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      The Nuggets or Heat Will Get a Trophy. But Will Either Get Respect?

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      Both the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat believe they have been disrespected and are using that as motivation as they compete for a championship.The Denver Nuggets’ mascot, Rocky, an anthropomorphic mountain lion with a lightning bolt for a tail, dragged a pickax as he stormed around, trying to figure out where all the chatter was coming from. He needed to quiet the voices. They were disrespecting his team.For weeks, the Nuggets had dominated the N.B.A. playoffs. And for weeks, they thought, no one in the news media had given them their due. Not when they beat Minnesota and Phoenix in the first two rounds. Not when they swept the Lakers in the Western Conference finals.Now Rocky was ready to avenge them — metaphorically, at least — in a video the Nuggets played during a break in Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals on Thursday night.In an audio montage of slights from pundits, Nuggets Coach Michael Malone lamented the national sports coverage during the conference finals. “And all everybody talked about was the Lakers!” he said just before Rocky found a television in a room and smashed it with his pickax. He kept smashing items until the video showed a framed picture of an unidentifiable Lakers player lying shattered on the ground.Denver’s finals opponent, the Miami Heat, didn’t fare much better at the start of the championship round on Thursday. The Nuggets led by as many as 24 points and won, 104-93. They entered the series as heavy favorites, an unfamiliar position.Nuggets guard Jamal Murray was averaging a career-best 27.7 points per game in the playoffs entering Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals.Jack Dempsey/Associated Press“Even when we win, they talk about the other team,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray said. He added, “It fuels us a little more and will be sweeter when we win the chip.”Neither the Nuggets, the West’s top seed, nor the Heat, the East’s eighth seed, feel that their abilities have been fully respected this postseason, and both teams have used that as motivation. Turning perceived disrespect into fuel is a common technique in sports, even when the slights are only imagined, or perhaps even deserved.Michael Jordan made disrespect a theme of his speech when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, bringing up a time when he was cut from the varsity team at his high school. Later in his career, Jordan invented a moment of disrespect from an opponent named LaBradford Smith, who he said taunted him after scoring 37 points in a game for Washington against Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in March 1993. Intent on humiliating Smith, Jordan scored 47 points against Washington the next night.The Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal would often tell a story about the Spurs great David Robinson snubbing him for an autograph when O’Neal was young. He said that snub motivated him in his playing career, but later admitted it never happened.“David, I want to say I apologize for making up that rumor,” O’Neal said during an N.B.A. video conference in May 2020, nine years after O’Neal had retired. Robinson, who was on the call, burst out laughing.While Jordan and O’Neal concocted tales of offense, the Miami Heat saw a disregard that was real.Miami slipped into the postseason, which is why few expected them to make the run that they did. They lost their first game in the play-in tournament before winning the sudden-death second game to get into the playoffs as the eighth seed.Few people expected the Miami Heat to make it to the N.B.A. finals even with Jimmy Butler, right, a six-time All-Star, on the team.Isaiah J. Downing/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConDuring the Eastern Conference finals, when Miami faced the second-seeded Boston Celtics, Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra took issue with the news media coverage his team received during the regular season.“I guess nobody is really paying attention,” Spoelstra said, when asked why the team kept believing in itself even when it struggled. He added: “Whether that turns into confidence or not, sometimes you don’t have the confidence. But at least you have that experience of going through stuff and you understand how tough it is.”The Heat beat the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, and upset the Celtics in the conference finals, taking the decisive Game 7 on the road in Boston.Even during that series, they showed why people had doubts. They raced out to a 3-0 series lead against Boston, which led to the Celtics treating themselves like underdogs. But then the Heat dropped three straight games as they turned the ball over and struggled offensively — what you might expect from an eighth seed against an experienced team like the Celtics, who went to the N.B.A. finals last season.On the other hand, the Nuggets have held steady in their strengths — the all-around play of Nikola Jokic, who has won the Most Valuable Player Award twice; the dynamic scoring and passing of Murray; the fluid offense and hustle from role players like Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. They’ve been the best team in the West since December.But even then, as Malone and Murray said, they felt much of the attention from the news media and basketball fans had been devoted to, well, everyone else. Like the Lakers.Therein lay another example of the pervasiveness of using perceived disrespect as motivation: The Lakers did it, too. Lakers Coach Darvin Ham often reminded his team that few believed they could make the playoffs early in the season. He left out that the lack of belief in their ability was based not on bias, but on performance. The Lakers started the season 2-10 and played consistently better only after overhauling the roster in January and February.The motivational technique worked all the way until they met the Nuggets in the conference finals.Denver’s Nikola Jokic had a triple-double in Game 1, with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists.Jack Dempsey/Associated PressThe Heat have undergone an even sharper turnaround. Their best player, Jimmy Butler, has become known for elevating his play in the postseason, and round by round they have defied expectations to get to the finals.It’s perhaps why the Nuggets aren’t giving the Heat the opportunity to feel disrespected by them.“Who said that we are favorites?” Jokic said on Wednesday. “The media?”He was told that Las Vegas betting odds counted the Nuggets as favorites.“I think we are not the favorite,” Jokic said, having become more comfortable as the underdog. “I think in the finals there is no favorites. This is going to be the hardest game of our life, and we know that.”Mostly, it was not the hardest game of their lives. The Nuggets had a 24-point lead in the third quarter and used their size advantage to disorient the Heat.But as the Nuggets expected, Miami fought back. The Heat cut the Nuggets’ lead to 9 points with 2:34 left in the game. Miami used a mixture of defensive techniques that have helped them to comeback wins at other points in the postseason just when their opponents felt safe to discount them.“We knew they were going to do that,” Murray said. “That’s how they play and that’s how they win games, is just be relentless in that sense.”Often fueled by disrespect themselves, the Nuggets understood the perils of disrespecting an opponent. More

