Heat offers raw emotion, perspective on a season that ended in the Finals: ‘We’ll be back’
As coach Erik Spoelstra prepared to answer the opening question of his postgame media session following the Miami Heat’s season-ending loss in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, he paused for about 30 seconds to wipe away tears and collect himself.
Yes, the loss was painful, but those emotions didn’t surface Sunday night just because of the result of a basketball game. It was deeper than that.
“It took me a few minutes just to gather myself to be able to even figure out what to say to the team,” Spoelstra said. “None of us had anticipated this. Our guys are pretty down, as you can imagine. But what a wonderful group to be around. Really just amazing people.
“These memories that we’ll have, that transcends even the game. As disappointing as this loss was, those moments and memories in between and this whole experience will be something that we can all take with us for the rest of our careers and the rest of our lives.”
After entering the NBA bubble on July 8 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Heat players, coaches and staff spent three months together isolated in a quarantine setting at Disney with some away from their families the entire time. The team returned to Miami on Monday, one day after the yearlong NBA season prolonged by the pandemic came to an end.
It was a unique and challenging but memorable experience, and the results were magical for Miami. The Heat restarted the season in the bubble with eight seeding games and entered the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 5 seed, putting together a postseason run that ended in Game 6 of the NBA Finals when the Los Angeles Lakers claimed their 17th NBA championship in franchise history.
Behind the All-Star duo of Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, the Heat became the first team seeded fifth or lower to play in the NBA Finals since 1999. In addition, Miami’s .603 win percentage (44-29) in the regular season is the fourth-worst win percentage by a team to reach the Finals since the playoffs expanded to its present 16-team format in 1984, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
The underdog Heat ended the season with just one top-10 draft pick on its roster — veteran forward Andre Iguodala, who was ninth overall selection in 2004.
“It’s hard because it was special to us,” said Butler, who averaged 26.2 points while shooting 55.2 percent from the field, 8.3 rebounds and 9.8 assists in 43 minutes in the Finals. “We really enjoy playing with one another, really enjoy being around one another. I just appreciate it and I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to be able to do that. Obviously, nobody likes to lose. But I think we fought all year long. Ups and downs, we stayed together. I think that’s what it’s all about. I don’t know what next year looks like, what it brings, but I’m very grateful, thankful and blessed to have played with these guys.”
Another painful aspect of the way the Heat’s season ended? Nobody knows what the Finals would have looked like if starters Goran Dragic and Adebayo were healthy for the entire series.
Dragic, who entered the Finals averaging a team-high 20.9 points, tore the plantar fascia in his left foot in Game 1 of the series and missed the next four games before returning in a limited role Sunday. Adebayo strained his neck in Game 1 of the Finals and missed the next two games before returning for the final three games of the series, but he was clearly not 100 percent and admitted it.
“The guys that competed and played in this series, we had several guys that were not even close to being 100 percent,” Spoelstra said. “Probably shouldn’t have been playing, but that’s how this group was. They wanted to do it for each other. And I just, I’m really bummed that we couldn’t find a way to get over the hump and finish the season with a win.”
But it didn’t take Butler long to step back and appreciate the season that ended Sunday, his first with the Heat after joining the organization as a free agent in the 2019 offseason. Butler, 31, averaged team highs in points (19.9), assists (6) and steals (1.9) in the regular season.
According to Elias Sports, Butler became just the second player in NBA history to lead his team outright in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in a Finals series. The other player is LeBron James, who did it in the 2016 Finals against the Golden State Warriors.
“Just got a group that’s a lot like me,” Butler said when asked about his first season with the Heat. “The fan base is incredible. The organization keeps it real all the time, the coaches do and the players do as well. They embraced me. They want me to be here. It’s fortunate to be able to be around people like that. I’m very fortunate. This is where I belong. This is what makes me smile. This is what makes me happy. I wish I could have done it for the city. I wish I could have done it for my teammates, for the organization.”
Then there’s the Heat’s young core that has grown and developed this season, helping to make the team’s 2019-20 success something that should be sustainable in coming years with the franchise also on track to have max-level cap space in the 2021 offseason.
Along with Adebayo, 23, making his first All-Star Game this season, rookie guard Tyler Herro took big strides in recent months.
Herro, 20, averaged 12.9 points while shooting 41.4 percent from the field and 39.1 percent on threes, four rebounds and 1.9 assists in 47 games before the four-month NBA shutdown. During the Heat’s playoff run, Herro averaged 16 points while shooting 43.3 percent from the field and 37.5 percent on threes, 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists.
There’s also rookie guard Kendrick Nunn, who finished second in the voting for the NBA’s Rookie of the Year honor and was named to the All-Rookie First Team. Also, second-year forward Duncan Robinson played a very important role for Miami, as he set the franchise record for threes made in a season and finished the regular season tied for the third-most made threes in the NBA at 270.
“The time is always now with us and if you have the right leadership with Jimmy and Goran and [Udonis Haslem], then young players can be all about now,” Spoelstra said. “I think we all feel very blessed to have somebody like Bam, you know, that’s somebody that fits our fabric, our culture. He is wise and competitive and savvy and mature way beyond his years. I have to remind myself sometimes that he just turned 23 in the bubble here. He feels like he’s 28 years old. He feels like he has been in the league for 10 years. He took on that kind of responsibility and leadership role for us. There really is no ceiling to his potential.
“Same thing with the rest of our young guys. Tyler, he was a teenager when we started this bubble, and he’s totally different now from even where he was in January. Because of the way he approaches it and works, he will continue to get remarkably better fast.”
The Heat’s season ended with a loss and two wins short of the franchise’s fourth NBA championship, but in the end it was a very productive year for an organization that missed the playoffs in three of the previous five seasons.
Most of the Heat’s Finals rotation is already under contract for next season, with Jae Crowder, Dragic, Derrick Jones Jr. and Meyers Leonard among the team’s impending free agents. While the salary cap and luxury tax line is not set yet, Miami is expected to have more than $20 million in cap space this offseason and the advantage of Bird rights for a few of its free agents to try to bring back most of this year’s roster for another run next season.
As Adebayo walked by the Lakers’ victory party on the Disney campus early Monday morning, Adebayo labeled the scene as “motivating” to ESPN’s Rachel Nichols.
“We’re trending in the right direction,” Butler said. “We’re going to learn from this. We’re going to get better. We’re going to come back. We’ll be back. That’s what we’re all saying in that locker room. We got guys that want to do it. We got guys that already want to get back in the gym and get to working at this thing. ... We’re definitely moving in the right direction.”
It’s still unclear when next season will begin, with a January start considered to be the most likely scenario. But whenever the 2020-21 season does begin, the push for a championship will resume again for the Heat.
After making it to the Finals for the first time since 2014 this season, the Heat is again considered one of the NBA’s championship contenders. That makes the 2019-20 season a huge success.
“I told them that I would win them one and I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain, so that means I got to do it next year,” Butler said. “I told coach Pat [Riley], I told Coach Spo that I’m here to win one. I didn’t do my job, so moving forward, I got to hold up my end of the bargain.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 10:40 AM.
