LET’S be honest. Do you believe Miami Heat can win again today (Wednesday, PHL time) to forge a 2-2 tie with the Los Angeles Lakers in their seven-game National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals?
If you do, then that’s tantamount to favoring Heat history.
To get this far, the overmatched Heat yielded two losses before wrapping up a 4-2 victory over Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals.
It could be happening again for Miami, running away with a 115-104 victory on Monday behind Jimmy Butler’s 40-point, triple-double effort to trim down the Lakers’ lead to 2-1.
Carried by emotion at the sight of an impending victory, Butler, after a drive off LeBron James to make it a 109-100 Heat lead with 1:13 left to play, barked at James: “You are in trouble.”
Although a stung James quickly countered with a forceful dunk at the 1:09 mark, terrible Tyler Herro completed a three-point play for a 112-102 Miami margin before Heat’s Duncan Robinson hit a three 115-102 with only 29 ticks left.
“We also belong here [Finals],” boasted afterward by Butler. “They can be beaten, too.”
So badly beaten were the Lakers, in fact, that James, the Lakers’ leader since moving to Los Angeles in 2018 from Cleveland, walked out of the court with still nine seconds left—disappointed but nonetheless cognizant of Miami’s masterful showing, of Butler’s one-man demolition job.
“They came out and executed well,” said James. “Jimmy [Butler] had his hand in all those plays.”
James’s 25 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists paled in comparison to Butler’s 40 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists.
Butler even engineered Miami’s final breakaway when the Lakers threatened at 94-97, stringing up 10 points—including 8 straight—in forging that 109-100 Heat bulge with 73 ticks left.
Butler, 31, has always been the Heat hero in the playoffs, spearheading Miami’s decisive wins over Indiana (4-0) in the quarters, Milwaukee (4-1) in the semis and Boston (4-2) in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Miami’s 12-3 playoffs record can only be equaled by the Lakers, who scored identical 4-1 wins over Portland, Houston and Denver on their return to the Finals after a 10-year championship drought.
The Lakers need two more wins to end the franchise’s longest losing title streak, winning last in 2010 behind the heroics of Kobe Bryant. Bryant died in a chopper crash in January, the reason James and the Lakers are bent on winning the crown and dedicating it to “Black Mamba.”
But will it happen at Lake Buena Vista, Florida, this time without the roaring fans in Los Angeles’s Staples Center?
It will but only if Butler, 31, gets to be stopped rampaging beginning on Wednesday—by James himself.
But before doing that, James, 35, must also minimize his turnovers. He committed 8 of the Lakers’ 19 miscues in Game 3—a stat as horrible as the rising number of casualties amid the pandemic.
Likewise, for the Lakers to derail the Heat’s momentum, Anthony Davis must regain his bearings as his 15-point effort in Game 3 was a far cry from his 34-32 in Games 1 and 2.
Only when the Deadly Duo (James and Davis) are in the zone that the Lakers can honestly lay claim to their record-tying 17th NBA title since the league’s birth in 1947.
But will Butler back down?
THAT’S IT Nice to know that Calvin Abueva, suspended indefinitely for roughness, has gotten his license back to play in the PBA bubble. Indeed, everybody deserves a second chance. Abueva must shed off his beast tag from hereon for his future’s sakes.