Heat fans showed up for Game 3. Their team didn’t. Now Miami must do something never done | Opinion
How long has it been since we’ve seen, heard and felt this? Almost 15 months under the grip of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and Thursday night at the Miami Heat’s downtown bayside arena felt about as close to “back to normal” as we’ve gotten since then.
Add the stage and drama of an NBA playoff series on top of a full building and it produced that magical sports ambiance we’d almost forgotten, or at least taken for granted. The power and community of it. The electric atmosphere was almost big enough to let us try to forget, for just a minute, that we are still tip-toeing out of the massive health crisis that isn’t done killing yet.
Yes, Heat fans showed up.
Alas, the team they came to cheer and help lift did not.
The fans were celebrating Miami’s first home playoff game since April 2018 in its own arena.
But their team didn’t do nearly enough to let them leave the building either happy or hopeful.
The Heat’s three leading scorers during the season -- Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro -- have collectively been a disappearing act this series.
Miami shot a miserable 38 percent in Thursday’s 113-84 Game 3 loss that gave the Milwaukee Bucks a gigantic 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 first round series heading into a must-win Game 4 for the Heat here Saturday afternoon. Miami has lost the past two games by 34 and 29.
Why are the shots not falling?
“At 10:27 right now I don’t have that answer,” coach Erik Spoelstra said postgame. “We’re going to dig and look for solutions. The Bucks have certainly taken us out of some things we normally do. They’ve taken away a lot of those easy points. I’ve got to do a better job, too.”
Simply put,. no team in NBA history has overcome a 3-0 series hole to win a best-of-7.
“We don’t have to worry about what history says,” said Butler. “But we got our work cut out for us. Just how fast it got out of hand. We can’t even skip to Saturday. We got to get better [Friday]. We’re just not attacking the ball the way we’re supposed to. We got to pick who we want to be. Be physical. Be much more tougher.”
“Figure out a way to get inside the paint,” suggested Goran Dragic. “We’re not going to surrender. That’s not our mentality.”
Miami must literally make basketball history now to avoid expiring in the opening round one season after reaching the NBA Finals.
“Everything can seem overwhelming, but you take it one step at a time,” said Spoelstra. “We’re capable of playing good enough to win a game, and go from there.”
Setting aside the lousy, deflating result for Miami, it did the soul good to embrace the gradual return to normalcy mirrored in crowds like Thursday’s. It is worth celebrating. But it also would be disingenuous and an insult to the millions who’ve lost loved ones to be cavalier and think the fight is over. The U.S. death toll inches toward 600,000.
State officials said Florida’s COVID death toll had climbed to 37,469 with 87 more casualties reported Thursday.
Protective masks and social distancing mandates have given way by degrees to vaccines and hope, but it also was encouraging to note much of the cheering Thursday was heard through masks still worn by most in attendance by mandate. There was an area outside Section 111 offering COVID vaccination shots.
Those shots thankfully were more on target than the Heat’s.
Relaxed protocols allowed Miami to welcome back as many as 17,000 fans Thursday night, or 85 percent of capacity. That’s almost double the previous limit of 8,600 per home game. It was the most attended sporting event in South Florida since everything changed in March 2020.
For the Heat, it was tantamount to a call for the cavalry.
Down 2-0 entering Game 3, Miami needed all the lift and spark it could get from its fans and home arena to get back in this series.
The fans did their part, at least.
The Heat made an unexpected postseason run all the way to the Finals in last year’s pandemic-bubble-playoffs, falling two wins shy of a fourth franchise championship.
Now they’ll need a miracle just to survive the first round.
They Heat are in those dire straits because Milwaukee seems much improved over the team Miami ousted 4-1 in last year’s playoffs.
But they are in an 0-3 crater also because the Heat’s three leading scorers in the regular season -- Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, in that order -- have been mostly abysmal the first three games.
Butler is averaging 15.3 points on 30.6 percent shooting after 21.5 and 49.7 during the season.
Adebayo is averaging 14 on 40% shooting, down from 18.7 and 57%.
Herro is averaging 8 points on 28% shooting , down from 15.1 and 43.9%.
Combined through three games, Miami’s three best scorers are averaging 37.3 points -- way down from 55.3 during the season.
That draped Thursday night in a desperation not reflected in the Heat’s performance.
As someone with a menagerie of pet peeves, it’s tough narrowing them down to the biggest, but it might be one in sports -- especially one you hear so much during a best-of-7 playoff series:
“Must-win game.”
It isn’t must-win unless it literally is. Unless your season is done if you lose.
The Florida Panthers had an actual must-win Wednesday night, lost, and so they’re out.
Thursday night was not a must-win game for the Heat. Not literally, actually or technically.
Just in every other practical sense.
Just according to 72 years of NBA history.
One team in MLB annals (Boston in 2004) has overcome a 3-0 deficit and won a playoff series. It’s happened four times in the NHL, last by the Los Angeles Kings in 2014. It has not happened in the NBA. Like, ever. Only three times has a team gone from 0-3 to force a Game 7 before losing, and that hasn’t even happened since 2003.
So the loss in Game 3 Thursday means Miami is now facing a must-win Saturday en route to an historic hurdle no team has ever overcome.
A win in Game 3 and Miami would have been back home Saturday with a chance to get level, and get momentum, and make it a new series.
That’s all Thursday night felt like it meant for the Miami Heat.
Just about everything.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 10:09 PM.
