The Miami Heat are one step closer to seeing their ultimate goal for the 2022 NBA season realized. Beating the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night, in comeback fashion nonetheless, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Miami Heat now have three more wins to go until they can call themselves the 2022 Eastern Conference Champions.
Many didn’t know if they would even make it this far though. Well, at least, many had their doubts about it.
While the Miami Heat are always severely underrated and underappreciated as individual players, as a team, and as a franchise, there was an incident near the end of the season that gave most a larger cause for pause.
👁 The Heat are an NBA-best 15-6 since this happened. pic.twitter.com/UtyGHbZ2Ts
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) May 18, 2022
Yea, in case you didn’t immediately know what was being referenced, the incident from above. This one was the situation along the sidelines against the Golden State Warriors back in March that saw three of the most influential Miami Heat faces get into a bit of sideline fracas.
Many thought the Miami Heat would collapse after a late-season sideline incident. Not only didn’t they, but they’ve been one of the league’s best since.
Between Jimmy Butler, Udonis Haslem, and Coach Spoelstra’s extra dramatic flair (the clipboard toss is still hilarious), this was one that not only shook up the internet and NBA fanbases all around but actually had some Miami Heat fans questioning the makeup of this unit.
Well, notice the use of the word “some”. If you know anything about this organization, this franchise, its history, and specifically, this group of guys—you knew this would do nothing but serve to bring them together more.
It was a reason for galvanization among this unit. Since then and also as insinuated by the above insert, they have been among the best teams in the league.
When you consider their finishing record and how they’ve performed in the NBA Playoffs thus far, they’ve been the best or one of the few best. Even deeper, Tuesday night’s Game 1 proves it.
The reason that they are able to dig deep, take a punch, and come out to fight back as they did against the Celtics is that they are used to taking punches. Counteractively, they are also used to delivering a blow.
For many, this was the end of the Miami Heat’s 2022 run to the title, but for those who know what they were looking at, it, likely, seemed like just the beginning. The latter turned out to be true.