The amount of hyper-focused onion-peeling that follows every Miami Heat postseason loss (or game, rather) has always felt a bit much. They are on the cusp of greatness; the beginning of the title checklist LeBron James once rattled off during that celebratory parade for signing on the dotted line. Or, they are frauds; entitled divas who will always get what’s coming to them. The Heat elicit strong reactions, and following last night’s stunning Game 5 loss at home to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, a loss that puts them one defeat away from not even making the Finals in a season that was thought to be a shoo-in, a majority of the Inter-webs and folks on our television screens seemed unsure of how to properly handle such a situation.
ESPN’s NBA Countdown crew, the eternal “B” team to TNT’s Inside the NBA squad, in trying to wrap their minds around the loss almost seemed to be yelling through the screen at adjustments the Heat didn’t make or should’ve made or the team’s lack of something or everything. While it would have been nice to hear the post-game comments from Charles and Kenny (we’ll hear those tonight), the reaction at the time seemed to be a stupefied anger and general wariness in regards to the Miami Heat. Without question, the next two days leading up to Game 6 in Boston on Thursday will be an inescapable smog cloud of screw-turned scrutiny from all sides.
And really, it’s hard to fault anyone for letting the idea of the Miami Heat turn their minds into such a confused mush that the only possible reaction is frustration — so long as it doesn’t fall overboard into vicious hysteria. But maybe the problem is this idea of the Miami Heat. The one they created for themselves and the one we expected. When Dwyane Wade invited James and Chris Bosh — who really did play well and provided that boost we talked about in limited minutes last night — the NBA world was terrified of the possibilities. Since then, we’ve been waiting for this storm cloud to unleash its hell on the rest of the league; the notion of James and Wade flying around the floor in harmony seemed so powerful that once everything clicked into place around them, their performance would be more of an act of basketball rather than simply a game.
And when they had their infamous announcement party and declaration of so many championships you’d need your toes to keep count, many resented them for counting chickens before they were hatched and thumbing a nose at the process, the road a team must go down to actually win just one. We were also probably afraid that what they were saying was the prevailing thought in our heads, and that the NBA as we knew it would be shrouded in Heat red and black for the foreseeable future.
The Heat, with a win on Thursday, could still very well take this series and make their second straight trip to the Finals. What drives people so batty when things look so bad, so out-of-synch on the floor and so weak off of it — it might be small potatoes, but James and Wade not going to the podium after either of these last two losses, even sending Bosh out there by himself last night, looks fragile and sad — is that we have this expectation of the Heat as a goliath-in-the-making. A sheer basketball force that will someday, any day now, actually, rule the NBA until they decide to stop.
But until Miami can pull themselves up from the floor, execute in crunch time, play with effort throughout the game instead of gliding in and out, avoid looking like petulant whiners when things go bad, and string together a few huge victories against this seemingly indestructible Boston Celtics team, pushing their way back to the Finals in the process, maybe, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, they shouldn’t be thought of as the predetermined standard-bearers of basketball that they once advertised and we continue to wait for.
For now, maybe the Heat are exactly what we’re seeing: A dysfunctional team lacking in supplementary parts and whatever that thing is that gives players the confidence not to screw up when the game is on the line, led by a couple of superstars who really like each other but still don’t quite know how to utilize one another in full effect. As the idea of the Miami Heat continues to grow no matter a win or loss, it’s probably time to accept that, until the actual brand of basketball they’re playing changes, the Miami Heat themselves haven’t changed much at all. The idea only clouds the real image.
Griffin Gotta contributes to The Hoop Doctors and is a co-managing editor of Straight Outta Vancouver on SB Nation. The story arcs and infinite weirdness of the NBA are addictions he deals with every day. Email him at griffingotta at gmail dot com.
