Miami Heat, Florida Panthers turn doubt to belief like magic, take fans on unexpected ride | Opinion
A few short weeks ago we were all lamenting the wholly disappointing seasons the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers had slogged through as they struggled to make the NBA and NHL postseason. They had been great the season before; now each was in a mad scramble for the ignominy of the lowest No. 8 seed in their conference and, surely, a fast exit from the playoffs.
Then sports happened. The wonderful serendipity of it. The merry unpredictability that has the power to turn doubt to belief and make us shake our head with a giant smile on our face.
Now look.
The vaunted Boston Bruins, off a record-setting regular season with the most wins and points in NHL history — maybe the greatest team ever on ice? — are home now wondering what went wrong. While the way-underdog Florida Panthers are preparing for Game 1 in the second round Tuesday night in Toronto.
And the mighty Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo are home, too, the first NBA betting favorite to win the championship to be ousted in the first round since 2007. As the Miami Heat goes for a 2-0 series lead in the second round at the New York Knicks Tuesday night.
Basketball and hockey could not be more disparate as games, but the Heat and Panthers could not be more similar in how each has marshaled resolve, determination and self-belief in a way that feels bigger than sports. Like a lesson for us all?
Paul Maurice, former child strapping on skates for the first time at a rink in Ontario, has led a life happily given to hockey.
He has seen some things. Began as a coach with the minor-league Windsor Spitfires in 1987. Joined the Panthers last summer as a journeyman coach with his sixth NHL club, not counting a detour 10 years ago to coach a season with a team called Metallurg Magnitogorsk in Russia.
Maurice does not even pretend to downplay his team beating Boston, or the way they did it, or to act like it was just any other first-round series.
His team, down 3-1 in games, in effect faced three Game 7 must-wins against the best team ever. Impossible! (Right?)
Won the first in overtime in Boston. Won the next at home 7-5, coming from behind twice in the third period in what, as an aside, was the greatest hockey game and one of the best sporting events overall that I have had the pleasure to see in person.
Then came Sunday night, in the real Game 7, back in Boston. Up 2-0, then down 3-2. Minutes dwindling. Bruins fans howling.
And the Cats’ Brandon Montour ties it 3-3 with 59.3 seconds left in regulation. Then Florida wins it in OT on Carter Verhaeghe’s shot.
Maurice, eyewitness, is not jaded enough to not appreciate and marvel.
“As emotional a win as our franchise has ever had,” the coach said Monday, rightly. “To beat a team that had a historical season ... it’s a special moment we get to keep. It makes you thirsty. I’ve won playoff series before and they were great battles. But to beat that Goliath! Taking a punch and getting off the mat, the resilence...”
My column on Maurice’s hiring last June 22 ran under this headline:
‘Paul Maurice!? Florida Panthers swap coach of year finalist for guy No. 1 in career losses’
Welcome to South Florida, coach!
I wasn’t wrong. Maurice is sixth all time in NHL coach wins with 817 but first in losses with 712, and had not won a Stanley Cup in 24 seasons trying. Bringing him in to replace interim coach Andrew Brunette seemed arguable at least.
“The Florida Panthers’ latest in a franchise merry-go-round of coaching changes will register as a dubious decision until the new guy proves it was the right one,” I wrote then.
The new guy proved it was the right one, I say now, humbly and with due respect.
I thought of that column a couple of weeks ago when the Heat lost a home play-in game to Atlanta, putting its season on the brink. Miami got steamrolled. Given the stakes, a stunningly bad performance.
The headline on my April 12 column:
‘Miami Heat season looks spent. Done. Now we see if a team on the brink has any fight left’
It had some fight left.
It beat Chicago in the must-win play-in game to earn the No. 8 seed and get to Milwaukee.
Coach Erik Spoelstra sounded angry after that game (or like he was speaking to me): “Our team has obviously not been perfect this year. But I know one thing about the men in that locker room: The last 48 hours, I know how categorically, unequivocally, how badly and desperately our group wanted to get into this damn thing — get into the playoffs to have an opportunity to compete for a title.”
Two men have led this twin rise of the underdogs.
Call it the Jimmy & Chucky Show: Jimmy Butler and Matthew Tkachuk.
Playoff Jimmy averaged 37 points in the Bucks series, doing things even Dwyane Wade never did. Butler led the team with 25 points and 11 rebounds in Sunday’s Game 1 win in New York, despite a late-game ankle injury that I’d be shocked if it kept him out of Game 2. Butler has been the best player in the NBA this postseason.
Tkachuck led Florida with 11 points (five goals, six assists) in the Boston series to underline what a great trade the Cats made to acquire him in the major trade for Jonathan Huberdeau. Tkachuk personifies Maurice’s style change from a finesse team to a hard-hitting playoff-style squad, one that plays “heavy,” in the coach’s word for it.
“To beat that Goliath! Taking a punch and getting off the mat, the resilence...”
Maurice said it of his guys eliminating the Bruins. Same words apply to the Heat ousting the Bucks and then silencing Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
It take sa special kind of belief to trust what these two teams did when they were all alone in the feeling, when even their fans found the doubt a lost closer than the faith.
Anything is possible.
This story was originally published May 1, 2023 at 2:20 PM.
