Speaker 1: My relationship with him is incredible. D Wade, He's a
Speaker 1: brother of mine. He supports everything that we do. You know,
Speaker 1: we call him, you know, Wade County Day County like
Speaker 1: because he really represents hometown and we.
Speaker 2: Love that about him.
Speaker 1: Lebron chains another brother that just him and his whole team,
Speaker 1: Maverick and Rich Paul, It's the whole Lebron family. We've
Speaker 1: always showed me love and I was blessed to do
Speaker 1: like commercials with Lebron, and we've done a lot of
Speaker 1: great things outside of basketball. Anytime I've seen Chris Bosh
Speaker 1: out there, another brother that just with pure lover, always
Speaker 1: showed me love and the legend man. We had a
Speaker 1: squad that was unstoppable.
Speaker 3: The squad DJ Khaled was so proud of. They did
Speaker 3: seem unstoppable. Even after a game Lebron James was forced
Speaker 3: out of because of the ninety five degree temperature inside
Speaker 3: San Antonio's arena, Miammi just went on to win Game
Speaker 3: two and were right back in the same position as
Speaker 3: they were the previous season. Welcome back to four years
Speaker 3: of Heat. This is episode eight, the finale, as the
Speaker 3: Heat and Spurs prepared for Game three in Miami. There
Speaker 3: wasn't a lot that differentiated the twenty fourteen Finals from
Speaker 3: the twenty thirteen version. The Spurs started the series with
Speaker 3: home court advantage, which was different, but by the time
Speaker 3: they'd reached Miami for Game three, they'd lost that, and
Speaker 3: there's no way the insertion of Boris Diao into the
Speaker 3: starting light up ahead of Thiago Splitter would make that
Speaker 3: much of a difference for the Spurs. Even an older
Speaker 3: team like Miami can get the necessary boost from their
Speaker 3: now seasoned home fans to carry them through. Plus the
Speaker 3: allrea of a three peat, an accomplishment that hadn't been
Speaker 3: executed since Kobe and Shacks Lakers from two thousand to
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, would provide just the necessary motivation
Speaker 3: given how close Miami was to finishing the job.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Miami, Game three of the NBA Finals, Let's
Speaker 4: go Heat.
Speaker 3: Well, those thoughts lasted for about the next twelve minutes
Speaker 3: of basketball. Once the series returned to the Heat's house.
Speaker 3: This is where the nice guy Spurs would hand out
Speaker 3: one of the most sobering defeats of this Heat era,
Speaker 3: a different kind of stunning than the MAVs in twenty
Speaker 3: eleven The first quarter alone told the story of this series.
Speaker 3: In it, the Spurs shot eighty seven percent. I'll say
Speaker 3: that again. The Spurs shot eighty seven percent in the
Speaker 3: first quarter of an NBA Finals game. They missed two
Speaker 3: of their fifteen shots. They missed none of their three pointers.
Speaker 3: The Spurs assisted on nine of their thirteen baskets in
Speaker 3: the period, and for good measure on the defensive end,
Speaker 3: blocked two heat shots and grabbed two steals.
Speaker 5: Mills, He'll penetrate Moule's pass left corner.
Speaker 6: Letard, great ball bo but by the Spurs.
Speaker 7: The WHII.
Speaker 8: Leonard loads up and knocks down.
Speaker 4: A three thirty eight to twenty three Spurs pike fifteen.
Speaker 9: Ye great executioner, great execution.
Speaker 5: This is a Spurs team that is running the offense
Speaker 5: to perfection.
Speaker 3: On the heat side, Lebron James nearly matched the Spurs
Speaker 3: brilliance in that opening quarter. He missed one of his
Speaker 3: six attempts, scoring fourteen points with an assist and no turnovers.
Speaker 3: The rest of the heat weren't terrible either. Miami shot
Speaker 3: fifty three percent for the period and somehow found themselves
Speaker 3: trailing by sixteen after just twelve minutes of play. There
Speaker 3: was barely a drop off in the second quarter for
Speaker 3: San Antonio. The Spurs shot an NBA Finals record for
Speaker 3: a half of nearly seventy six percent and led at
Speaker 3: halftime seventy one to fifty. The Diau addition to the
Speaker 3: starting lineup made San Antonio's ball movement as crisp as
Speaker 3: it had been all season, and at just the perfect time,
Speaker 3: they were exercising demons in the most enjoyable way possible.
Speaker 4: Leonard finish a straw with the right half.
Speaker 3: The Heat closed to within seven points in the third
Speaker 3: quarter and within ten in the fourth, but the Spurs
Speaker 3: always responded with devastating shots and extended runs. In the end,
Speaker 3: the Spurs won Game three by nineteen points, taking back
Speaker 3: the home court edge and snatching back the mental advantage.
Speaker 4: It has just been one of the great offensive starts
Speaker 4: in NBA playoff history. Spurs with a huge response here
Speaker 4: in Game three and now lead the twenty fourteen NBA
Speaker 4: Finals two games to one. Well the resounding road win
Speaker 4: here in Miami.
Speaker 3: Greg Popovich summed up his team's near perfect performance in
Speaker 3: the postgame press conference.
Speaker 10: I don't think we'll ever shoot seventy six percent in
Speaker 10: a half. Ever, again, it's the NBA Finals. Well, you
Speaker 10: can't do be me and ocre out there if you
Speaker 10: want to win a game. Everybody's going to play well.
Speaker 3: But even that performance wasn't enough to fully convince Boris
Speaker 3: Diau that the Spurs had taken control of the series.
Speaker 7: We felt that we played great, but we know what
Speaker 7: it is and we know the playoffs. It's not because
Speaker 7: game three we shooting seventy five and everything goes well,
Speaker 7: that Game four is going to be the same because
Speaker 7: we saw the service before. Sometimes you win by twenty
Speaker 7: in the next game you lose by twenty, so you
Speaker 7: still got a you know, state focused.
Speaker 3: DL's teammate Matt Bonner would play sparingly in this series,
Speaker 3: but he was just as engaged as any of his teammates,
Speaker 3: who all still felt the pain of losing those last
Speaker 3: two games in American Airlines Arena a year earlier.
Speaker 11: We got home court advantage back, and I don't want
Speaker 11: to say we were satisfied with that, but you know,
Speaker 11: if we went back to San Antonio two to two
Speaker 11: with home court advantage, we would have been We're like,
Speaker 11: all right, we did what we came here to do,
Speaker 11: and I remember Coach Pop read that on us and
Speaker 11: brought everybody in and was in our face like we
Speaker 11: didn't come here to get one We came here to
Speaker 11: get two wins, you know, So wipe the smiles off
Speaker 11: your faces and let's be ready to play Game four.