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      NBA Delays Releasing Ja Morant Gun Investigation Results

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      Commissioner Adam Silver said he could announce the findings now, but it would be “unfair” to the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat, who are still competing.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver on Thursday said that the league would wait until the conclusion of the finals to announce the findings of its latest investigation into the behavior of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, as well as any potential discipline of him.On May 13, Morant appeared to brandish a firearm in public for the second time in just over two months, prompting the investigation. Silver declined to say whether Morant would be available to play for the Grizzlies at the start of next season.“I would say we probably could’ve brought it to a head now,” Silver said at a news conference in Denver before Game 1 of the championship series between the Nuggets and the Miami Heat. “But we made the decision, and I believe the players’ association agrees with us, that it would be unfair to these players and these teams in the middle of the series to announce the results of that investigation.”The Grizzlies suspended Ja Morant indefinitely last month after a video on social media appeared to show him holding a gun in a vehicle.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConMorant is a two-time All-Star and already one of the league’s most exciting players at 23 years old. In March, the N.B.A. suspended him for eight games without pay for conduct detrimental to the league after he appeared in an Instagram Live video “holding a firearm in an intoxicated state” while visiting a nightclub near Denver, according to a league statement. Soon after the video’s streaming, Morant left the team and checked into a counseling facility in Florida. Following his return to the Grizzlies, Morant told reporters that he had spent his time at the facility learning how to better deal with stress and improve himself.But last month, a new Instagram Live video appeared to show Morant flashing a gun, this time while riding in a vehicle. The Grizzlies, who had already been eliminated from the playoffs by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, quickly suspended Morant from all team activities pending the league’s review of the video.On Thursday, Silver said the league had “uncovered a fair amount of additional information,” but he did not elaborate.Silver was also asked whether he thought the league’s initial eight-game suspension had sent a strong enough message to Morant. At the time, Silver said, Morant seemed “heartfelt and serious” in his conversations with league officials.“But I think he understood that it wasn’t about his words, that it was going to be about his future conduct,” Silver said. “So, I guess, in hindsight, I don’t know. If it had been a 12-game suspension instead of an eight-game suspension, would that have mattered?”He added: “It seemed appropriate at the time. Maybe, by definition, to the extent — we’ve all seen the video. It appears he’s done it again. So I guess you could say, maybe not. But I don’t think we yet know what it will take to change his behavior.”The N.B.A. has penalized players for similar types of acts. During the 2009-10 season, for example, Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards was suspended 50 games for bringing guns into the team’s locker room, which violates league policy. Arenas, who was a three-time All-Star at the time, also appeared to make light of the situation by making finger gun gestures at a game while the league was still investigating his behavior.Silver described Morant as “a fine young man” who has “clearly made some mistakes.”“But he’s young,” Silver said, “and I’m hoping now that once we conclude at the end of our process what the appropriate discipline is, that it’s not just about the discipline, that it’s about what we, the players’ association, his team, and he and the people around him are going to do to create better circumstances going forward. I think that’s what’s ultimately most important here.”Sopan Deb More

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      In the N.B.A. Playoffs, Flopping Is a Welcome Sideshow

