The best pic of the game. Ferocious will, bigger than life; shrinking, out of focus abdication.

The identity of the Heat hasn’t been tied to a high-powered offense or a stout defense or a transcendent superstar that’s carried them every night.

They can transform into any kind of team on any given night. They’re the chameleons of the Eastern Conference.

If Jimmy Butler has to turn into “Playoff Jimmy” he can do just that. If they need to hit a bunch of 3-pointers, they’re capable. When it’s time for Bam Adebayo to lock some folks up, he’s more than able.

Very true.

For some, the success of this team and “Playoff Jimmy” may be interpreted as further evidence of the regular season losing its meaning.

How important can the regular season be if the Heat, which finished with a 44-38 record, can just turn it on when the playoffs start and morph into one of the biggest threats in the East?

On Monday night, Spoelstra argued the exact opposite.

...

In his estimation, the Heat has been able to respond the way they have because of the ups and downs they experienced during the season, not despite them. Great teams don’t reach their destination without some bumps along the way that force them to look within.

How can a team know its true character without having it tested along the way?

The Heat had several down moments that brought on serious questions about if this group had what it took to get back to the postseason. ...

Well, you all know how I feel about that. Let's take Spoelstra at face value, regular season cause-postseason effect. So he saw this coming?  No he did not. 

"...without that struggle where we didn't have to find different solutions to win and different guys stepping up so that they had the confidence for these kind of moments."

They didn't find solutions to win 38 games. 46% of the regular season games they didn't find solutions to win.

"If we didn't have a regular season, then you have zero chance to be able to do that in the playoffs."

If we hadn't lost 46% of regular season games we would have had 0% chance to win games in the playoffs. No. 

We needed those losses, all 38 of them. No. If they had had just one more of those valuable learning moments they would be sitting at home today. 

If we had lost 28 we would have been "without that struggle" that caused our postseason success. No. 

I wrote at the beginning of the season that Miami was old, tired and stale. They had won 53 games in the 2021/22 regular season. They had gone to the last possession of the 7th game of the penultimate Association playoff series. They had played an even 100 games before their season ended on May 29. Excluding training camp and preseason games their first regular season game of the 2022/23 season was on Oct. 19. They lost. Then they lost their second game. Both at home. They were emotionally and physically tired. They weren't playing "Heat" defense. They were getting injured. They were a year older and all of it was getting old. There was no significant injection of talent, it was the same old faces and they were getting on each others nerves. Look at Erik Spoelstra's eyes from playoff pressers. On that still boyish face the bags under the eyes are shocking. He is physically and emotionally drained.

This is the truth: The "Heat" did not have the will in the regular season that they have shown in the playoffs. 

This may be the truth: They were conserving themselves physically and emotionally on the court. Fifty-three wins had gotten them what exactly the season before? While critics like me, and far more important ones than I, bayed the "Heat" smoldered. A slow-burning fire of hate was building from the top in 601 Biscayne down to the 15th player on the roster. The trade deadline came and went in Cash Considerations. This group was going to be kept together, forced to be together to twist in the wind and wither, in which event momentous changes would be made in the summer, or that smoldering fire would burst on the Association. The org wanted to see every last game this roster played. After the All-Star break Jimmy Butler was a player transformed. From top down this organization hated Milwaukee, hated New York and hates Boston and Philadelphia. Neither the "Celtics" nor "Sixers" will win against the white-hot hate of this "Heat."

This is not the truth: “I think that we found the value in the grind of a regular season. In the grind and the struggle. I've said that repeatedly. We found a beauty in that struggle, but without that struggle where we didn't have to find different solutions to win and different guys stepping up so that they had the confidence for these kind of moments. If we didn't have a regular season, then you have zero chance to be able to do that in the playoffs."