Speaker 11: And then we came out that Game four is really
Speaker 11: the game where we ripped their hearts out.
Speaker 3: The Spurs had taken the hearts of the Heat and
Speaker 3: not even the white hot home crowd could revive them.
Speaker 3: San Antonio shot fifty seven percent in Game four, a
Speaker 3: small drop off from the fifty nine in Game three,
Speaker 3: and won even more comfortably by twenty one points.
Speaker 4: Green Fine split up beautiful feet at Dawl.
Speaker 10: In the finish shot.
Speaker 4: San Antonio has a double figure lead here in game four.
Speaker 4: They've had a double figure lead in each game. Was
Speaker 4: a series. Oh what a beautiful look for Boris d
Speaker 4: ol time out.
Speaker 10: The time out called by Eric Spolster.
Speaker 9: You guys are doing a great job of moving the
Speaker 9: ball as usual.
Speaker 10: Now we got a lead again.
Speaker 9: It doesn't mean to be conservative. It means we don't
Speaker 9: need to to make them guard.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't just the ball movement that made the
Speaker 3: Spurs offense nearly unguardable this series. It wasn't just that
Speaker 3: Danny Green and Patty Mills and manager Nobli were all
Speaker 3: hitting their perimeter shots. There was one particular emerging force
Speaker 3: that officially tipped the scales in the Spurs direction.
Speaker 6: Mills not that time.
Speaker 12: Leonard on the follow slam Kawhi Leonard.
Speaker 3: Wow, he came out of nowhere and have it at home.
Speaker 3: Kawhi Leonard, in his third season, was becoming an offensive
Speaker 3: force matching what was already a defensive Player of the
Speaker 3: Year caliber defense. There's an easy to find clip from
Speaker 3: the twenty thirteen finals of Lebron James turning to the
Speaker 3: scorers table as Leonard was re entering Game five and
Speaker 3: responding with a noticeable WinCE. According to Bonner, that was
Speaker 3: pretty much every player's reaction to seeing Kawhi.
Speaker 11: I felt like Kawhi had everybody's number defensively, To be
Speaker 11: honest with you, like, I remember my first time playing
Speaker 11: against Kawhi when he was just to skinny rookie.
Speaker 9: It was the lockout year, so like everybody just came
Speaker 9: in in December. There was no like off season team
Speaker 9: workouts or training camp or anything really I was like,
Speaker 9: all right, get you got a few days to get ready,
Speaker 9: and then we're going to start playing all these games
Speaker 9: back to back to backs, the whole nine.
Speaker 11: And I remember, like normally I see like a skinny
Speaker 11: rookie come in, I'm gonna try to beast him. And
Speaker 11: I remember I got the ball and I'd just like,
Speaker 11: I'm just going to drive right through Kawhi and I
Speaker 11: drove into his chest and it was like driving into
Speaker 11: a brick wall.
Speaker 9: And I remember the first hit.
Speaker 11: I got knocked back and thinking like wait, what, how
Speaker 11: is that physically possible? And then the second time, I'm like,
Speaker 11: I'm gonna do it again. I go and he already
Speaker 11: had the ball from me and was going in the
Speaker 11: other direction. He just ripped me with his giant hands.
Speaker 11: It was right, So like immediately I'm like, all right,
Speaker 11: this guy, this is a different type of cat right here.
Speaker 11: I would not want to have him guarding me. So
Speaker 11: I'm sure Lebron or anybody else in the league would
Speaker 11: have that same attitude inside.
Speaker 4: Chummers third man to the rim Anderson w from.
Speaker 9: Behind by Leonard Kawhi.
Speaker 11: That series offensively grew up because he was able to
Speaker 11: just go get buckets on offense you mentioned, Yeah, we
Speaker 11: did rely on the beautiful game and ball movement, but
Speaker 11: we had possessions where if that's all we had, would
Speaker 11: have been dead possessions. But Kawhi could get the ball
Speaker 11: in a position and just go make something happen and score,
Speaker 11: go into the basket, or he got confidence in his
Speaker 11: three point shot, especially from the corners or his little
Speaker 11: pull up jumpers. It really clicked for him offensively. And yeah,
Speaker 11: I mean playing team basketball on offense and point five
Speaker 11: in the beautiful game and all that's great, but at
Speaker 11: certain points in the playoffs, the game is slower, it's physical.
Speaker 11: You need guys that can just go get you a bucket,
Speaker 11: and Kawhi was that for us, became that for us
Speaker 11: in that series letters drive finish.
Speaker 3: In games one and two, Leonard didn't even crack double figures,
Speaker 3: scoring nine points in each of them, but in game
Speaker 3: three he led the Spurs with twenty nine and somehow
Speaker 3: was more dominant in Game four with twenty points, fourteen rebounds,
Speaker 3: three assists, three steals and three block shots.
Speaker 9: You know you made some shots.
Speaker 13: You played your z.
Speaker 3: There couldn't be more FRAUDI of Game five in San
Speaker 3: Antonio would feel very much like Lebron's first title, but
Speaker 3: in reverse. The same way the Thunder effectively conceded to Miami.
Speaker 3: By Game five and twenty twelve, the Heat had nothing
Speaker 3: left for the Spurs in this one. Lebron summoned his
Speaker 3: powers for a thirty one ten to five line, but
Speaker 3: Bosh and Wade could only combine for twenty four points,
Speaker 3: while no other Heat player hit double figure. The Spurs
Speaker 3: would celebrate their fifth championship in franchise history, beating Miami
Speaker 3: in five games behind Leonard as the finals MVP.
Speaker 4: The San Antonio Spurs are the world champions.
Speaker 6: The Spurs of capture their fifth and THEA championship.
Speaker 7: Oh oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 14: That's that's what it's about.
Speaker 15: Baby, right, yes worthy.
Speaker 3: Multiple time champions Greg Popovich, Tony Parker, and Tim Duncan
Speaker 3: discussed how meaningful this title was after the heartbreak of
Speaker 3: losing to Miami the previous season.
Speaker 10: As every championship is different, and all the other ones
Speaker 10: were special and the groups were great, but this had
Speaker 10: to be the sweetest just because of what we endured
Speaker 10: last year.
Speaker 16: That's the sweetest championship is my favorite one out of
Speaker 16: my four. Because of what happened last year and has
Speaker 16: been seven years. We celebrating like as first, our first win.