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      Basketball stars from Nikola Jokic to Kyle Lowry are hamming up their reactions to even the slightest contact, writes our columnist. They could benefit from an acting lesson.In the 2023 N.B.A. playoffs, LeBron James got in on the act. And Stephen Curry, and the league’s most valuable player, Joel Embiid. Kyle Lowry keeps trying, but oh does he need help. Even Nikola Jokic has taken a bow.Yes, this postseason has showcased the beauty of basketball. The upstarts, upsets and dominance. The Miami Heat putting the kibosh on the comeback of comebacks in the Eastern Conference finals. But it has also been marred by players of all stripes — ahem, Malik Monk, the sixth man for the Sacramento Kings — falling and flailing as if stung by a cattle prod.All in desperate attempts to hoodwink referees into calling fouls.Welcome to the National Basketball Floppers Association.Flopping isn’t new, of course. In the 1970s, Red Auerbach, the Boston Celtics’s fabled and curmudgeonly leader, railed on national television against the “Hollywood acting” that was sullying the game.“N.B.A. floppers are almost always overacting,” said Anthony Gilardi, a Hollywood acting coach. “You watch these guys with their pratfalls and their on-court stunts, and it’s so over-the-top cringeworthy as to be hilarious.”I asked Gilardi to watch video clips of sham playoff tumbles and offer an assessment. He had seen most of the plays and knew the subject well. He’s a Celtics fan who has seen all of Marcus Smart’s greatest flops.There’s a vast difference, Gilardi said, between players reacting to contact in a way that creates an illusion that a foul has occurred and being so obvious that every fan in the arena can tell the reaction is fake. It is the difference between what we see from an Oscar nominee and an actor on a run-of-the-mill soap opera.“In soap operas, it’s often the case you can absolutely tell they are acting,” he said, emphasizing the word the way Heat guard Max Strus would a shoulder bump. “There’s not enough subtlety to create the illusion.”LeBron James performed vaudevillian flops in the Lakers’ Western Conference finals loss to the Nuggets.Allen Berezovsky/Getty ImagesGilardi offered a few suggestions for ways hardwood entertainers could refine their technique.Go deeply into the part. Milk it for all it’s worth, even if that means limping after the foul has been called.If you’re going to fake an injury, for God’s sake, get the specific body part right: No more holding your arm as if it were run over by a tank when you’ve been bumped in the chest.Relax and focus. The art is in the subtlety, not in the effort of trying to convince.Do all of these, and the deception won’t be so evident as to embarrass officials or raise howls from fans, cackling criticism from television analysts or a clampdown by the suits in the league office.“If they worked on this the right way,” Gilardi said, “there’s a world where some of these flops would be so good, they might not even be considered flops. Now that is good acting.”After seeing the N.B.A. try, and fail, to stop flopping for over a decade, today’s players can’t seem to help themselves. I don’t have a number to back this up, but the eye test tells you all you need to know. Flopping pervades the playoffs like tumbleweeds on a dusty desert plain.Google “Mat Ishbia Playoffs Ridiculous Flop” and you’ll see even the billionaire owner of the Phoenix Suns take a courtside dive.Bearing witness to the Warriors’ flop-heavy loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr made a personal plea to end the “gamesmanship” and canny ploys “to fool the refs.”His solution: Have N.B.A. referees call technical fouls against floppers, as officials do in the international game. The league is now reportedly considering a test run at enforcement during summer exhibitions.The flop, part acting and part competition, is now baked into the N.B.A. Celtics guard Marcus Smart pleaded his case to a referee.Winslow Townson/USA Today Sports, via ReutersI say, not so fast.N.B.A. referees have a hard enough time deciding whether James Harden’s carrying the ball 10 steps on his way to a layup is worth calling a travel. Now they would have the added burden of deciding, in real time, whether a foul was tried-and-true or hardwood chicanery. Odds of success? Slim.And remember: 11 years ago, the league announced a plan to fine players for flops. Handing down $5,000 fines to obsessively ambitious, multimillionaire athletes who would walk on shards of glass to win a championship didn’t quite do the trick.The flop, part acting and part competition, is now baked into the N.B.A. It shows off athleticism and skill, a deep thirst for winning as well as showmanship — attributes that define the league. It’s all part of the spectacle.So why not have some fun with it? Maybe, instead of resisting and demonizing the flop, we should embrace it — but demand better acting.Take, for instance, the back-to-back theatrics delivered by Jokic and James late in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals. James’s performance was a thing to behold.After Jokic brushed against him — yes, brushed — while attempting a pass, James broke out the vaudeville. His face contorted into a grimace. He twisted his 6-foot-9, 250-pound body, backpedaled, leaped backward and slid halfway across the width of the court until he landed at the feet of courtside spectators, spilling the drink of one who even offered James a towel. He offered a syrupy thank you in response.What a charade!But the flop worked. A foul was called on Jokic and the ball awarded to the Lakers. James leaped up, alert, energetic and showing not an ounce of injury. In a flash, he took an inbounds pass and dribbled upcourt.Jokic and the Denver Nuggets still won that game, and swept that series. With the dominant way Jokic has been playing to get his team to the franchise’s first N.B.A. finals, the concept of stopping him seems like pure theater. More

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      NBA Quiz: Where Is the Pass Going?

