The Miami Heat had a special season, and, boy, did I need it as a fan
As time expired in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, after LeBron James and Anthony Davis had overwhelmed the Miami Heat once again to clinch the 2020 NBA Championship, I couldn’t help but keep a smile on my face.
It wouldn’t make sense to the average, casual fan. After all, my Heat had been plagued by injury for the majority of the NBA Finals and could’ve given the Lakers a true test had Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic been 100 percent. Still, watching the Heat fight and battle and endure their way all the way to Game 6 of the NBA Finals meant so much more to me.
This year was different. This run was special. It’s one I’ll never forget.
Almost a year to the day, I lost my younger brother in a tragic car accident. The day after the start of the 2019-20 NBA regular season. Our last conversation centered around the NBA’s start and it was something we shared dearly together.
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We’d argue back and forth about which of our teams would make a deeper run in the playoffs – this season, I would’ve had the last laugh since he’s a Boston Celtics fan (when he wasn’t a New York Knicks fan). Had he still been here, the Eastern Conference Finals would’ve been a brotherly feud for the ages.
I’m sure he still had a nice laugh, though.
To say the last 12 months for me, or my family, has been tough would be an understatement. Not only did we have to deal with the randomness and surrealness of a global pandemic, but losing a huge part of your family – abruptly and suddenly – is not something I’d wish upon anyone.
There’s no blueprint on how to handle such a situation and even if there were, there’s nothing that could replace the feeling of sudden loss.
When the NBA announced it would be continuing the 2019-20 season in a bubble, it brought a bit of normalcy back in my life. Not entirely, because many were still suffering from the seriousness of COVID-19 (we lost our grandmother to the virus in July), but basketball had routinely become my escape in the days and weeks after the passing of my brother.
Being a Heat fan, I was both excited and anxious for the playoffs. I hoped they wouldn’t disappoint and lose in the first round. After that, I had come to the conclusion that anything else would be icing on the cake. Just don’t lose in the first round. Please.
They didn’t.
The Miami Heat swept the Indiana Pacers in the first round. I was through the roof. There was nothing that could happen next that would make this season a disappointment in my eyes. However, then something strange happened.
They didn’t stop winning.
The Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks in five games and then beat the Boston Celtics in six games to reach the NBA Finals. The Miami Heat made the NBA Finals in Jimmy Butler’s first year on the roster. Just last season, the Heat had not qualified for the playoffs. The year before, they lost to the Sixers in five games in the first round.
This is not normal. This is not something that routinely happens in the NBA. Miami was the fifth seed entering the playoffs and ran through the East en route to pushing the Lakers to six games on the biggest stage.
A team led by Jimmy Butler, a star that no one thought was bright enough to power his own team, a third-year player in Bam Adebayo, two rookies in Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn, an undrafted sharpshooter in Duncan Robinson, and a past-his-prime point guard in Goran Dragic that managed to play through plantar fasciitis until it completely gave up on him during Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
There was nothing I could do to explain what I saw over the last couple of months during the NBA’s restart bubble. It was magical. A run from a team that I root for that I will never forget. In fact, this is one that I will hold up personally next to any championship season.
It was special. And I took it in every step of the way, knowing that I was watching something unprecedented. Something that we may not see again for a very long time, perhaps ever.
Miami’s run gave me hope. It offered moments of joy, laughter, nauseousness, and nervousness – you know, those great feelings you have when you half don’t believe in your team, half do believe in your team in crunch time. I hate it, but I love it. I hadn’t felt some of these feelings from sports fandom since the Big Three era in Miami. It was great.
The Heat’s fight and unwillingness to give up even when they were counted out stuck with me. The team’s endurance is something that can be learned from. It’s something that my family and I have had to do over the last 12 months. Endure.
As the one-year anniversary of my brother’s passing quickly approaches, I can’t help but look back at the Miami Heat’s run and be thankful. The team didn’t do it for me. They’re paid professionals and must do their job regardless if I’m watching, rooting for or against, or not.
But it certainly felt like they were doing it for me. And that’s one of the great things about sports. It can bring people of different backgrounds together, help you forget about the problems you have waiting for you the next day, and can even help you through a grieving process.
The Miami Heat might have lost in the NBA Finals, but this run is one that I will forever hold in my heart.