The Miami “Heat” were humiliated tonight.
In the Magic City the Milwaukee "Male Deer" completed a four games to zero finger-flick of the “Heat,” who just last June had made MIL their does four games to uno.
Only one game in this series was close, the first, a 109-107 win in overtime in Beer. The next three games Miami lost by:
34
29
17
Both of my favorite pro sports teams have questions to answer going into the offseason. For City, do they need a true 9? Do they need to get bigger? Does Pep have to tweak tiki-taka? Thomas Tuchel figured City out in his half year with Chelsea. He has now beat them three straight, denying them the FA Cup in the first and the Champions League trophy today. And Ole Gunnar Solskjær has figured City out crosstown at RayJay. Solskjær has beaten City three straight times at Etihad Stadium. Manchester "Buccaneers" were runners-up to City in the Premier League in the season just ended. Tiki-taka is not the Theory of Relativity; folks can wrap their heads around it, and they are doing so.
For the "Heat" the questions are, in the details, similar to those of Manchester City: do they need a true 5?; do they need to get bigger overall?; do they trust Bam Adebayo enough to give him a max contract? City's decision to let Sergio Aguero walk is, at immense stretch, arguably comparable, at least in angst; does Spo's positionless basketball, like Pep's tiki-taka, need a rework?
But the forest must not be missed for telescoping on trees. There is a systemic question for Miami to answer that City does not have: Does the very identity of the franchise, Pat Riley and the "Culture," need to change? As I keep reminding, the "Heat" is an average (double entendre) .529 in the seven seasons since LeBron James left. Riley eschews draft picks for aging, often troubled and troublesome veterans. They don't have two of the three superstars the c.w. holds an NBA team needs to win a championship, they have one star, minus the super, and a one-year all-star reserve who was uncomfortably passive at the end of the regular season and in this four-game debacle. Milwaukee outrebounded Miami tonight 56-40. 56-40! And Bam had a great stat line, 20 pts, 14 boards. Bam's great game on paper didn't come close to getting the "Heat" even close.
There's puzzling history: the "Heat" has played a putrid (11-30) first half of the season and then a scorching second half (30-11); a blazing first half (24-9) and a skidding second half (10-11 (last season before COVID canceled it)), followed by a bubbly playoff run all the way to the Finals. Why this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
How serious was the Jimmy-Spo contretemps? Shams Charania reported that there were also tensions among players. Jimmy did call out (with plausible deniability) Bam this winter. Spo tried to feature Bam in a leading role in an early-season game, calling an iso for him with the game on the line in the closing seconds. Bam made the basket, dribbling a few times like a guard and hoisting a 10-foot jumper. That was not the move that Spoelstra--or Butler or Riley--had in mind. They wanted Bam to "impose his will," to “bully" (Jimmy's word at a different point on Bam) his way by backing his man down, back-to-basket, and then dunking or hitting a peep.
Is Jimmy an asshole? He's had relationship issues in Minnesota and Philly. Is Jimmy a problem in the locker room?
The answers to these questions, detailed and systemic, lie in the breast of the aging consigliere who sits alone in his darkened chambers in an increasingly bleak house by the bay, sips his port, and keeps these family secrets close. The local beat writers, intimidated by him, are wary of revealing the secrets they do know and are not exactly Woodward and Bernstein in unlocking those they don't. Manchester City do not have the weight of .529 stealing up on them, now crouching on their chests like the hyena in Snows of Kilimanjaro, growing weightier and weightier until it presses life’s breath out of them. The hyena sits at 601 Biscayne Blvd.
