If there’s a single narrative that has defined the Miami Heat during the “big three” era, it’s that of a group of players that has consistently defied death.
Time and again the team found itself with its back to the wall, and fought back to win a championship.
The Heat headed to Boston down 3-2 against the Celtics in the 2012 Conference Finals, having been humiliated in Game 5. In response, LeBron James put together what remains his biggest on-court statement to date, digging the Heat out of their grave to amass 45 points, 15 rebounds and six assists.
They went on to win the series, and the ensuing Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Last year, the team went one better. Having survived an elimination match on the road against the Indiana Pacers in the Conference Finals, the Heat fell behind 3-2 to the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals.
What ensued was, as we all know, a comeback of legendary proportions. And then there was this year’s Finals series. Miami entered Game 5 with only one win to their name and the knowledge that no team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals.
The stage was set for their pièce de résistance, the impossible comeback that would seal their status as an all-time great team.
By the end of the first quarter, it appeared that the impossible was duly unfolding according to plan. The Heat scored 29 points in a confident opening term, naturally their best start of the series. But the ensuing 36 minutes of basketball refused to stick to the script.
The match, and the series, was sealed in the third quarter, when the Spurs hit three straight shots from beyond the arc, and took a 21-point lead. It was a back-breaking stretch for the Heat, who never recovered in a raucous AT&T Center.
There has been plenty of speculation as to what sapped Miami in this Finals series. Did the extra miles logged during four straight runs take their toll? Did Dwyane Wade finally run out of steam? Was the Heat’s lacklustre bench to blame?
Perhaps LeBron gave us the answer during a pre-match interview with ESPN.
“For some crazy reason, we… I don’t know why but we like to play with our back, and I mean all of our backs against everything,” he said.
“This is the only way we want to play.”
Motivation is difficult for a reigning champion to find. This would be especially true of the NBA, a league defined by lengthy regular seasons and a playoffs system that requires a champion to win 16 times before they can raise a trophy.
You can’t win a ring in the NBA with a few standout matches, it takes a high level of effort sustained over many weeks.
Michael Jordan (forever the benchmark by which all other champions are judged) famously drove himself with self-inflicted wounds. He arrived in the league stung by the fact that two teams passed on the chance to draft him, and determined to prove them wrong.
A decade later he scoured the media for remaining doubters, desperate to find any vague slight that could inflame his almost pathological competitive drive.
Jordan harnessed that drive to carry his 1995-96 Bulls team to a 72-win regular season, a bizarre record that still stands today. The closest anyone has come since was the 1999-00 Lakers, who won 67 games lead by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.
That Lakers dynasty would go on to claim their own defining record the following year by only losing one match in their postseason run to the championship.
The statistic that is most often raised when discussing the Miami Heat is their streak of 48 playoff matches without consecutive losses, a run that ended in Game 3 of this year’s Finals.
Although it’s a figure that does describe Miami’s incredible winning ability, it’s not actually a record. Jordan’s Bulls had a run lasting 52 playoffs games, and Larry Bird’s Celtics 54.
According to James, he and his teammates could never find the same motivation until they stood on the brink of elimination.
The 2014 NBA Finals have been instructive on a number of levels. It’s shown us the power of passing, how efficiency can make stars out of role players and how vital a deep, versatile bench can be. But most of all it’s proved one thing: you can’t fight gravity.
For two seasons the Miami Heat have played the role of Evel Knievel, somehow defying death in a series of increasingly thrilling rides. But when you’re jumping a motorbike over a dozen school buses, the margin of error is perilously fine. Misjudge your landing, and the results can be ugly indeed.
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