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      Few aspects of basketball capture the joy of the game like great passes. The most exciting ones require communication, improvisation and a little luck. This year’s N.B.A. finals will feature one of the sport’s best at getting the ball to his teammates: Denver’s Nikola Jokic. Can you see the court like the pros? Try to […] More

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      Celtics Hit Another Dead End, With No Clear Path Forward This Time

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      A team with N.B.A. championship aspirations fell short against Miami. Tough calls and new contracts await.The curtains closed on Monday night for the Boston Celtics’s Jekyll and Hyde routine.One hundred fifty N.B.A. teams had tried and failed to overcome a 3-0 playoff series deficit. The Celtics made it 151 with their loss against the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. The final game in a series full of momentum swings was not competitive: Miami led by double digits for most of the night and won comfortably, 103-84. It was Boston’s third home loss of the series and a bitter disappointment for a team that reached the N.B.A. finals last season and had been expecting to return.“We failed, I failed,” a despondent Jaylen Brown told reporters after the game. “We let the whole city down.”For much of the regular season and this playoff run, the Celtics alternated between looking like an unstoppable offensive juggernaut (Games 4 and 5 against Miami) and appearing listless and uninspired (Games 3 and 7). Very few leading contenders for a championship have vacillated as wildly from night to night, from dominant to dominated, as the Celtics had this season. But entering the playoffs, the Celtics still harbored championship hopes, confident that their franchise centerpieces, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and a versatile roster ready to supplement them would find a way to win.For most of their careers, Tatum, 25, and Brown, 26, had led unexpectedly deep postseason runs. Beating expectations became their brand. This year was their fourth time making at least the conference finals in the past six years.Yet after Boston lost to the Golden State Warriors in the N.B.A. finals last season, this was the year that the bar was raised. A championship was the goal. Tatum, Brown and their teammates could no longer merely exceed expectations: The Celtics were the expected.Instead, the Celtics will now have to contemplate if Brown and Tatum can be the partnership that carries this team over the final hurdle. And the Celtics’ ownership, along with the team president, Brad Stevens, will have to decide if Joe Mazzulla, the 34-year-old head coach with only one season under his belt, is the right person to lead the team.Mazzulla was unexpectedly given the job just before training camp in September after the abrupt suspension and eventual firing of Ime Udoka.He was a surprising choice: His only head coaching experience was at Fairmont State, a Division II program in West Virginia, and he had been an N.B.A. assistant for three years. He was suddenly given the task of taking a team to the top of the mountain.One of the Celtics’ big acquisitions last summer, forward Danilo Gallinari, tore a knee ligament and missed the season. And one of the team’s defensive anchors, Robert Williams III, didn’t make his debut until April after a knee injury. Still, Mazzulla got the Celtics off to a blistering 21-5 start.But in the regular season, the Celtics fell into stretches of lackadaisical, head-scratching play, as when they blew a 28-point lead to the Nets in March. That carried over into the playoffs: Against the Heat, the Celtics routinely blew double-digit leads. Yet they still clawed their way to the doorstep of the N.B.A. finals.“It’s something that continues to happen,” Celtics center Al Horford said of the team’s shifting performances. “It’s a pattern that happens with us. We’re going to have to do some soul-searching there, because some things have to change in that regard.”For some, the verdict is clear: Swings like that are not good enough. Mazzulla, with his penchant for not calling timeouts and guiding the Celtics to flat efforts like Monday night’s, isn’t the right person for the job.To those who like their glasses half full, Mazzulla’s first year as coach, without a full off-season to prepare, was impressive. He hastily put together a system that led to the second-best offense and defense in the N.B.A. Tatum and Brown had their best seasons. As for suggestions that his inexperience made him unfit for the job, Mazzulla will now have a year of experience, a deep playoff run under his belt and a full off-season to make changes. And his biggest star offered his support on Monday.“I think Joe did a great job — we won 50-some odd games,” Tatum said. “ We got to Game 7, conference finals. Obviously, everybody can be better, learn from this. But I think Joe did a great job.”Some of this decision-making about roster construction before next season may not be up to Boston at all. The team doesn’t have cap space or particularly valuable draft picks. Brown, who made the All-N.B.A. second team this year, is a free agent after next season. He is eligible for a contract extension worth close to $300 million if he chooses to stay with the Celtics, an amount no other team can offer him.Boston’s biggest roster problem is that under the N.B.A.’s new collective bargaining agreement, higher spending teams face more restrictions in building their rosters. This means that keeping Tatum and Brown together may be close to impossible for the Celtics, even if they want to continue to build around them.And Brown may not want to stay. In multiple interviews this season, Brown has expressed reservations about life in Boston.Asked Monday night about his thought process entering the off-season as he considers a potential contract extension, Brown paused for several seconds.“I don’t even really know how to answer that question right now, to be honest,” Brown said.Tatum was more clear: He said it was “extremely important” that Brown be re-signed.“He’s one of the best players in this league,” Tatum said. “He plays both ends of the ball and still is relatively young. And he’s accomplished a lot so far in his career. So I think it’s extremely important.”Brown certainly grew this season. At times, he, not Tatum, was the team’s best player. But in the playoffs, Brown was again unreliable, and defenses focused on his biggest weakness: ball handling.This is the conundrum for the Celtics. It’s entirely possible — even likely — that the Celtics haven’t seen the best of Tatum and Brown, given their ages. With a summer of preparation for Mazzulla, another jump from Tatum and Brown and a fully healthy roster, they will surely be in title contention again. Growth doesn’t have to be linear.That’s the easy and convenient solution. But what if this is the limit for the best young tandem in the league? With the N.B.A.’s stringent cap limitations, the Celtics don’t have a lot of ways to get better that don’t involve moving on from Brown.The Celtics faced a similar quandary two decades ago with Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker, two beloved All-Stars. At the time, they were at around the same ages and stages of their careers as Tatum and Brown are now. Pierce was clearly the better player, but Walker helped Pierce lead the team to the conference finals in 2002. When Danny Ainge took over the team’s basketball operations the next year, he tore down the team and traded Walker, gambling that he and Pierce had peaked as a pairing. The fan base was initially irritated, but the move ultimately paid off with a championship in 2008.There’s a thin line between true contenders and high-level pretenders in the N.B.A. Now that their latest title pursuit has come up short, the Celtics face difficult questions about which path forward puts the team firmly in the contender camp. More

