The Miami Heat had a chance to force a Game 7 in the NBA Finals on Sunday night. They were unable to after running out of gas in Game 6.
The Miami Heat had a chance to extend their season one more time on Sunday night. They came into Game 6 of the NBA Finals off of another historic evening for their leader in Jimmy Butler.
Coming into this game, the Miami Heat had to have known that they would get the Lakers’ best effort, as they were probably a bit upset at the last game’s ending. This is, indeed, what happened.
The game was fairly even for the first few minutes before the Lakers started to gain separation. By the middle of the second quarter, the Lakers had expanded the lead to the high double digits.
They weren’t done though. At the end of the first half, the Los Angeles Lakers had expanded their Game 6 lead to a number that was worth the second widest gap at halftime in NBA Finals history.
With a 28 point lead after one half of play, the game was effectively over. After another half of simpy keeping the Miami Heat at bay, which they did, the game was literally over.
The Miami Heat ran out of gas as they tried to force a Game 7 in the NBA Finals.
This Miami Heat team has nothing to hang their heads about, but they should absolutely be disappointed in themselves. They did the work to get here and could have played a bit better, so there is reason to be upset.
They were missing their top scorer though. Still, that is no reason to make excuses.
What happened to the Miami Heat was what happens to a lot of teams. They ran out of gas.
They had been willing themselves to victory off of pure grit and want to. After a while, that well will most always run dry or tap itself out on any given night and that’s what happened on Sunday night.
This isn’t a moral victory. This won’t sit well with them.
It shouldn’t. This has been a valuable experience though.
It’s that playoff experience that every team and young player must gain in order to one day be a champion, but it’s also the horrible and putrid taste of defeat. That is sometimes enough to propel teams to never wanting to feel that again.
The Miami Heat, again, ran out of gas in Game 6. This has been a great season and run, but that is something that we will think about all offseason long.