Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ This was the situation just a month and a half ago. Miami lost the play in game against the Hawks and were trailing at the end of their final chance to reach the playoffs. The Heat’s run to the finals might just be the most miraculous one that we’ve ever seen. But they are such a confident group of guys that first Butler guaranteed even last year that they’ll be back and win it. And he kept the same attitude this season as well. Then, having Boston come back and force a game 7, what did the Heat do? They booked a flight from Boston directly to Denver. They were not going to lose this game by any means. Did you see Butler’s reaction at the end? We need to discuss that. The guy was ice cold, the entire time. No celebration, no excitement. As if he’s already focused on the finals. This is the true mamba mentality. And you see there’s zero emotion even when they give him the conference finals MVP. Which btw, this should have absolutely been Caleb Martin. He averaged 19.3 points and 6.4 rebounds, while shooting, get this: 60.2 percent from the field and 48.9 percent from downtown. This type of efficiency is unreal, and it almost makes you think there’s a typo somewhere. He capped off his incredible effort with a 26 and 10 in the deciding game 7. And while we’re giving credit where credit is due, a massive shoutout to Derrick White for his amazing performance, both offensively with an insane efficiency similar to Caleb, but combine that with the phenomenal defensive effort, literally locking down Jimmy Butler at times. Up until last night Jimmy shot a combined 12 for 31 a horrible 38% when guarded by White. But all of that is behind Butler and the Heat now as they face Denver in the finals, and they won’t be able to utilize the zone defense as much as they have against Boston. Check out this stat. The Nuggets scored 1.169 PPP against zone during the regular season. That ranked first in the NBA. And you know that anything over 1.1 is absolutely elite efficiency. Compare that to Boston who had 3 games of the conference finals shooting in the 20s from downtown. That won’t happen against Denver. Regardless of what’s going to happen I gotta admit that I’ve been secretly rooting for this finals matchup because I love both how Denver is playing, and the fact that Nikola Jokic was able to shut everyone up, all the doubters by going to the finals. If he wins, I’ll be so happy for him. On the flip side, I just idolize the dog mentality that this Miami team has, especially Jimmy Butler. We gotta be honest here- he doesn’t have anywhere near the talent that some elite level players have, but he still finds ways to consistently get wins for his team. Just think about it, in the 4 years that he’s been with the Heat, they’ve made the conference finals 3 times out of which this is going to be his 2nd trip to the finals. When literally nobody expected that to happen. Not a single season have they been among the top favorites, and yet they still go far in the playoffs year after year. You gotta admire and respect that. So I’m just going to enjoy these finals in a win-win situation, being happy with whoever wins. The Nuggets are of course the favorites but with everything I’ve seen from Miami there’s no way that I’m writing them off. Let me know in the comments who you got winning it all. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.