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    Miami Heat Face 3-1 Deficit in NBA Finals After Game 4 Loss to Nuggets

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    Only one team has come back from a 3-1 series deficit in the N.B.A. finals, but the Miami Heat seem confident they can be the second.The Miami Heat would be the first to assess their path to this late stage of the season as imperfect. Pretty much everything has posed a challenge. The injuries. The losses. Even their experience in the play-in bracket — a loss followed by a come-from-behind win — seems apocryphal, or at least true to form, now that they are facing the Denver Nuggets in the N.B.A. finals.In the process, the Heat have co-opted adversity as a part of their identity. Adversity has hardened them and made them more resilient. Adversity has fueled their postseason run. Adversity has improved them as players and helped them bond as a team. Adversity has them competing for a championship.Bam Adebayo, the team’s All-Star center, cited the “ups, downs, goods, bads” of the season as if they were inseparable qualities, as if none could exist without the others. Coach Erik Spoelstra has taken to occasionally describing his team as “gnarly” in the most complimentary way possible.“That’s a Spo term,” Adebayo said at a news conference earlier this week, adding: “A lot of you in here probably never thought we would be in this position right now.”The Heat were able to get Denver’s Nikola Jokic, center, in foul trouble, but he still scored 23 points.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConThe problem, of course, is that a steady diet of adversity takes a toll, and the Nuggets are a full meal. So much talent. So much size. So much depth. And not even the Heat, who have made a habit of navigating their way out of bleak situations, could match them on Friday night as the Nuggets pulled away for a 108-95 victory in Game 4 that has them on the cusp of their first N.B.A. title.The Nuggets have a 3-1 series lead. Game 5 is Monday in Denver.“It’s going to be a gnarly game in Denver that is built for the competitors that we have in our locker room,” Spoelstra said, adding: “We get an opportunity to play a super competitive game in a great environment.”Spoelstra was notably upbeat, but that was nothing new. Count the Heat out at your peril.“Our whole season hasn’t been easy,” Adebayo said. “It just seems like we won’t quit.”They refused to quit after slipping into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the East. They refused to quit after losing two rotation players, Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, in their first-round series with the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Herro broke his hand, and Oladipo tore a tendon in his knee.The Heat wanted adversity? They flourished, eliminating the Bucks in five games.They wanted more adversity? They nearly blew a 3-0 series lead to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals before returning from the abyss to win Game 7 — in Boston — and advance. Afterward, Mike McDaniel, the coach of the N.F.L.’s Miami Dolphins, sent Spoelstra a text in which he described tough times as an opportunity, not that Spoelstra needed to be reminded.“We share very similar thoughts about finding strength in adversity,” Spoelstra said.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said he did not expect his team to get much sleep after Friday night’s loss.Rich Storry/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConNow, the Nuggets are loading the Heat up with more adversity than they can handle. Ahead of Game 4, Heat forward Kevin Love acknowledged that the team’s “room for error is so small.”Duncan Robinson, Love’s teammate, pledged that their “urgency should be and will be at an all-time high.”In the first quarter of Friday’s game, the Heat channeled that urgency by ditching their zone defense and matching up in man-to-man, which limited the Nuggets’ outside looks while cluttering up the two-man, pick-and-roll game that Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray like to run.Before long, the Nuggets established themselves. Sensing some space between himself and his defender, Jokic stepped back from 27 feet and made a 3-pointer. Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon sliced to the rim.Early in the second half, Jokic dribbled straight at Adebayo, bumping up against him — once, twice, three times — before flipping the ball up and in with his left hand. A nifty bounce pass from Gordon to Murray led to a layup, a 10-point lead and a Spoelstra timeout. Some fans left in the fourth quarter.