Erik Spoelstra needed a few moments to wipe away the tears and compose himself.
“The emotions, look, I don’t know. I’m not even like that as a person,” the Miami Heat’s 49-year-old coach said Sunday after his team – the biggest long shot to reach the NBA Finals in 35 years at 60 to 1 — finished two wins shy of capturing the franchise’s fourth NBA title.
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“I just think all of these experiences this whole year, being in this bubble, being away from your family, being away from your kids, being away from your wife and going through something like this that you didn’t even, like, contemplate. We thought we were going to Game 7. for sure. So I don’t even know how to explain these emotions. I’m sure my wife’s watching, wondering who the heck this is right now.
“This locker room, regardless of whatever happens in the future, we’re going to remember this year, this season, this experience and that locker-room brotherhood for the rest of our lives. You’re in this business to be able to be around people like this. And I can go on and on. But the guys that competed and played in this series, we had several guys that were not even close to being a 100 percent. Probably shouldn’t have been playing, but that’s how this group was. They wanted to do it for each other. And I just … I’m really bummed that we couldn’t find a way to get over the hump and finish the season with a win.”
Erik Spoelstra wiping away tears for over 30 seconds before starting his first answer post-game. pic.twitter.com/japm0ctsht
— Will Manso (@WillManso) October 12, 2020
The Heat showed us who they were this season.
The best-conditioned, toughest, nastiest, hardworking team Pat Riley believed they could be — right up until they ran out of gas against LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 on Sunday night.
Nobody gave them much of a shot even before Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo went down with injuries in Game 1. Jimmy Butler still willed the Heat to wins in Games 3 and 5 with epic performances. He kept the dream of another parade down Biscayne Boulevard alive.
But the Heat just didn’t have enough.
Even with Dragic bravely and insanely playing 19 minutes on a painful torn plantar fascia; Adebayo providing 25 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks in 42 minutes through a neck strain; Butler squeezing out 12 points, seven rebounds and eight assists in another exhaustive 44-plus minutes of action, the Lakers cruised to a 106-93 victory behind one of the greatest players in NBA history and another who might be the best in the NBA today.
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“They earned it,” Spoelstra made it a point to say first and foremost.
“The Lakers were better,” Dragic said. “We fought. Unfortunately, we didn’t have it today.”
Heat guard Goran Dragic, out since Game 1 with a torn plantar fascia, returned for Game 6 and played 19 minutes. He scored five points. (Kim Klement / USA TODAY Sports)
Spoelstra said Dragic texted him at 4:15 a.m. the morning after he tore his plantar fascia, begging him to let him play. Ultimately, doctors told Dragic there was nothing he could do to make it worse. So the medical staff cleared him to play Sunday with the understanding Dragic would be in tremendous pain and limited in what he could do. Dragic didn’t care. He needed to be out there with his teammates.
“It’s not easy when you make the Finals and you lose it, but (we’ll) try to get to one next year,” said Dragic, who said he doesn’t need to have surgery this offseason and just needs rest to recover.
“This season has been a tremendous season for us, for me,” he continued. “We had a lot of bonds together. We (went) through good times, bad times, but we always (stayed) together. And I think that that’s something that it’s really rare to find, and I love this team. I love all of those guys. Everybody’s not selfish. Everybody wants to do the right thing. And all the moments on the floor, off the floor, especially here in the bubble to spend with them for three months and to hang out, it was something that I’m going to cherish for the rest of my life and, you know, can’t wait to get back.”
Will the Heat run it back?
The Heat came up short this time, but they may have enough to get back here over the next few years.
Sure, the East is still loaded with title contenders. The Milwaukee Bucks have the two-time reigning league MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Boston Celtics have three returning 20-point scorers in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kemba Walker. And the Brooklyn Nets are going to have a former league MVP in Kevin Durant healthy for the start of next season.
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But it’s clear this Heat roster is better than others believed it was. They knocked out the Bucks in five games, beat Boston in six and pushed the Lakers to six in the Finals.