Speaker 17: This one was more special than any others, the journey
Speaker 17: that we've been through in the last two years, everything
Speaker 17: together because of the time between the championships. I appreciate
Speaker 17: every game more. I appreciate every accomplishment knowing that it
Speaker 17: might be the last time I do it. You put
Speaker 17: all those things together, and it makes this one that
Speaker 17: much more special for me.
Speaker 3: Afterward, while the Spurs were rejoicing with their home fans,
Speaker 3: the Heat players were coming to grips with what felt
Speaker 3: like an ending. It certainly was a conclusion for Shane Battier, Well,
Speaker 3: I retired.
Speaker 18: I knew I was retiring, you know. So that was
Speaker 18: my last game, and I knew I knew probably going
Speaker 18: into that into training camp that year. This was probably
Speaker 18: my last game. I probably should have retired after his
Speaker 18: sixth series in game seven years before. Looking back at it,
Speaker 18: I probably sho k off just walked off, But I said,
Speaker 18: I'm on one more year, you know, and like I
Speaker 18: wasn't on the grind anymore. My kids are getting older.
Speaker 18: I get to the gym, I say, I still like
Speaker 18: being here today, you know, I still want to play
Speaker 18: the game, and so like, when you're not willing to
Speaker 18: make that grind anymore and make those sacrifices, you're cheating
Speaker 18: the game. And you could cheat the game, you shouldn't
Speaker 18: be playing. And that was sort of like, not only
Speaker 18: my perspective, but I think all of all of us.
Speaker 18: We cheated the championship path in protocol and we still
Speaker 18: almost want it, which is funny. But we lose that
Speaker 18: game five in San Antonio and there was no one
Speaker 18: who was mad at that. We all just kind of
Speaker 18: like collectively sighed and said, man, that was an amazing run,
Speaker 18: and we all sort of felt that it was over.
Speaker 3: Looking back, the entire four year run felt like a
Speaker 3: constant test of the Heat culture that members of the
Speaker 3: organization constantly speak about. The team that embraces conflict and
Speaker 3: ignores outside opinions and plays harder and smarter defensively just
Speaker 3: couldn't maintain that necessary edge for any longer. The never
Speaker 3: ending pressure finally drained a team that was spectacularly defiant
Speaker 3: for four seasons. Here's the dean of Heat culture, you,
Speaker 3: Donnis Haslam.
Speaker 19: Yeah, No, it was a lot on us mentally physically
Speaker 19: and emotionally for those you know, those years playing the
Speaker 19: most basketball, playing the longest seasons. You know, I think
Speaker 19: we just didn't know how to handle it, you know,
Speaker 19: as a unit, you know what I'm saying. I think,
Speaker 19: you know, people just think it's just coming together playing basketball,
Speaker 19: winning games, And now that's part of what. We didn't
Speaker 19: handle the mental part of it very well, you know
Speaker 19: what I'm saying. The times that, you know, we should
Speaker 19: have took a mental break and got our minds off
Speaker 19: it and just you know, refreshed and refilled, you know
Speaker 19: what I'm saying. And I think towards the end, we
Speaker 19: just started all pouring from an empty cup, you know
Speaker 19: what I mean.
Speaker 9: And you can't do that.
Speaker 3: As Haslam stated, the Heat at this point, after four
Speaker 3: long seasons, didn't appear to have the necessary fight to
Speaker 3: match the Spurs in the two thousand and four team finals.
Speaker 3: So what did that mean for the future of this
Speaker 3: team and this core? From the start, the Heats Big
Speaker 3: three bonded to create a shield against the outside noise.
Speaker 3: According to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, those three
Speaker 3: emerged successful from so many heated battles it was difficult
Speaker 3: to imagine summoning that same energy again.
Speaker 2: Dwayne seemed tired, well, bronzeemed tired. I think they were
Speaker 2: all just tired. There were no breaks. It was four years,
Speaker 2: four finals, media tours, all the responsibilities, all the obligations,
Speaker 2: all the stuff they got Theirs into, you know, commercially,
Speaker 2: as far as endorsements and all that. But there was
Speaker 2: never a break. And I think a lot of it
Speaker 2: was just fatigue. I think the message had wrung. How okay,
Speaker 2: we came together, we proved everybody wrong, we won it twice.
Speaker 2: What's left to do? Like they ran out of villains,
Speaker 2: Like it was originally the media and the noise, and
Speaker 2: then it was losing the Dallas and then you know,
Speaker 2: how are we going to get past this? How were
Speaker 2: we going to get past that? Once they got past everything,
Speaker 2: they ran out of things to hate.
Speaker 3: They were also starting to run out of their reliable
Speaker 3: supporting cast. It wasn't just Battier, who played his last
Speaker 3: game that night in San Antonio. Brian Windhorst of ESPN
Speaker 3: noted just how much this team was relying on veterans
Speaker 3: to that point, making the prospect of several more years
Speaker 3: of deep playoff runs difficult to envision.
Speaker 8: When the series ended, two players essentially announced their retirement
Speaker 8: in the locker room, and this has never happened before.
Speaker 8: Shan Battier said I'm done, and Ray Allen said I'm
Speaker 8: probably done. And then Rashard Lewis, who started games in
Speaker 8: that finals, he ended up having to retire too. So
Speaker 8: they were basically only playing six or seven guys in
Speaker 8: that finals, and three of them were playing the last
Speaker 8: games of their career.
Speaker 3: What we didn't know at that time was Game five
Speaker 3: in San Antonio would also be the last playoff game
Speaker 3: of Bosh's career. The following season, in February of twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: Bosh was diagnosed with the pulmonary embolism, which is when
Speaker 3: a blood clot gets dislodged from another part of the
Speaker 3: body and travels to the lungs. He wouldn't play again
Speaker 3: that season, and in February of twenty sixteen, another blood
Speaker 3: clot was found, this time in Bosh's calf. He was
Speaker 3: eventually diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, a condition that would
Speaker 3: force him to retire from the game. His last NBA
Speaker 3: appearance ever was a regular season game on February ninth,
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, also against the Spurs on the same American
Speaker 3: Airlines Arena floor, where he grabbed an all timer of
Speaker 3: an offensive rebound and kicked it out to a back
Speaker 3: pedaling Ray Allen to adjust the course of NBA history.
Speaker 4: James Catchers puts up at three, We'll go recount, flash
Speaker 4: back out to Alan history toilet tie game with five
Speaker 4: seconds reverting.
Speaker 3: It was a sudden end to a career that was
Speaker 3: somehow still blossoming. Bosh was becoming the proto type NBA
Speaker 3: big man, having just reached thirty years old in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: Instead of seeing what he could truly become, we could
Speaker 3: only look back to that four year run of finals
Speaker 3: to truly assess his value. Here's Haslam.