“Some correctable things we’ve got to do,” said Jimmy Butler, who led Miami with 25 points. “But it’s not impossible. We’ve got to go out there and do it.”The Nuggets got something that approximated a usual effort from Jokic, who collected 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists while dealing with foul trouble. But he got ample help from the likes of Gordon, who scored 27 points, and Bruce Brown, who finished with 21 points off the bench.Many of the Heat’s more unsung players have struggled in the series, and that hurt them again on Friday. Gabe Vincent finished with only 2 points, and Max Strus went scoreless. Miami wound up leaning on the veterans Kyle Lowry, who scored all 13 of his points in the first half, and Love, who made three 3-pointers.Butler, left, and Kyle Lowry have faced the pressure of the N.B.A. finals before. Butler’s Heat lost to the Lakers in 2020, and Lowry’s Raptors beat the Warriors in 2019.Lynne Sladky/Associated PressAfterward, the Heat seemed cognizant of their new reality — that nearly everyone would be counting them out. Spoelstra called it “the narrative” that he said he was certain would circulate over the weekend. Butler, indicated that he did not care.“We don’t have no quit,” he said. “We are going to continually fight, starting tomorrow, to get better, and then we are going into Monday to do what we said we were going to do this entire time and win. We have to. We have no other choice. Otherwise, we did all this for no reason.”He added: “We’ve done some hard things all year long, and now it’s like the hardest of the hard.”The challenge before them is great, though not insurmountable. The Cleveland Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit in the 2016 N.B.A. finals, shocking the Golden State Warriors, who had set a record by winning 73 games during the regular season. Still, Cleveland is the only team to recover from that deep a hole in the finals; 35 other teams have tried and failed.Spoelstra said he told his players in the locker room “to feel whatever you want to feel” after the loss. He did not expect them to get much sleep, and that was probably a good thing. He wanted them to stew on what had happened, and then refocus on the hardest-of-the-hard task ahead.“Our guys love this kind of deal,” Spoelstra said.The Heat wanted adversity? They definitely have some now. More

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      The Miami Heat’s Secret Weapon for a Title? Zone Defense.

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      The odds are against the Heat in their N.B.A. finals matchup with the Denver Nuggets. But the maligned zone defense may be their secret weapon.One of the catchiest chants in the N.B.A. is an acknowledgment of one of the game’s most thankless tasks: “De-fense!” Clap. Clap. “De-fense!” It rained down this week as the Miami Heat coped with the nearly impossible challenge of slowing two of the league’s most fearsome players — the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray — during the N.B.A. finals in front of their home crowd.The most exalted defensive matchups in the N.B.A. are typically one-on-one clashes, as opposing stars come face to face. But that is hard work. Really hard. Maybe you can stop an explosive scorer like Jokic or Murray for a possession or two. But every time down the floor? For 48 minutes? With an undersized roster that has endured the long grind of the postseason?Good luck. For over 50 years, the N.B.A. refused to let teams do it any other way. It was man-to-man defense or bust. But now, teams can be more creative in how they go about trying to put the clamps on their opponents. And no team is more creative than the Heat, who play more zone defense — a scheme in which defenders guard areas of the court instead of individual players — than any other team in the league.On Wednesday in Game 3, that meant having two players trap Denver’s inbounds pass, two more at midcourt and one protecting the basket at the far end — a 2-2-1 zone press — early in the second quarter.The Nuggets are willing passers, making them harder to defend.Sam Navarro/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConBy the time the Nuggets managed to get the ball upcourt, just 14 seconds remained on the shot clock, and the Heat’s defense had morphed into a halfcourt zone — a 2-3 set, with two players up top at the perimeter and three along the baseline. Murray, the Nuggets’ point guard, missed a 3-point attempt from the left corner, and the Heat raced away for a game-tying bucket.Unfortunately for the Heat, that was about as good as it got for them in their 109-94 loss to the Nuggets, who took a 2-1 series lead ahead of Game 4 on Friday in Miami. Murray and Jokic both finished with triple-doubles for Denver, which, for one game, at least, was largely unfazed by Miami’s shape-shifting defense.