Stevens said. “And their physicality is something that I’m not sure that we probably talked about it enough. They’re strong, they’re physical, they’re tough and, him in particular, dominated that fourth quarter. Even the plays where he didn’t score, his presence was so impactful and it put us in a real bind with the ability to guard him.”
Adebayo, 23, averaged 21.8 points 60.8 percent shooting, 11 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 1.7 steals and one block in 39.1 minutes in the East finals.
“I let my teammates down in Game 5, so I just had to realign myself to who I really want to become and I showed that tonight,” Adebayo said. “You said you haven’t seen me be a scorer in the fourth before, well, there you go. This is one of those things — coaches want me to be better. They want me to do great things. That was the first time I got plays late back-to-back, back-to-back, so being in that moment and embracing it and taking over and being in the conference finals is a great thing for me. But at the end of the day we’ve got four more. This isn’t done yet.”
Butler finished Game 6 with 22 points on 8-of-9 shooting, two rebounds, eight assists and one steal in 39 minutes.
In the fourth quarter, Butler scored nine points.
Butler, 31, averaged 19 points, six rebounds, five assists and 1.5 steals in the East finals.
“He impacts winning,” Spoelstra said of Butler. “I think everybody in the league has always known that he impacts winning. It’s not about stats. It’s not about anything else. He cares. And for us, that’s our language. I don’t even know what his stat line was tonight, but man, did he impact winning, and he set the tone all season long.”
With Adebayo and Butler both on the court, the Heat outscored the Celtics by 21 points in the series.
The Heat shot better from three-point range in Game 6, and it made a big difference.
After shooting 26.9 percent from three-point range from Games 2 through 5 of the conference finals, Miami’s short slump came to an end with a 13-of-27 (48.1 percent) shooting performance from deep in Game 6.
It was only a matter of time. The Heat finished the regular season with the NBA’s second-best team three-point percentage (37.9), and it made 14.1 threes per game and shot 38 percent from deep in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The result was an efficient offensive performance for Miami in Game 6. The Heat scored 125 points on 56.2 percent shooting from the field and committed only 12 turnovers.
When the Heat shoots 40 percent or better from three-point range, it usually results in a win. Miami is 27-6 this season when it reaches that threshold.
Duncan Robinson (15 points on 5-of-7 shooting on threes) and Iguodala combined to shot 9 of 11 from deep Sunday.
Iguodala, 36, took advantage of Boston’s game plan to leave him open on the outside, finishing with a season-high 15 points on 4-of-4 shooting on threes.
Before Game 6, Iguodala was 2 of 10 on threes in the East finals and 7 of 27 on threes in the playoffs.
The Heat used a short rotation again in Game 6.
After using nine or 10 players in most games this postseason, Spoelstra tightened the rotation in Game 4 of the East finals and played only eight players. The other switch? Moving forward Solomon Hill in the rotation over regulars Derrick Jones Jr., Kendrick Nunn and Kelly Olynyk.
That strategy was used again Sunday, as the Heat played eight players.
The starting five was the same as it has been throughout the playoffs: Goran Dragic, Robinson, Butler, Jae Crowder and Adebayo.
The bench rotation included Tyler Herro, Iguodala and Hill.
Hill again played Sunday instead of Jones, Nunn and Olynyk. Jones has played 10 seconds since the start of Game 4, Nunn has not played in the past three games, and Olynyk has played just four minutes since the start of Game 4.
Meanwhile, Hill has logged a total of 16 minutes since he was inserted into the rotation in Game 4.
Herro finished Game 6 with 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting, five rebounds and seven assists in 35 minutes. The rookie averaged 19.2 points on 52.3 percent shooting, 6.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists in the East finals.
What will the Heat’s rotation look like in the Finals? Spoelstra has made different tweaks to the rotation in every round of Miami’s playoff run.
This story was originally published September 28, 2020 at 12:16 AM.