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      Miami Heat Beat Boston Celtics in Game 7 to Advance to NBA Finals

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      The Heat are just the second eighth seed to reach the N.B.A. championship series. They beat Boston, the No. 2 seed, in the Eastern Conference finals.The Miami Heat stunned the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals on Monday night, clinching a roller-coaster, hold-your-breath, best-of-seven series in Game 7, 103-84, to extend their remarkable postseason run.“I had so much belief in myself and this group of guys,” said Heat forward Jimmy Butler, who was named the most valuable player of the series. He scored 28 points in Game 7.The Heat, whose resurgence as the East’s No. 8 seed has seemingly surprised everyone but them, will face the Denver Nuggets in the N.B.A. finals beginning Thursday. The Nuggets secured their first trip to the championship round by completing a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals a week ago. The Heat are just the second eighth seed, after the 1998-99 Knicks, to reach the N.B.A. finals under the current playoff format.Not that it was easy. “Sometimes you have to suffer for the things you really want,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said during the postgame trophy presentation.After the Heat won the first three games of the series, the Celtics regained their rhythm and won the next three to force a seventh and deciding game at home. Boston was bidding to become the first team to win an N.B.A. playoff series after trailing, 3-0. But Miami avoided becoming a historical footnote/punchline by dipping into its bottomless well of perseverance.Even when the Heat were scuffling in the regular season, losing nearly as often as they won, Spoelstra stuck with his approach.Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler struggled in the second half of the series but came through in Game 7.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesSpoelstra said he sensed that the Heat were capable of improving if they continued to focus on their daily work. There was nothing especially sexy about it — meeting after frustrating losses, watching film, practicing hard.“Those are gratifying experiences,” Spoelstra said earlier in the series, “particularly when you’re losing games and you’re getting criticized for it. But you’re still able to just come together and try to get it right.”The Heat went about six months without getting it right. But over the past six weeks, they have unlocked all their promise and potential to clinch another appearance in the N.B.A. finals. It is the franchise’s seventh in its 35 seasons and second in the past four years.“The ups and downs prepared us for these moments,” Bam Adebayo, the Heat’s All-Star center, said during the series as the Heat went about their business of outlasting the Celtics.The Heat won the first two games of the series in Boston then routed the Celtics in Miami in Game 3. Spoelstra said “a lot of pent-up stuff” had been fueling his team but declined to elaborate.His players were more forthcoming: They recalled being eliminated by the Celtics in the conference finals last season, an especially disappointing exit since the Heat were the East’s top seed and the series went seven games.The Heat nearly blew it this time around. Before Game 7, the Celtics were entertaining dreams of replicating the Boston Red Sox’s dramatic comeback in the 2004 American League Championship Series, when they made baseball history by coming back from a 3-0 series deficit to eliminate the Yankees. The Red Sox then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series to win their first championship since 1918.But Miami was too determined and too tough, finding beauty in the struggle. Butler, the team’s gifted two-way forward, imposed his will early in the series, while Adebayo was a defensive menace. But their supporting cast made the difference.Caleb Martin, a small forward who moved into the starting lineup for Games 6 and 7, was the Heat’s most consistent player throughout the series. He had 26 points in Game 7 and made of 11 of his 16 shots, including four 3-pointers. Gabe Vincent, the team’s starting point guard, played the final two games with a sprained ankle. And Duncan Robinson came off the bench to make timely 3-pointers.On Monday, before a hostile crowd that was at a fever pitch during player introductions, the Heat seemed intent on drowning out the noise by relying on their defense. The Celtics missed all 10 of their 3-point attempts in the first quarter; in the second quarter, the Heat led by as many as 17 points.Boston had cut into Miami’s lead when Martin went to work again, closing the third quarter with a turnaround baseline jumper. He opened the fourth quarter with his fourth 3-pointer of the game, and the Heat’s lead was back to 13.Adebayo had been asked earlier in the series about the key to the team’s success.