“We didn’t offer much resistance,” said Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra, who bemoaned his team’s lack of effort but considered it an anomaly. He added: “I think the thing that we’ve proven over and over and over is we can win and find different ways to win.”And one of those ways is with their zone defense. There is a talent disparity in this series: The Nuggets have more of it thanks to their array of expert shooters and the all-around wizardry of Jokic, a two-time winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award. So, in an effort to slow the pace of play and compensate for their lack of size, the Heat are occasionally abandoning their man-to-man defense by mixing in some zone.This is nothing new for them. Miami played zone on a league-high 19.7 percent of its defensive possessions during the regular season, according to Synergy Sports, a scouting and analytics service. The Portland Trail Blazers, who played zone 14.9 percent of the time, ranked second, and the Toronto Raptors (8.4 percent) were third.Jokic’s size makes him difficult to defend.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConMore important, the Heat — even amid the regular-season struggles that nearly kept them out of the playoffs — used their zone to great effect, limiting opponents to 0.937 points per possession. By comparison, opponents averaged 1.009 points per possession against their man-to-man defense.Miami is playing slightly less zone defense in the playoffs — zone has accounted for 15.7 percent of its defensive possessions ahead of Game 4 — but no other team has come close to using it that often. And the Heat have had some success with it, holding opponents to 0.916 points per possession versus 1.003 points per possession with man-to-man defense.“I think it’s effective,” Heat point guard Gabe Vincent said, “because it’s different.”Jim Boeheim, who recently retired after 47 seasons as the men’s basketball coach at Syracuse University, was so renowned for his 2-3 zone defense that he became synonymous with it. But in his early years at Syracuse, he actually coached more man-to-man defense.“We had a zone and we’d practice it, but not all the time,” Boeheim said. “But then we would be having trouble with somebody, and you’d put the zone out there, and they couldn’t score!”Most teams did not practice it, and they seldom faced it in games.“It can just screw somebody up,” Boeheim said. “And if your opponent is only going to one or two guys on offense, you can kind of cheat toward those one or two guys, and it can cause problems.”The zone remains a bit of a novelty in the N.B.A., which essentially banned it for the first 50-plus years of the league’s existence. Before the advent of the shot clock in 1954, the worry was that too many teams would pack the area around the basket with defenders and slow the game to a crawl at a time when the league was desperately trying to grow its audience.Later, critics considered the zone a gimmicky way for teams to camouflage poor individual defenders, especially as the league continued to glorify one-on-one matchups. The lowly zone was stigmatized. But over time, offenses stalled and scoring decreased as games devolved into a seemingly nonstop series of isolation sets, with players stationed on the weak side of the court to draw defenders away from the ball.Ahead of the 2001-2 season, the N.B.A. had seen enough and eliminated its illegal-defense rule, which meant that teams could play zone — or use any other type of defense that suited them. The twist was that the change was designed to spur spacing and passing on offense.The zone, though, remains fairly uncommon for several reasons. N.B.A. rosters are brimming with long-range shooters, and when passes zip from side to side, zone defenders are often too slow to react, leaving opposing players with open looks from 3-point range. Also, defenders are prohibited from camping out in the lane whenever they aren’t guarding an opposing player — otherwise known as the defensive three-second rule.“And that changes everything,” said Alex Popp, the head boys’ basketball coach for IMG Academy’s postgraduate team in Bradenton, Fla. “N.B.A. coaches are still reluctant to play zone because you can’t just stick a guy in the charge circle and protect the paint.”For the Heat, the zone has value. If it was initially born of necessity — as a way for Spoelstra to match up against bigger teams and hide some of his weaker defenders — it has become an asset. For long stretches of the Eastern Conference finals against the Celtics, Boston seemed flummoxed by Miami’s traps, and often settled for (errant) jump shots rather than attacking the rim.Now, whenever the Nuggets bring the ball upcourt, they must do a mental calculation: What sort of defense are they about to see? The zone adds an element of unpredictability.“I think it’s something that can work,” Boeheim said, “especially in short windows.”Miami’s Kyle Lowry guarded the Nuggets’ Bruce Brown man to man.Megan Briggs/Getty ImagesKyle Lowry, the Heat’s backup point guard, recently recalled a formative period of his childhood when his coaches taught him about the zone press, traps and the basic 2-3 formation. As he was asked about those experiences, he knew where the line of inquiry was headed.