Miami Heat: Don’t hit the panic button yet and here’s why

The Miami Heat are still up 2-1 in their Eastern Conference Final’s playoff series against the Boston Celtics. Here’s why you shouldn’t fret after one loss.

The Miami Heat have looked dominant throughout this year’s NBA playoffs. With a record of 10-2 through 12 games in the postseason thus far, to see them look like the lesser team has been a rare occasion in these playoffs.

That was just it on Saturday night though. Whether up or even in a series, as they haven’t been down at all in the postseason, they’ve appeared to be the team that was down in the series and desperate.

Needless to say, they didn’t look like that on Saturday night.

In fact, not only did they not look like the same team we have gotten accustomed to seeing this postseason or the Miami Heat that we are used to seeing with their patented hustle and effort, they looked like imposters, all of them.

They looked sluggish, tired, unenthused, and like they didn’t want to be there at times. Brace yourself for this one.

The Miami Heat were beaten and outworked on Saturday. The “outworked” part surely won’t happen again.

There were even times where I had to say to myself… “Jimmy looks lackadaisical”. That never happens and if it has, we missed it, although we still would say that it never happens.

Here’s the thing though, when the Miami Heat decided to come alive at the end of the game, we all saw what happened. They severely outscored, outplayed, and out-gutted the Celtics, by that time though, it was too late and the deficit was already insurmountable.

Have no fear though, as this is just what the Miami Heat needed. They needed to be reminded that the other team is trying to win too, especially if that initial effort yesterday is any indicator.

I can imagine that we not only won’t we see this lazy version of the Miami Heat that we saw on Saturday again, but we should see a supercharged Jimmy Butler moving forward.

He has to have heard all of the chatter about his aggression by now. He usually comes out and goes directly at his doubters, subsequently also leaving the defender to have to clean up a pundit’s mess.

I expect to see a hungrier, more ferocious, more tenacious, and envigorated version of this Miami Heat team and its players on Wednesday night though. You can almost count on it.

That’s why even though Saturday was a major letdown, I wouldn’t hit the panic button just yet. This series just got good.