Speaker 19: Chris Bosh was the key to that bro. A lot
Speaker 19: of people don't understand that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 19: As great as Dwayne was, it is the greatest lebron
Speaker 19: is and none of it works without Chris. None of
Speaker 19: it works without Chris.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 19: He was probably the guy that sacrificed the most but
Speaker 19: played the biggest role for us, if that makes sense.
Speaker 19: So I was just thankful for the four years spent
Speaker 19: the opportunities, the growth, the evolution, the success, the tears
Speaker 19: of joy, the tears of pain. I was just thankful
Speaker 19: for the entire experience.
Speaker 13: Man.
Speaker 19: Ain't no hard feelings, no no hate, no no, no,
Speaker 19: none of that. I was happy, man. And to this
Speaker 19: day we still maintain those relationships because nobody felt the way.
Speaker 19: You know what I'm saying. Everybody understood that we had
Speaker 19: a great four year run.
Speaker 20: Man.
Speaker 3: Everybody benefited, Perhaps no single individual benefited more than Lebron James.
Speaker 3: He'd hit more than a few career benchmarks. From twenty
Speaker 3: ten to fourteen. He'd won his first two titles and
Speaker 3: finals MVPs. He'd won two more regular season MVPs, matching
Speaker 3: Wilt Chamberlain's total of four and only leaving Bill Russell,
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar having more. He'd have
Speaker 3: his two most efficient seasons, sharpening his all around game
Speaker 3: with a set of post skills he didn't have upon arrival.
Speaker 3: Stan Van Gundy coached against Lebron in all three of
Speaker 3: his stops, but said Miami brought out the best defensive
Speaker 3: version of James. Lebron twice finished second in Defensive Player
Speaker 3: of the Year voting once in two thousand and nine
Speaker 3: with Cleveland, losing the award to Orlando's Dwight Howard, and
Speaker 3: once with the Heat in twenty thirteen, losing to Memphis's
Speaker 3: Mark Gasol. Here's stan Van Gundy on James's defensive development,
Speaker 3: and the thing.
Speaker 20: I will say in Miami is Lebron was always he's
Speaker 20: I thought a good defender, and certainly under Mike Brown
Speaker 20: in Cleveland he was good. But then he got there
Speaker 20: and like you said, he didn't have a huge, huge
Speaker 20: offensive role, or he did, but not outsized where he
Speaker 20: had to do everything. And you know, he got with
Speaker 20: other good defenders in a good system, and he was
Speaker 20: overwhelming defensively. I mean I thought there were if it
Speaker 20: weren't for Dwight at that time. I mean he had
Speaker 20: you know, he had years where he could have been
Speaker 20: defensive Player of the Year. Material. That's the biggest thing
Speaker 20: I saw from him in Miami was his defensive dominance.
Speaker 20: And we'd already seen it in Cleveland a little bit,
Speaker 20: but he carried a bigger offensive load there so was
Speaker 20: probably not able to devote as much to it.
Speaker 3: James had all the tools by twenty fourteen, and a
Speaker 3: decent amount of hardware too. It's why the loss to
Speaker 3: the Spurs could have been a bit mystifying for him.
Speaker 3: How could this Heat team lose in five games so
Speaker 3: easily when he remains the most destructive player on the planet.
Speaker 3: Did the Heat planned properly enough to maintain championship level
Speaker 3: play as he and Bosh enter their thirties, or did
Speaker 3: the Spurs just bring James to the realization that it
Speaker 3: was time to reassess it all. Jackie McMullin believed the
Speaker 3: Spurs forced James to look beyond Miami sooner than expected,
Speaker 3: as the league got a glimpse of the future.
Speaker 13: There's no doubt in my mind that that series made
Speaker 13: him realize, Yep, we can't beat Nope, we're done. I
Speaker 13: believe that with all my heart, and I go back
Speaker 13: and look on that series. The stan Antonio Spurs in
Speaker 13: Game three played one of the most perfect games of
Speaker 13: basketball I've ever seen in my life. It was the
Speaker 13: preview for the rest of the league. The NBA is
Speaker 13: a copycat league, always has been, and Bob Myers was
Speaker 13: going to be the GM of the Warriors. All the
Speaker 13: people watching that, everybody said, all right, this is what
Speaker 13: we got to do.
Speaker 3: And maybe Lebron was thinking about winning and filling those
Speaker 3: voids on his championship mantle at this point, or maybe
Speaker 3: he was thinking about what it felt like the previous
Speaker 3: time he'd lost in the finals in twenty eleven, when
Speaker 3: he found comfort in home. There had been signs, if
Speaker 3: you chose to see them as such, during Lebron's time
Speaker 3: in Miami that he signaled he might leave sooner than expected.
Speaker 3: Windhors saw them and knew a return to Cleveland would
Speaker 3: be in Lebron's future. He just wasn't sure exactly when.
Speaker 8: I knew he was seriously considering it, But I was
Speaker 8: just so careful is he not to say it? Because
Speaker 8: I just I didn't have the greatest feel when he
Speaker 8: opted out of his contract like ten days before he
Speaker 8: had to, and then when he took meetings, he actually
Speaker 8: was at the meetings, but when his agent took the meetings,
Speaker 8: I knew that he was seriously considering it, and I
Speaker 8: only thought he'd go to Cleveland. I mean, I had
Speaker 8: I knew he was going to go back to Cleveland
Speaker 8: in the winter of two thousand and twelve, his second
Speaker 8: year in Miami. I didn't know when it would be.
Speaker 8: And I really did think that he might try to
Speaker 8: give the Heat one more year because boj and Wade
Speaker 8: were still in their primes. There were still some p
Speaker 8: things that the Heat could have done in free agency
Speaker 8: to turn over the team, and they had kind of
Speaker 8: done that. They had drafted, They'd moved up in the
Speaker 8: draft to draft another guard, They'd signed a couple of
Speaker 8: free agents. I thought he might give the Heat one
Speaker 8: more year, but I did think he'd go back to Cleveland.
Speaker 8: I just didn't want to be the guy who said
Speaker 8: that he was going to go back and then he
Speaker 8: didn't go back.
Speaker 3: The next year, the Heat had secured free agents Josh
Speaker 3: McRoberts and former Pacers rival Danny Granger. They even drafted
Speaker 3: Shabbaz Napier out of Yukon, someone Lebron had mentioned was
Speaker 3: his favorite player in the draft. But James's desire to
Speaker 3: chase championships didn't dwindle after two rings. It only grew stronger.