“Believing,” he said. “Believing in one another. Believing that we can get a win. Believing that we can beat the No. 1 team in the league. You know, belief is real, and we’ve got a will to win.”The Heat did indeed beat the No. 1 team, upsetting the Milwaukee Bucks, who had the league’s best regular-season record, in the first round of the playoffs. They beat the fifth-seeded Knicks in six games in the second round to set up their series with Boston.The Celtics figured to make another deep playoff run after losing to the Golden State Warriors in the N.B.A. finals last season. But obstacles — both predictable and unforeseen — hindered them before they even convened for the preseason.Atop the list was the sudden absence of Ime Udoka, who, as the Celtics’ first-year head coach last season, left his defense-minded imprint on the team. But in September, less than a week before training camp, the Celtics suspended him for the season for “violations of team policies.” Two people briefed on the matter, who were not authorized to speak about it publicly, said Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate.Boston’s Jaylen Brown struggled in Game 2, hitting just one 3-pointer in seven attempts.Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesBoston’s Jayson Tatum scored just 14 points in a blowout loss to Miami in Game 3.Wilfredo Lee/Associated PressThe entire situation cast an unwelcome shadow on the Celtics as they sought to focus on the season ahead. “It’s been hell,” Marcus Smart, the team’s starting point guard and last season’s defensive player of the year, said at the time.Instead of going outside the organization to hire an experienced coach as Udoka’s replacement, the team prioritized continuity by temporarily promoting Joe Mazzulla, who had been an assistant on Udoka’s staff.Mazzulla, 34, whose only previous head coaching experience was at Fairmont State, a Division II program in West Virginia, had suddenly been placed in charge of an N.B.A. team with championship expectations. It was a gamble that appeared to be paying off by the All-Star break, when Boston had the league’s best record. The Celtics named Mazzulla as their permanent head coach in February and officially severed ties with Udoka, whom the Houston Rockets hired as head coach last month.But Boston slumped over the final weeks of the regular season, slipping to the No. 2 seed in the East behind Milwaukee, and needed six games to eliminate the Atlanta Hawks in the first round. (The series went so unexpectedly long that Janet Jackson had to postpone a concert in Atlanta. Boston’s Jayson Tatum publicly apologized to her.)The pressure only mounted on Mazzulla — and on the team’s two stars, Tatum and Jaylen Brown — during the Celtics’ conference semifinal matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers. Tatum and Brown were inconsistent as the series stretched to seven games. Mazzulla was scrutinized for some of his lineup choices and for his apparent aversion to calling timeouts in critical situations.“Joe’s learning, just like all of us,” Smart said during the series. “I know he’s been killed a lot, rightfully so.”But after Tatum scored 51 points in a series-clinching tour de force against the 76ers, the Celtics ran into the Heat, a savvy and experienced opponent with payback in mind.In the postseason, Miami’s Jimmy Butler has become known for morphing into “Playoff Jimmy” — a better version of himself.Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesThe Heat traveled a long, hard road merely to reach the conference finals. They had to defeat the Chicago Bulls in a play-in game to slip into the postseason. They proceeded to lose two rotation players, Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, to injuries in their first-round series with the Bucks.But the Heat were not about to let up against the Celtics — not after a season of growth under Spoelstra, not with Butler filling his more unsung teammates with confidence, and not against an opponent that had buried Miami’s championship dream a year ago.“We go out there and we hoop and we play basketball the right way,” Butler said, “knowing that we’ve always got a chance.” More

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      The Miami Heat Might Blow a 3-0 Series Lead