Butler’s passion for the game is what Riley believed would make a big difference with this roster — one filled with former G-League players and undrafted rookies such as Duncan Robinson and Kendrick Nunn, the runner-up for the Rookie of the Year award, and no lottery picks outside of Andre Iguodala, Tyler Herro and Adebayo.
What happens if Riley figures out another way to add more stars to this roster? Who wouldn’t want to come to South Beach and take a mid-level exception to make a run with Butler?
He just finished putting together one of the best Finals performances in league history. He averaged 26.2 points on 55.2 percent shooting to go with 8.3 rebounds, 9.8 assists and 2.2 steals. He’s 31, still very much in his prime, and hungry as hell to get back.
“We’re trending in the right direction,” Butler said. “We’re going to learn from this. We’re going to get better. We’re going to come back. We’ll be back. That’s what we’re all saying in that locker room. We got guys that want to do it. We got guys that already want to get back in the gym and get to working at this thing. That’s what we do here.”
What did this run teach Butler about himself?
“That I’m a decent player. I think that I grew in every aspect of the game. So I can smile about that,” he said. “More than anything, I’ve learned that here, me works. Here, I’m always, always, always, always going to believe in my guys.
“This is where I belong. This is what makes me smile. This is what makes me happy. I wish I could have done it for the city. I wish I could have done it for my teammates, for the organization. I didn’t win, so none of the stats matter. We don’t play for stats here. We don’t play for anything else except for the win. I didn’t do that. I didn’t do my job. I’ll be better, along with everybody else. I’ll be better coming back. You sulk on this because of what could have been, but it didn’t happen. We didn’t win, and that’s what you leave this at.”
Heat forward Jimmy Butler slaps the chest of guard Duncan Robinson before Game 6 of the NBA Finals at AdventHealth Arena. (Kim Klement / USA Today)
The Heat, who were not supposed to become contenders until next summer when some big-name free agents were going to become available, have much more than Butler. They have one of the best all-around defenders and big men in the league in Adebayo.
They’ve got a 20-year-old, up-and-coming rookie in Herro, who scored 37 points in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals to help Miami slay the Celtics.
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And they have one of the best 3-point shooters in the league in Robinson.
And now Riley heads into the offseason with options on how he can tinker with this roster even further and with as much as $21 million in projected cap space and the 20th pick in the NBA Draft.
“I think we all feel very blessed to have somebody like Bam, somebody that fits our fabric, our culture,” Spoelstra said. “He is wise and competitive and savvy and mature way beyond his years. I have to remind myself sometimes that he just turned 23 in the bubble here. He feels like he’s 28 years old. He feels like he’s been in the league for 10 years. He (has taken) on that kind of responsibility and leadership role for us. There really is, there is no ceiling to his potential. Same thing with the rest of our young guys.
“Tyler, he was a teenager when we started this bubble, and he’s totally different now from even where he was in January. Because of the way he approaches it and works, he will continue to get remarkably better fast.”
Dragic, Jae Crowder, Solomon Hill, Meyers Leonard and Derrick Jones Jr. will be unrestricted free agents. But why wouldn’t Dragic, 34, and Crowder, 30, who has played for five different teams since 2017, be interested in coming back and making another run at it if Riley asks them to?
Dragic has said he loves living in Miami, and he doesn’t want to move again if given the choice. And he’s got Butler in his corner.
“I love him to death,” Butler said of Dragic, whom he reportedly walked out of the gym in Orlando with his arm wrapped around after Sunday’s loss. “I wish I could play with him as a teammate for forever. Because these are the moments that you cherish. He put his body on the line for me and the rest of our guys for this organization. That shows the type of player that he is and the type of person that he is. We go down swinging. I’m glad he was out there fighting with us.”
Butler said he made a promise to Riley and Spoelstra he’s going to win a championship in Miami.
“I didn’t do my job, so moving forward, I got to hold up my end of the bargain,” Butler said.
Oddsmakers and critics might have doubted Butler and the Heat 16 months ago.
But that all feels like ancient history now.