Speaker 3: Here's battier again.
Speaker 18: Lebron has had more expectations around his career than anyone
Speaker 18: in the history of maybe sports, and he's delivered and
Speaker 18: then so okay, and so his his scorecard is different.
Speaker 18: But the way he judged, the way judges himself.
Speaker 3: It's different.
Speaker 18: And I think in his heart he knew the only
Speaker 18: way to get to Jordan the conversation with Jordan was
Speaker 18: to go back to Cleveland and win one there, because
Speaker 18: you know when winning one in Cleveland is worth two
Speaker 18: in Chicago discause of their history, and it was, and
Speaker 18: so I think Lebron was playing a bigger game. I
Speaker 18: think he's always felt that he wanted to give one
Speaker 18: to UH, to the Calves. So like I never thought
Speaker 18: that he was going to go to like l A
Speaker 18: from Miami or or somewhere else. I think I thought that,
Speaker 18: like if he left, he would he would go back
Speaker 18: to Cleveland. It's not something like he'd talk about. We
Speaker 18: didn't talk about it in the locker room or anything
Speaker 18: like that. It was just a feeling that like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 18: that makes sense, and like I wasn't I didn't begrudge him,
Speaker 18: and I totally understood.
Speaker 3: Lebron became a free agent and in late June of
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, when he exercised an early termination option in
Speaker 3: his contract. He held free agent meetings with teams in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas in early July, including one with Heat team
Speaker 3: president pat Riley. Some believe Lebron had his decision made
Speaker 3: by the time he met with the Heat Brass, but
Speaker 3: in the same way, James was believed to be hesitant
Speaker 3: up until the moment he said I'm taking my talents
Speaker 3: to South Beach. Tim Reynolds believes James wanted to be
Speaker 3: certain he was making the correct choice.
Speaker 2: He went through all that in Vegas to say, am
Speaker 2: I doing the right thing? I think he was just
Speaker 2: being a savvy investor doing his homework at that point.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was a charade. I don't think
Speaker 2: he was wasting anybody's time. I don't think it was
Speaker 2: mean spirited. I don't think it was hollow. I think
Speaker 2: his mind was pretty much made up. But he wanted
Speaker 2: to make sure that he was absolutely doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: So on July eleventh, twenty fourteen, Lebron made it official
Speaker 3: with a story told to Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated.
Speaker 3: He was heading back to his home base of Northeast
Speaker 3: Ohio to sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He'd take what
Speaker 3: he learned in Miami and try to transfer those championship
Speaker 3: habits to the Caves, and in doing so, he ended
Speaker 3: one of the most entertaining and league shifting four year
Speaker 3: stretches the NBA has ever seen. Here's Windhorst.
Speaker 8: What a wonderful time in the history of the NBA.
Speaker 8: The Miami Heat. That run was such an influential and
Speaker 8: pivotal and historical time. They had a lot of amazing
Speaker 8: things happen, not only on the basketball court, but just culturally.
Speaker 8: You know the Harlem Shake video. You know, the incredible
Speaker 8: Game six Ray Allen shot. It's a historic NBA moment.
Speaker 8: The amazing Game seven where you know, Duncan and Lebron
Speaker 8: are going back and forth at each other. I mean,
Speaker 8: what else can you ask for? You know, the back
Speaker 8: and forth with the Celtics, the back and forth with
Speaker 8: the Bulls. So many big games in Miami, those big
Speaker 8: playoff nights with the entire arena dressed in white and
Speaker 8: seven Nation Army, you know, rocking on the sound system.
Speaker 8: I mean, these are you know, memories that will forever
Speaker 8: last for people who were involved with it. I mean,
Speaker 8: it was four years, it felt like more. It ended
Speaker 8: abruptly and unfortunately, but I don't think anybody truly associated
Speaker 8: with it, whether it was people within the Heat organization
Speaker 8: or the fans or Lebron himself. I don't think they
Speaker 8: would have changed anything. I think they're glad everything happened.
Speaker 8: You know, the Heat had some bad breaks a little
Speaker 8: bit after that that you know, had nothing to do
Speaker 8: with Lebron, and then he obviously left them in a
Speaker 8: tough state. They had to rebuild a little bit. But
Speaker 8: I don't think they regretted that. I think everything that
Speaker 8: they did to get that four year run was worth it.
Speaker 8: And those banners are up there. Those banners are up there,
Speaker 8: and those four finals runs are there, and so it
Speaker 8: was a real piece of NBA history those four years.
Speaker 8: It probably was the right length the time. You know,
Speaker 8: it was just long enough for people didn't quite get
Speaker 8: sick of it, and they were entertained by it, and
Speaker 8: everybody was kind of able to still have other acts
Speaker 8: in their careers after that.
Speaker 3: What Lebron James did in announcing his return to Cleveland
Speaker 3: following four years and two titles in Miami was closed
Speaker 3: the loop on what would end up a heartwarming tale.
Speaker 3: His return meant more than any apology. It was the
Speaker 3: giant hug those two sides really needed to experience after
Speaker 3: the hurt caused by the decision. But for the Heat
Speaker 3: and their fans, it was an entirely different feeling. There
Speaker 3: was a sudden longing because they knew those four years
Speaker 3: couldn't be recreated anytime soon, not without Lebron. And then
Speaker 3: you were forced to make the immediate assessment, did the
Speaker 3: Heat get everything out of their time with Lebron? And
Speaker 3: what would have happened if he stayed for a bit longer.
Speaker 6: You know, we went to four straight. Five was in
Speaker 6: four years, and you know, we're not discrediting what we
Speaker 6: was able to accomplish in these four years. We lost
Speaker 6: one we won too, and we lost another one, you know,
Speaker 6: and take fifty percent, you know, in four years. You know,
Speaker 6: in championships any day, obviously you want to win all
Speaker 6: of them, but that's just the nature of the game.
Speaker 6: You win some, you lose some. You know, you just
Speaker 6: got to come back the next year and you know,
Speaker 6: and be better as an individual, as a team, you know,
Speaker 6: and go from there. But you know, I know, me
Speaker 6: and d Wade and c B you know, not proud
Speaker 6: of the way we played, you know, and all three
Speaker 6: of us, you know, that's the last thing we're thinking about,
Speaker 6: is what's going on this summer.
Speaker 3: Rachel Nichols was there for the Heat finale in twenty
Speaker 3: fourteen and did since there was a bit left on
Speaker 3: the table for that team.