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      No N.B.A. team has lost a best-of-seven playoff series after winning the first three games, but the Heat are one loss from being the first.When a team takes a three-games-to-none lead in a best-of-seven series, it is time to start looking ahead to the next round or to a championship parade.Most of the time.In the history of sports, a few teams with 3-0 series leads have managed to lose three straight games before recovering. Some of them lost one more game — and the series — as well.That’s the history facing the Miami Heat, who won the first three games of their N.B.A. Eastern Conference finals series against the Boston Celtics, then lost the next three, including Game 6 at home on Saturday night.Game 7 is Monday night in Boston, and the Heat are 48 minutes away from historical ignominy. No N.B.A. team has ever blown a 3-0 series lead dating to 1947, when the N.B.A. was called the Basketball Association of America and had teams like the Cleveland Rebels and the St. Louis Bombers. This year, in the Western Conference finals, the Denver Nuggets took a 3-0 series lead against the Los Angeles Lakers, then finished them off in a four-game sweep.A collapse after taking a 3-0 series lead has happened in other leagues, though. Let’s relive some of those dark moments (for one team in those series anyway).BaseballDavid Ortiz’s home run in the 12th inning of Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series put an all-time comeback in motion.Barton Silverman/The New York TimesThe most famous 3-0 comeback in sports certainly came in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox stunned their hated rivals, the Yankees, and made Major League Baseball history.The victory in the American League Championship Series, snatched from the jaws of defeat, came in defiance of the fabled Curse of the Bambino that had supposedly consigned the Red Sox to perpetual defeat after they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.“This is obviously crushing for us,” said Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, a sentiment the Heat may soon be feeling.The only other time a major league team battled back from 3-0 down, it didn’t finish the job. The Tampa Bay Rays raced to a 3-0 series lead in the 2020 A.L.C.S., played at a neutral site in San Diego because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Houston Astros claimed the next three games, but Tampa Bay pulled out a 4-2 victory in the decider before losing the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.“I don’t know if I went to bed,” Rays Manager Kevin Cash said about the aftermath of Game 6. “It was tough, there’s no doubt. A lot of anxiety.”No team has blown a 3-0 series lead in the World Series, but in the Japan Series, the Nishitetsu Lions came back from 3-0 down to win in 1958 against the Yomiuri Giants and the Giants managed the same feat against the Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1989.HockeyThe N.H.L. has treated fans to the most four-game collapses, and one of those came in the Stanley Cup final.In 1942, the Detroit Red Wings won the first three games, but the Toronto Maple Leafs came roaring back with four straight. The Cup had switched to a best-of-seven format in 1939 and this was the first series to go the distance.“By Jiminy” was the postgame reaction of the Leafs great Syl Apps.Four-game comebacks were also achieved in earlier rounds by the Islanders over the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1975, the Philadelphia Flyers over the Boston Bruins in 2010 and the Los Angeles Kings over the San Jose Sharks in 2014.BasketballAlthough no N.B.A. team has — yet — lost a series it led by 3-0, a few, like this year’s Heat, have lost three straight to get to 3-3.It happened once in the finals, in 1951. The Rochester Royals (now the Sacramento Kings via Cincinnati, Kansas City, Mo., and Omaha) took a 3-0 lead over the Knicks, who rallied with three wins. The final game came down to the last seconds before Bob Davies of the Royals sealed it with two free throws.It is the one and only championship for the Royals/Kings franchise, in any city. The Knicks would have to wait until 1970 for their first.A three-game collapse followed by Game 7 redemption was also achieved in earlier rounds by the 1994 Utah Jazz against the Denver Nuggets and the 2003 Dallas Mavericks against the Portland Trail Blazers.So the full collapse has never happened in the N.B.A. But in all of basketball?How could you forget the classic Beermen-Aces series?In the 2016 Philippine Cup final, the Alaska Aces looked set to claim the title after three straight wins. (Their name came from their sponsor, Alaska Milk, not their home base.)But it was a mistake to count out the reigning champion San Miguel Beermen, who won four straight to do what no N.B.A. team has ever done.The Celtics will be hoping to match the Beermen on Monday night. More

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      Boston Celtics Force Game 7 Against Miami Heat With Buzzer-Beater

