Heat’s unique up-and-down season ends. A look back at the twists, turns and what comes next
The Miami Heat’s 2020-21 season began and ended earlier than expected.
The Heat entered the season after a COVID-19 pandemic-shortened offseason that lasted 71 days, which is the fewest between the end of a season and the start of the next season in NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL history, according to Elias Sports. The Heat lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Oct. 11, and Miami began team practices in December before opening the regular season on Dec. 23.
But the Heat’s season ended abruptly on Saturday afternoon, as it was swept out of the first round of the playoffs, 4-0, by the Milwaukee Bucks. It marks just the second time in franchise history that the Heat has been swept in a best-of-seven series and the first time since Erik Spoelstra took over as head coach prior to the 2008-09 season.
“I don’t want to say anything that would discredit what the Bucks did to us. But there is a human side to this,” Spoelstra said minutes after the Heat was eliminated on Saturday when asked about the impact of the abbreviated offseason. “There’s no way to know one way or another other than just how guys that have been through that experience last year and then in the bubble, and then were part of this. It was a quick turnaround. You can see that going into the season that the tank wasn’t necessarily full.”
It was a bumpy season from the start for the Heat following its magical bubble run to the Finals as the fifth seed. At one point this season, Miami stood at 7-14.
The Heat used 18 different starting lineups in the first 36 games because of injury and COVID-19 issues that kept various players out.
Among them: Leading man Jimmy Butler missed 20 games this season, including 12 of the first 18 because of a sprained ankle and the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Free-agent addition Avery Bradley was limited to just 10 games with the Heat because a COVID-19 diagnosis and a calf injury before he was traded to the Houston Rockets in March. Veteran guard Goran Dragic dealt with multiple injuries that kept him out of 22 games. Second-year guard Tyler Herro missed 18 games because of injuries. And center Meyers Leonard played in only three games before he sustained a season-ending shoulder injury and was traded in March.
There were a pair of January losses to the Philadelphia 76ers that the Heat entered with the NBA minimum of eight available players because of positive COVID-19 cases and ensuing contact tracing depleting its roster. One Heat game was postponed during the first half of the season because of the virus, a Jan. 10 road game against the Boston Celtics that was eventually played in May.
“I think our guys really approached it in a great way. Not making an excuse for it,” Spoelstra said. “To handle that adversity when we were really struggling early on. I think those moments really helped us grow and we were playing our best basketball at the end of the season. Usually that will give you a better launching pad in the playoffs. We all felt great about it until we faced these guys.”
After shaking up the roster with trades in March to acquire Victor Oladipo from the Rockets, Trevor Ariza from the Oklahoma City Thunder and Nemanja Bjelica from the Sacramento Kings, the Heat looked to be peaking just before the start of the playoffs. Miami also signed free-agent center Dewayne Dedmon in April.
The Heat won 12 of its final 16 regular-season games to enter the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s sixth seed with a 40-32 record.
But that momentum did not carry over into the postseason, as the Bucks dominated the Heat in the first-round sweep. Miami lost by an average margin of 20.5 points per game in the series, less than one year after eliminating Milwaukee in the second round of last season’s playoffs on the way to the Finals.
“We were a completely different team last year with different guys with different skill sets, but you go to war with any and everybody you have,” Butler said. “You hope for the best, you go out there and you can compete. We can be better. We’ll get better, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to play with all the guys that I played with this year.”
Heat center Bam Adebayo said: “I definitely want that feeling again of getting back to the Finals, but it was definitely a different year for a lot of us, especially us. Protocols, testing, guys in and out of the lineup, trades, trying to get dudes adapted — all that in a compressed season.”
Now the Heat enters an uncertain offseason.
Will Pat Riley and the rest of the Heat’s top decision-makers be able to resist making major changes to a roster that was swept out of the first round of the playoffs? The only players on the Heat’s roster with guaranteed salaries for next season are Butler, Adebayo, Herro, Precious Achiuwa and KZ Okpala.
For now, the Heat will take time to decompress. The past nine months have included the thrill that comes with a playoff run that ends in the Finals, the up-and-down nature of a full NBA regular season and the disappointment that comes with a first-round playoff exit.
The next few weeks will be for rest.
“We’re not total lunatics. We’ll give them a little bit of time off,” Spoelstra said. “We actually haven’t done any planning. This is the way this season has been. It has been so hectic for everybody in this association. I really didn’t know what month it was. I didn’t realize Memorial Day weekend was this weekend. When I brought that up, it was like several of the players and staff members were right there with me. It has been that kind of year.”