Speaker 21: It felt a little bit like a lost opportunity when
Speaker 21: he left. I mean, they had done so much, they
Speaker 21: had won two titles. S say, oh, gee, you know
Speaker 21: they went on this big, grand adventure and didn't get
Speaker 21: anything out of it. You would never say that, but
Speaker 21: it did feel like there could be more. And as
Speaker 21: someone who loves watching sports partly to get to watch
Speaker 21: people reach their full potential, for that team, it felt
Speaker 21: like there could have been more and it would have
Speaker 21: been fun to see that, and that if the air
Speaker 21: conditioning in the building during one of those final games
Speaker 21: hadn't failed, that possibly that series could have gone differently.
Speaker 21: It definitely felt like that at the time, and so
Speaker 21: standing in the locker room after they lost that final game,
Speaker 21: it is the quietest postgame locker room I have been in,
Speaker 21: and I have been in all kinds of losing locker rooms,
Speaker 21: but that was so pin drop quiet. I think in
Speaker 21: part because everyone felt, oh, this could just not be
Speaker 21: the end of this final series of this season. This
Speaker 21: could be the end, and I think it was already
Speaker 21: hanging in the air.
Speaker 3: But remember when you Donnis Haslam said everybody benefited from
Speaker 3: James's tenure in Miami, Well, that includes the Heat organization.
Speaker 3: Lebron didn't just learn how to win in Miami. He
Speaker 3: showed everyone just how prepared the Heat organization was to
Speaker 3: build winners. It was a symbiotic relationship that would be
Speaker 3: confirmed six years later when Lebron and the Lakers faced
Speaker 3: off with Eric Spolster in the Miami Heat in the
Speaker 3: NBA Finals. Here's Rachel Nichols.
Speaker 21: It's interesting he would later go on to stay that
Speaker 21: he felt like going to Miami was his four years
Speaker 21: of college right, that he never got that experience, that
Speaker 21: that's where he learned to be a grown up, That's
Speaker 21: where he learned to be a professional in that way.
Speaker 21: And I don't think that was necessarily a knock on
Speaker 21: the Cleveland organization as it had been. I think it
Speaker 21: was more about what the Miami Heat actually offered. I
Speaker 21: think that Heat culture expression is not just something that
Speaker 21: people in Miami state to make themselves feel better.
Speaker 13: It is real.
Speaker 21: It is a level of professionalism in that organization that
Speaker 21: just doesn't exist in other places throughout sports. And I
Speaker 21: think he felt like that so significantly changed him as
Speaker 21: a player, as a person. It was his first time
Speaker 21: significantly away from home that he then felt launched to
Speaker 21: go back out into the world and do other things.
Speaker 13: Now.
Speaker 21: I don't know in the moment how people in Miami
Speaker 21: felt about that comparison, because it does feel a little
Speaker 21: bit like, oh, you came here for college. Great, thanks
Speaker 21: a lot. We actually thought this is a long term marriage,
Speaker 21: but the fact that he was I think maybe it
Speaker 21: came out sounding a little flipped to some people in Florida.
Speaker 21: But I do think the expression of what he was
Speaker 21: trying to say had so much respect layered in it.
Speaker 21: And I think that without that Miami experienced, Lebron James
Speaker 21: would be a completely different player, a completely different human.
Speaker 21: And I think to say that it is one of
Speaker 21: the most important parts of a very long and interesting
Speaker 21: and very story is not an understatement at all. The
Speaker 21: Miami Heat are part of Lebron James, and Lebron James
Speaker 21: is always going to be part of my Heat.
Speaker 3: Of course, James will forever be linked with the Heat.
Speaker 3: His image is in so many parts of the team's arena.
Speaker 3: There's a banner marking his twenty twelve Olympic gold medal
Speaker 3: in the rafters right along with the championship banners he
Speaker 3: helped raise, and his number six will likely get retired
Speaker 3: in Miami once he officially hangs it up. What he
Speaker 3: accomplished in Miami remains the most successful four year stretch
Speaker 3: of his career and the closest thing to a sports
Speaker 3: dynasty South Florida has seen since the Miami Dolphins in
Speaker 3: the early nineteen seventies, and yet it'll forever be thought
Speaker 3: of with some question marks. Dan Lebtard of Metal Arc
Speaker 3: Media believes those Heat teams did just enough to satiate
Speaker 3: a rabid fan base, but also left just enough on
Speaker 3: the table to wonder if there should have been more.
Speaker 3: It puts even further perspective on how my unumenttal that
Speaker 3: Bosh offensive rebound and Ray Allen three pointer in Game
Speaker 3: six really were.
Speaker 5: Here's Levitard, that team would have been a historic underachiever
Speaker 5: if not for that shot. One title would not have
Speaker 5: been enough for everything that was, the coverage, the noise
Speaker 5: around that basketball team as it was izzy. I feel
Speaker 5: like two two championships is sort of a push. I
Speaker 5: feel like it's a tie on people who hated the
Speaker 5: Heat versus people who love the heat. Everyone walks away
Speaker 5: with the unsatisfied feeling of that wasn't an overachievement, It
Speaker 5: wasn't an underachievement. It was just sort of like, eh,
Speaker 5: two out of four. That's pretty good, but probably could
Speaker 5: have and should have been more. Probably if I had
Speaker 5: asked Chris Bosh and Lebron James and Dwayne Wade when
Speaker 5: they were dancing on that stage in Arena and a
Speaker 5: party before it all started, hey, if you guys win two,
Speaker 5: how's that going to feel? My guess is they would
Speaker 5: have said not enough. My guess is that they would
Speaker 5: have said, we got to win more than that. It's
Speaker 5: not going to just be too is it? Later on,
Speaker 5: Golden State and some other teams would come and do
Speaker 5: things that were similar, but they started it. The play
Speaker 5: of San Antonio in that series at the end was
Speaker 5: such a vengeant storm of pent up hostility and anger
Speaker 5: because they thought they should have won the last time
Speaker 5: they played that. That's the best basketball team I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: That's the best basketball play I've ever seen. The team
Speaker 5: that engulfed them at the end, the Heat team that
Speaker 5: was tired, and I don't really understand this part is
Speaker 5: he I don't understand why the winning of championships is
Speaker 5: so hard that teams like Golden State at the end
Speaker 5: break apart, because it's just too emotionally, mentally, physically draining
Speaker 5: to play in that pressure cooker for that long.
Speaker 3: One of the notes James seemed to take with him
Speaker 3: was the need for superstar level teammates in a league
Speaker 3: that was now trying to recreate the heat model. Lebron
Speaker 3: created another buzzworthy trio once he got to Cleveland, with
Speaker 3: former number one pick Kyrie Irving already on board and
Speaker 3: all star Kevin Love getting traded from Minnesota. Here's Jackie McMullen.
