The Miami Heat were not supposed to finish in this situation, especially as expectations gave him less than a 1% chance of winning the NBA title, just 7 weeks ago, but he is now in the final scene, facing the Denver Nuggets.
Denver, coached by Michael Malone, looks like a juggernaut, swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Division final, after leading this division during the regular season, and has Serbian giants Nikola Jokic, supported by Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., and the rest of the players who showed tremendous improvement.
In the first game of the league final, Jokic served as a central point in the Nuggets' performance, earning the Triple Double (27 points, 10 rebounds, and 14 assists), while others stood out for his assists such as Murray and Aaron Gordon. .
Miami's return in this series, based on the evidence of the first game lost by the 93-104, seems difficult, but this is the beauty of a series of 7 games, and if he somehow can steal the second game in Colorado, he will stand a good chance of competing for the title, based on previous team experiences.
Almost the entire season has been upside-down for Miami, and he will continue on a winding path to the end.
The loss came in Game 1 on Thursday night when the team suffered a lot of out-of-the-arc corrections, earning only two free throws (a record for any team in the final round).
In the 2006 finals, Miami lost the first two games in Dallas, woke up after the second game, and won the next four, winning the title under Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal.
In 2012, Miami lost the first game in Oklahoma City by 11 points, just like the score margin of last Thursday's game, winning the next four games with LeBron James alongside Wade.
In 2013, Miami stepped up after losing the first game to defeat the San Antonio Spurs in a series of 7 classic games, assisted by veteran star Ray Allen, who managed a fatal hat-trick in the seventh.
The current team includes many players hungry for the title, but none of them have reached the Giants' ranks in league history, except for one player whose career has experienced many ups and downs.
He is Jaiki Butler, whose responsibility is double, as the team's field leader, and there along with the 2019 overall league title winner, former Toronto Raptors player Kyle Laurie, as well as US team member winning Tokyo 2020 Olympics gold Bam Adebayo.
Beyond the arc, calm player Duncan Robertson stands out, while Caleb Martin and Max Stross can play very important roles, although luck did not stand by them in the first game against Denver.
It is true that in this series Miami lacks the services of Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo because of their injury in the first round of the elimination stage, but he has the weapons to fight the Denver Nuggets, and the winding path may be considered his luck mascot in this series.