“If you’re getting into the question of our zone, it’s pretty cool,” Lowry said.OK, what makes it cool?“It works sometimes,” he said.Miami’s zone is not static. It changes from game to game and even from possession to possession, with dozens of permutations based on which opposing players are on the floor — or even Spoelstra’s whims.Bam Adebayo, the team’s starting center, said they drill the zone “to the point where we’re tired of it.”Spoelstra would rather walk on hot coals than discuss his schematic choices at the N.B.A. finals, but his players have acknowledged the zone’s amorphous nature.“Spo does a great job preparing us all year to be ready for situations like this, to be able to switch in a timeout, switch a scheme, switch a defense,” Heat guard Max Strus said before Game 3.For Game 4, Miami is likely to unveil a new scheme or a slightly different look. It may not matter — “I think Denver is too good,” Boeheim said — but the Heat have been in tough spots before. Their zone has helped. 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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      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

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      The Miami Heat’s Undrafted Players Are Their Secret Weapon

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      The Miami Heat have nine undrafted players — more than any other N.B.A. team. “When you’re in that position,” one player said, “you’re willing to do anything.”BOSTON — Max Strus had spent two seasons punishing defenders as a shooting guard at Lewis University, a Division II school in Romeoville, Ill., before he delivered some news to his coach that was not entirely unexpected: He wanted to transfer to a major Division I program.For the coach, Scott Trost, it was bittersweet. He was sad to see Strus go, but he also knew that Strus was ready for his next challenge.“And who’s to say if he would be where he is today if he didn’t make that move?” Trost said.On Wednesday night, seven years after he transferred to DePaul and nearly four years after he matriculated to the N.B.A. G League as an undrafted free agent, Strus was sinking 3-pointers and making defensive stops for the Miami Heat in their 123-116 victory over the Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.But perhaps the oddest part about his unlikely presence was that it was not odd at all — at least not for the Heat, who have a league-high nine undrafted players on their 17-man roster. On Wednesday, three of those players — Strus, Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin — scored 15 points each while combining to shoot 16 of 27 from the field.“I think it’s something unique that we’ve all gone through,” said Vincent, the team’s starting point guard, “and we know how difficult it can be. So we just try to motivate each other and keep each other going.”Miami Heat guard Max Strus, left, has gone from a two-way player to one of the Heat’s best 3-point shooters.Charles Krupa/Associated PressThe conference finals have coincided with pre-draft buzz of the highest (and tallest) order. On Tuesday, as N.B.A. hopefuls began to cycle through Chicago for the league’s scouting combine, the San Antonio Spurs landed the No. 1 pick in the draft, set for June 22 at Barclays Center.Barring a cosmic catastrophe, the Spurs will select Victor Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 teenager from France and the most celebrated prospect since LeBron James. A gifted player who has size and skill, along with an innate feel for the game — yes, he really did tip-dunk his own 3-point miss earlier this season — Wembanyama could be a transformational force for the Spurs.But beyond Wembanyama and the rest of this year’s picks, teams have another roster-building option at their disposal: plumbing the pool of the undrafted, a strategy that has proved increasingly viable as basketball continues to expand its global reach and more talent rises to the surface.“When you’re in that position, you’re willing to do anything,” said Martin, who was an all-conference player at Nevada but went undrafted in 2019. “And I think more teams are starting to appreciate that.”Consider that 126 undrafted players, representing about a quarter of the league, found their way onto N.B.A. rosters this season. But no team leaned on the overshadowed, the snubbed and the slighted more than the Heat did, with undrafted players scoring a league-high 33.8 percent of the team’s points during the regular season, according to N.B.A. Advanced Stats. The Nets ranked second in that category, with undrafted players accounting for 24 percent of the team’s points.Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra noted that two of his best players — Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, who has been sidelined with a broken hand since the first round — were high first-round picks. Forward Jimmy Butler, who was brilliant on Wednesday, collecting 35 points, 7 assists and 6 steals, joined the team in a sign-and-trade with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019. But he was a late first-round pick, by Chicago, in 2011. In other words, the Heat like name-brand stars, too.Some teams, like Oklahoma City and San Antonio, have stockpiled draft picks through trades, but the Heat have not. Instead, Spoelstra said, the team has needed to be creative about how to fill out its roster. Many of Miami’s undrafted players have come up through its G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Spoelstra said players in the G League or from overseas are often just as talented as some N.B.A. reserves.“It’s all about timing and fit, and what a player’s fortitude is,” he said, adding: “If you have a big dream and want to be challenged, we feel like this can be the place for a lot of those kinds of guys.”Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem, center, rarely plays now, in his 20th season, but he unleashed a vintage performance on April 9 with 24 points. He’s retiring after the playoffs.Lynne Sladky/Associated PressAnd if Spoelstra needs any help gauging (or enhancing) that fortitude, he can turn to Udonis Haslem, a power forward who went undrafted in 2002, spent his first professional season in France and joined the Heat the following year. Now 42, Haslem has been with Miami ever since.“I think organizations are doing a better job of doing their homework and not just assuming, because a guy didn’t get drafted, that he can’t help you win,” Haslem said. “You can’t measure character or discipline or accountability at the draft combine, and a lot of those things sometimes get overlooked.”Haslem has played sparingly in recent seasons, but he has outsize influence in the locker room, including as the self-appointed dean of the undrafted. Those who are new to the team get a one-on-one conversation with Haslem, who tells them about his three championship rings and about how anything is possible. But they had better be prepared to work, because Haslem will be watching.“I take it personally when an undrafted guy comes here,” he said. “I want them to be successful because I feel like that’s a piece of my legacy.”His legacy now includes the likes of Vincent, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee as a junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was early in his rehab when Joe Pasternack was hired as the team’s new coach.“The first call I got,” Pasternack said, “was from Gabe Vincent saying: ‘Coach, tell me what you need me to do. Do you need me to call the players? Set up a team meeting?’ That left an impression.”Vincent was back in uniform for the start of his senior season. But after averaging just 12.4 points a game, he landed in the G League with the Stockton Kings. A few weeks into Vincent’s first season there, Pasternack had an opening for a full-time assistant and offered him the job. Pasternack believed in Vincent as a player, but he also knew he was grinding away without any guarantees.Miami Heat guard Gabe Vincent hurt his knee in college and went undrafted.Bob Dechiara/USA Today Sports Via Reuters Con“I just saw so many kids in the G League not going anywhere,” Pasternack said. “But I also thought he was such an unbelievable leader that he’d be a great assistant coach.”Vincent politely declined the offer.“I was sort of like ‘Joe, what are you talking about?’” Vincent recalled, laughing. “I don’t know why he keeps telling that story, and I’ve told him that: ‘Joe, this does not make you look good!’”Vincent signed a two-way deal with the Heat during the 2019-20 season and slowly began to work his way into the rotation. He averaged a career-high 9.4 points a game this season. He is due for a significant payday this summer as an unrestricted free agent.Strus thought he could someday make a living playing basketball in Europe. That was the goal when he was at Lewis University. It was not until his second day on campus after transferring to DePaul that his mind-set changed. Dave Leitao, who was then the team’s coach, told him that he could have a future in the N.B.A.“It was huge,” Strus said. “I’d never been told that in my life.”As a first-year pro during the 2019-20 season, Strus was cut by the Celtics and then tore his left A.C.L. in a game with the G League’s Windy City Bulls. He signed a two-way deal with the Heat the following season. On Wednesday, he grabbed the game’s final rebound.“I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity they’ve given me here,” he said. More