Speaker 13: I really believe that that win by the Spurs changed
Speaker 13: the course of NBA history because Lebron was moving on,
Speaker 13: and what better place to go than the place he
Speaker 13: spurned in the first place. Let's make it all right,
Speaker 13: Let's keep that white hat on, nice and tight and
Speaker 13: go back to Cleveland and save the day with a
Speaker 13: young Kyrie Irving, who at that point we thought his
Speaker 13: future was limitless, and Kevin Love, who was in the
Speaker 13: prime of his career and was the prototypical stretch for
Speaker 13: I mean that was the way the league was going.
Speaker 3: While Miami would be left reeling as a sports town,
Speaker 3: pat Riley would attempt to make the recovery from Lebron's
Speaker 3: exit not nearly as painful. He'd sign Luell Ding and
Speaker 3: All Star with the Bulls to replace James, and he'd
Speaker 3: keep Wade and Bosh on board, which was no easy
Speaker 3: feat given the sudden question marks around the team, and
Speaker 3: for a city that embraced Lebron while the rest of
Speaker 3: the country was throwing jabs and a lot more in
Speaker 3: his direction. There must have been a hint of pride
Speaker 3: escaping Miami as the rest of the country also realized, Hey,
Speaker 3: this Lebron James wasn't a bad guy after all, here's
Speaker 3: Rachel Nichols.
Speaker 21: It was disappointing for the city of Miami and for
Speaker 21: the heat and for the potential that what might have been.
Speaker 21: On the other hand, I was there in Cleveland when
Speaker 21: he was introduced back in Cleveland and did a big
Speaker 21: event for his charity, which as we know, turned into
Speaker 21: his school. It's an incredible, incredible organization and the feeling
Speaker 21: and love of him back full circle in Cleveland, and
Speaker 21: I remember people they handed out little lights to people
Speaker 21: and springing their little lights, and it felt very much like, Okay,
Speaker 21: I understand why he felt like part of his story
Speaker 21: had to come back here and why there was unfinished business.
Speaker 21: So for me in that moment, as someone who was
Speaker 21: covering him extremely closely and covering the Miami heat extremely closely,
Speaker 21: it felt like one of those both things can be
Speaker 21: true moments. It felt like, Gosh, I love the alternate
Speaker 21: sliding doors universe where he stayed in Miami and would
Speaker 21: have seen what would have happened. I also got this
Speaker 21: universe where he went back to Cleveland and we would
Speaker 21: later see win a title. There was a pretty great
Speaker 21: basketball story also.
Speaker 3: That story arc peaked with a Cleveland championship in twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen and Lebron telling the people of that city it
Speaker 3: was for them.
Speaker 22: I don't know why the man above give me it
Speaker 22: the artist role, but there's nothing a man above don't
Speaker 22: put your situations that you can't handle. And I just
Speaker 22: kept that same positive attitude, like instead of saying why
Speaker 22: melet's say and this is what he wanted me to do,
Speaker 22: and uh, Cleveland, this is for.
Speaker 3: You and for Miami. All that remained was time to
Speaker 3: look back at that Heat team's legacy, which way did
Speaker 3: after the twenty fourteen finals.
Speaker 23: Well, it's uh, man, we didn't know what to expect,
Speaker 23: you know when we decided to become teammates years ago.
Speaker 23: You know, we just knew that we felt as individuals
Speaker 23: that we can do it, that we can put our
Speaker 23: egos to the side and and not care about the
Speaker 23: individual part of the game and become a great team
Speaker 23: and become two leaders of that team. It's been a
Speaker 23: hell of a ride in these four years, you know.
Speaker 23: And you know we when we team, when we decided
Speaker 23: to play together, we didn't say, okay, let's try for
Speaker 23: four years. You know, we said, let's just play together
Speaker 23: and let's see what happens. And we've been successful in
Speaker 23: the sense of what we what we try to accomplish,
Speaker 23: and as going to the finals and.
Speaker 3: We did it.
Speaker 23: We would love it be four for four. It's just
Speaker 23: not It wasn't in the cars for us to be there.
Speaker 23: But you know, we have no other reason not to
Speaker 23: be proud of each other for what we've accomplished on
Speaker 23: and off the court for these four years together.
Speaker 3: Tim Reynolds says, despite all the attention on Dwayne Wade,
Speaker 3: Lebron James, and Chris Bosh that the concept of team
Speaker 3: around those Miami Heat squads was always the primary focus.
Speaker 2: What you saw was four years of a lot of selflessness.
Speaker 2: And it's so funny that Lebron gets accused of being
Speaker 2: selfish all the time. Like Lebron could have had fifty
Speaker 2: thousand points by now. Lebron could have a scoring record
Speaker 2: long ago if he wanted it. He's an incredibly selfless player,
Speaker 2: and he got other people to sign on. Dwayne turned
Speaker 2: over his franchise to someone that would never happen today.
Speaker 2: Chris went from a one to a three in an
Speaker 2: instant and did so happily to be part of something bigger.
Speaker 2: They were part of something bigger than themselves for four
Speaker 2: years and that's why that and overcoming all the hate,
Speaker 2: all the noise, all the challenge, how twenty nine other
Speaker 2: teams were lined up to beat you every single night.
Speaker 2: They embraced it, and I don't think you'll see something
Speaker 2: like that again.
Speaker 3: There's been other Superstar course since that have failed to
Speaker 3: win titles, in part because of ego clashes, but just
Speaker 3: the fact that teams were able to follow the path
Speaker 3: of this Heat team an attempt to recreate the run
Speaker 3: for themselves speaks to the legacy left by Miami Here's
Speaker 3: Rachel Nichols.
Speaker 21: People certainly point to that moment as the moment that
Speaker 21: players took control of their own destiny. Now you can
Speaker 21: go back and Nippick and argue, well, hey, Kareem of
Speaker 21: Bill Jabbar wanted to leave Milwaukee. He asked out of
Speaker 21: Milwaukee behind the scenes. But he did it behind the scenes.
Speaker 21: Nobody knew that at the time. This was a very
Speaker 21: public case of players controlling their own destiny, doing it
Speaker 21: through free agency, not just waiting for someone else to
Speaker 21: trade them. And I think it completely changed the mindset
Speaker 21: in both the public side and most importantly in their
Speaker 21: fellow players' eyes, of hey, this is what we can do.
Speaker 21: And I think that even for the teams later on
Speaker 21: that weren't put together that way, I think it made
Speaker 21: players feel like they had more power in the game.
