Usually, many wouldn’t be surprised if the Miami Heat cause several upsets and make some noise in the playoffs.
Since 2020, the Heat have made three appearances in the Eastern Conference Finals and two in the NBA Finals behind Jimmy Butler. With him being on the Golden State Warriors, Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo have taken over as leaders of the team.
After their 109-90 victory against the Chicago Bulls, the Heat are one victory away from reaching their sixth consecutive postseason appearance. Unfortunately, they will face the Atlanta Hawks, who have beaten the Heat in their last two matchups in the Play-In Tournament.
On the Nightcap Show, Chad Johnson is confident the Heat will beat the Hawks and believes people shouldn’t be surprised if they make it out of the Eastern Conference.
“This is what you can expect from the Heat,” Johnson explained. “I don’t care who our matchup is, obviously. I’m going to tell you this, we might come out of the East. I don’t want anybody to be surprised. Now you saw what Bam Adebayo did tonight. You saw what Tyler Herro did tonight. You saw the contribution we got from everybody else. If the Heat come out of the East, I don’t want to hear nothing about anybody being surprised or that we can’t believe this happened. They let Jimmy Butler go, and they were still able to make it out of the East.”
LEBRON JAMES’S AGENT CLAIMS THERE WASN’T A “BIG 3” WITH MIAMI HEAT
Over a decade later, LeBron James’s four-year run with the Miami Heat remains among the greatest teams in the NBA’s history.
The trio of James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh resulted in the Heat’s most successful run in franchise history. They won two championships and made four finals appearances. Before each season, they had the highest odds of winning a championship.
Bosh’s great play and sacrifice were a significant reason for their impressive run. Despite arguably being a top-10 player in the league while on the Toronto Raptors, Bosh took a diminished role on the Heat as the third option behind James and Wade. He averaged 17.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.6 assists on 51 percent shooting and 30.2 percent from three-point range.
Rich Paul says Wade, LeBron and Bosh wasn’t a “big 3” “When you think about it, Bosh was the ultimate professional, he took a back seat and played a role”
In an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, Rich Paul explained why Bosh’s relegation to a role player with the Heat is why he doesn’t consider them a big three.
“I always love a big two,” Paul said. “I don’t really love a big three. People talk big three, but the big three thing has never really worked. And you’ll say, well, what happened in Miami? That wasn’t really a big three. There were three guys that went in the lottery, and they did really well individually on their teams, so they put up big numbers and had big accomplishments. But when you think about it, Bosh was the ultimate professional. He took a back seat and played a role in which, because he had such a high IQ and was such a professional as an individual, his approach to everything is what made that work.”
DUNCAN ROBINSON CALLS OUT MIAMI HEAT’S “MARKETING” STUNT
The Miami Heat’s famous “Heat Culture” motto has gained popularity in recent years.
Now, the slogan has become a topic of mockery for many NBA fans, including Heat supporters. Despite being one of the most successful organizations in the league, with three championships and seven Finals appearances, most disagreed with the team’s creation of the Culture Jerseys and Culture Court, which detailed a short explanation of the values they pride themselves on. Having things such as those painted a target on the Heat, and it wasn’t a good look when it resulted in a Play-In Tournament loss and a first-round exit to the Boston Celtics in five games.
On the Young Man and the Three podcast, Duncan Robinson explained he was also wasn’t a fan of the Heat’s idea to create tangible aspects to market the standards they try to live by.
“Yeah, I think a lot of it stems from Coach Riley,” Robinson said. “Obviously, I love the organization and I have benefited from it a lot. We had some great runs and great times. I will say, when they started to sort of shift into like a marketing thing, I think it lost a little bit. At least for me, as somebody who, when I got there, I didn’t necessarily know about Heat Culture or hear about it in that way. And then you get in between the walls and see it manifest in the day-to-day. Then you buy into this. I’m not coming at the missteps of the organization, but when we had the Culture jerseys and were on the court, I think it ripened us for people to make fun of us.”