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      The Heat let a 3-0 series lead slip away in the Eastern Conference finals with sloppy play, bad shooting and disappearing acts by their stars.After the miracle and the madness, Gabe Vincent broke the silence inside the Miami Heat locker room on Saturday night by humming along to “Life Goes On,” a ballad by Ed Sheeran featuring Luke Combs.Most of Vincent’s teammates were long gone by then, bound for their Miami-area homes as they faced the collective challenge of figuring out how to rebound from a soul-crushing loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.DERRICK WHITE SENDS THE EAST FINALS BACK TO BOSTON FOR GAME 7!HE WINS IT FOR THE CELTICS AT THE BUZZER 🚨#TissotBuzzerBeater | #TimingEmotions pic.twitter.com/ybUb5CT6l1— NBA (@NBA) May 28, 2023
      But back in the locker room, where an oversize image of the N.B.A.’s Larry O’Brien championship trophy is stitched into the carpet and a series of murals depicting the franchise’s past triumphs line a tunnel leading to the court, the atmosphere was gloomy. The lyrics of a song about heartbreak hardly helped. They seeped from Vincent’s iPhone all tinny and hollow, as if the music were being piped through a radiator:It hit like a train, I ran out of words;I got nothing to say, everything hurts.“Great song,” Vincent said.Nothing about this season has been easy for the Heat, and Vincent hinted that perhaps some poetic justice was at work after the Celtics’ 104-103 victory in Game 6, tying the series at three games apiece. Derrick White’s astonishing putback at the buzzer — the ball left his fingertips with about one-tenth of a second to spare — had extended the best-of-seven series and the Celtics’ season, forcing a Game 7 in Boston on Monday night.The Heat could not have been closer to securing a spot in the N.B.A. finals against the Denver Nuggets. And then, in an instant, that dream somehow felt very far away.“It’s almost like it’s supposed to be this way,” Vincent said. “But, you know, go to Boston and get a win.”Butler scored 15 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter of Game 6.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesVincent, the team’s starting point guard, made it sound simple, but this series has been a carnival ride. The Heat won the first three games to put themselves on the cusp of history as they attempted to become just the second No. 8 seed to advance to the N.B.A. finals, joining the 1998-99 Knicks. Now, the Celtics are bidding to become the first team to win an N.B.A. playoff series after trailing by three games to none.“This is one hell of a series,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “At this time right now, I don’t know how we are going to get this done, but we are going up there to get it done.”It was a public vote of confidence after a game full of missed opportunities for the Heat. Where to begin? Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, their two best players, combined to shoot 9 of 37 from the field.Butler, in particular, looked downright passive for much of the game. There he was in the second quarter, handling the ball at the top of the perimeter with the shot clock winding down. But instead of driving, Butler shoved a pass to Duncan Robinson, who had little choice but to hoist a runner from 11 feet that grazed the front of the rim. A few seconds later, the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum was at the other end for a layup.But other plays could haunt the Heat, too. In the fourth quarter, for example, Adebayo grabbed the rim blocking a shot, which was against the rules and led to a 4-point possession for the Celtics.As a team, the Heat shot 35.5 percent from the field. They missed hook shots and layups, jumpers and floaters. They still had a chance thanks to Caleb Martin, who slid into the starting lineup and scored 21 points, and Butler, who asserted himself late and was fouled attempting a 3-pointer with 3 seconds remaining. He made all three free throws for a 1-point lead.Miami’s Bam Adebayo made just four shots in Game 6. During the regular season, he was the team’s second-leading scorer.Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConBut all that was prologue to the final sequence — a 3-point attempt by the Celtics’ Marcus Smart that rimmed in and out, and White’s putback. The Heat’s Max Strus had been hedging on Tatum, preventing him from getting the ball, but that left White with an open lane to the basket for the follow.“I thought we had a lot of things covered on that play,” Spoelstra said, “and sometimes things just don’t break your way. I don’t think there’s any regrets on that. It’s just a shame.”Butler, who scored 15 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter, shouldered the blame.“If I play better, we’re not even in this position,” he said. “And I will be better. That’s what makes me smile, because those guys follow my lead. So when I’m playing better, I think we’re playing better as a whole.”After finishing the regular season with a 44-38 record, the Heat landed in the play-in tournament and lost their opening game to the Atlanta Hawks. The Heat then trailed the Chicago Bulls by as many as 6 points in the fourth quarter of an elimination game before they went on a game-winning run to narrowly slip into the playoffs.But something odd was beginning to percolate inside the Heat: The greater the challenge, the better they played. Facing the top-seeded Bucks in the first round, Miami lost two rotation players, Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, to long-term injuries, which should have been problematic. But Butler was brilliant as the Heat advanced in five games.But that version of Butler has been missing as the Heat’s three-game series lead has slipped away. He has been passing up shots, hesitating on drives and turning the ball over. In other words, he looks tired from the grind of a long season.Now, Miami is facing its greatest test yet. Butler said he planned to decompress by playing a late-night game of Spades.“I’m not going to let our guys quit,” he said. “I don’t care what nobody says. Everything going to be OK.”Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum hugs guard Derrick White after White’s tip-in at the buzzer won Game 6 against the Heat.Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConFor the Celtics, the No. 2 seed, Game 7 is one more chance for them to salvage their season and make good on their pledge to return to the N.B.A. finals, one year after losing to the Golden State Warriors. Tatum has been inconsistent, even in victory, routinely going scoreless for long stretches with his season in jeopardy every night. He scored just 6 of his 31 points in the second half of Saturday’s game.“We’re all aware it’s not time to celebrate,” Tatum said. “We didn’t accomplish anything.”It was approaching midnight when Butler called guard Kyle Lowry to his locker for a quiet chat. Vincent had vacated the premises, taking his moody music with him.At the front of the room, a monitor had exactly one item listed on the team’s schedule for Sunday: a 1:30 p.m. flight to Boston. More