Speaker 21: And there are some ways that has turned in to
Speaker 21: be a problem for the NBA, and there's some ways
Speaker 21: that's turned into be incredible for the NBA. And I
Speaker 21: think that is the legacy of that team for sure.
Speaker 3: While some would argue player empowerment and star player movement
Speaker 3: is a bad thing for the NBA and its fans.
Speaker 3: You could also argue what Lebron did was merely a
Speaker 3: continuation of what the late former commissioner David Stern did
Speaker 3: for the league by highlighting the individuals over the teams.
Speaker 3: Lebron effectively said to basketball fans, you can be a
Speaker 3: fan of me, even if you don't love the jersey
Speaker 3: I'm wearing. Shane Battier didn't love the thought of Lebron
Speaker 3: joining the Heat initially, but his thoughts changed with the times,
Speaker 3: especially after three years playing beside James.
Speaker 18: And like, this is not this is not your father's
Speaker 18: you know sports leagues, and I grew up the same
Speaker 18: way in Detroit and cheering for the Tigers and Lions
Speaker 18: and Pistons, And you know, he saw these guys drafted
Speaker 18: and they stayed their retire career. And it's just a
Speaker 18: different era and no better, no worse than what we
Speaker 18: grew up with. But you know it was it is
Speaker 18: amazing to see the joy Lebron is brought to the
Speaker 18: world and game of basketball. And like he was an
Speaker 18: unbelievable teammate and one of my favorite teamates of all time,
Speaker 18: and he could have been really messed up with all
Speaker 18: the attention that he got and expectations. He's actually a
Speaker 18: really good human being and a great teammate and a champion,
Speaker 18: a winner, and so to be part of that journey
Speaker 18: for three years, that's, you know, it's something I'll never
Speaker 18: forget and something I'm super proud of and still proud
Speaker 18: to be friends with all those guys and consider them
Speaker 18: some of my favorite teammates of all time.
Speaker 3: But were they one of the greatest teams of all time?
Speaker 3: They never ended up setting the record for wins in
Speaker 3: a season. They came up seven games short of winning
Speaker 3: the most consecutively. They even stopped their championship count after
Speaker 3: not two But just having James, Wade and Bosh on
Speaker 3: one roster is enough to lump that team into the conversation.
Speaker 3: Mario Chalmers is surprisingly objective on this subject.
Speaker 14: My biggest thing about these questions it depends the era.
Speaker 14: If I say, if you take it back to eighties
Speaker 14: nineties areas, I don't think we're one of the top
Speaker 14: teams just because we don't have that physical presence like
Speaker 14: the Kams and David Robinson's the Shacks and all that.
Speaker 14: But if you come to our air the two thousands
Speaker 14: and all that where we shoot in the most threes
Speaker 14: was movement.
Speaker 2: Everybody's playing a high picked roll. Everybody shoot, and I
Speaker 2: think we'll be in the top three.
Speaker 14: I think out there with the Bulls and the Lakers
Speaker 14: and teams like that.
Speaker 3: The epilogue of this four year Heat run is actually
Speaker 3: still being written. Lebron James hasn't retired as of June
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, ten years after his second title in
Speaker 3: Miami and with single titles with the Cavaliers and Lakers.
Speaker 3: We still don't know if he'll finish with more Heat
Speaker 3: championships than with any other franchise, and the lasting effect
Speaker 3: for the Heat seems to be continuing, as Miami has
Speaker 3: taken two more trips to the finals since then, most
Speaker 3: recently getting there as an eight seed in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three before losing in five games to the Denver Nuggets.
Speaker 3: And they did it around a player in Jimmy Butler
Speaker 3: that Wade helped convince to come to Miami. You could
Speaker 3: even say the Miami Heat have established themselves as the
Speaker 3: premier organization in the NBA over the last twenty years,
Speaker 3: since the year Lebron was drafted first, Bosh fourth, and
Speaker 3: Wade fifth with.
Speaker 15: The first pick in the two thousand and three NBA Draft.
Speaker 15: The Cleveland Cavaliers select Lebron James with the fourth pick
Speaker 15: in the two thousand and three NBA Draft. The Toronto
Speaker 15: Raptors select Chris Bosh from Georgia Tech University with the
Speaker 15: fifth pick in the two thousand and three NBA Draft,
Speaker 15: the Miami Heat select Dwayne Wade from Marquette University.
Speaker 3: The Heat have made nine conference finals since then, been
Speaker 3: to seven NBA Finals, won three championships, have the reputation
Speaker 3: of being a winning franchise, are among the most attractive
Speaker 3: free agent destinations, and have a coach that's widely considered
Speaker 3: the best in the league.
Speaker 12: So as a Game seven, they stand eye to eye
Speaker 12: with history and they did not blink. The Heat are
Speaker 12: going to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 22: That's a proud moment for our franchise.
Speaker 19: It gives me great pleasure to present the twenty twenty
Speaker 19: three Eastern Conference Championship JOPHI to your Miami Heat.
Speaker 3: I remember covering the Heat's first championship for the Miami
Speaker 3: Herald in two thousand and six and thinking how big
Speaker 3: of a deal it was that the franchise that frustrated
Speaker 3: me and my friends so badly growing up because they
Speaker 3: couldn't get past the Knicks or couldn't matter as much
Speaker 3: as the Bulls had finally broken through, And then twenty
Speaker 3: ten came. Those next four years made the Heat into
Speaker 3: a national brand and made winning titles in Miami realistic
Speaker 3: expectations for the next decade. It's by far the longest
Speaker 3: stretch of real success for a South Florida professional team
Speaker 3: in fifty years, and it started with one very important decision.
Speaker 3: The Miami Heat from twenty ten to twenty fourteen changed
Speaker 3: the organization, changed the NBA, and changed the city of
Speaker 3: Miami forever, even though it lasted only four years. Even
Speaker 3: though that ended up not being the most decorated team
Speaker 3: of that decade, still Miami wouldn't trade those four years
Speaker 3: for anything. Just to ask DJ Khalig.
Speaker 1: I wasn't upset at all.
Speaker 9: All we do is win.
Speaker 1: You gotta remember we won.
Speaker 9: We're winners.
Speaker 1: We have banners like there's nothing no one can ever
Speaker 1: say to us ever in light. Listen, just know we're
Speaker 1: the biggest in the game. I told you from Miami.
Speaker 9: We different. We don't see nobody.
Speaker 2: Like we don't.
Speaker 1: It's nothing you could say, it's.
Speaker 3: Nothing you could do. Were the biggest four years of heat.
Speaker 3: It's a production of iHeartRadio and the NBA