Heat back in East finals after barely making playoffs. How? ‘We’re not your normal eight seed’

Just four weeks ago, the Miami Heat found itself trailing the Chicago Bulls by three points with three minutes left in the fourth quarter of the final Eastern Conference play-in game. A loss would have ended the Heat’s season without a playoff berth for the first time since the 2018-19 season and just the fourth time in Erik Spoelstra’s 15 seasons as the team’s head coach.

But the Heat found a way to win that game to sneak into the playoffs as the East’s No. 8 seed and the rest is history — literally and figuratively.

After upsetting the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, the Heat clinched a 4-2 second-round series win over the fifth-seeded New York Knicks with a Game 6 victory on Friday night at Kaseya Center to punch its ticket to the Eastern Conference finals for the second consecutive season, third time in the last four seasons and 10th time in franchise history.

But this deep playoff run feels different than the others, as the Heat is just the second No. 8 seed to make it to the conference finals since the current 16-team NBA playoff format was instituted in the 1983-84 season. The Knicks are the only other team to pull that off, when they made it to the East finals before losing in the NBA Finals as the eighth seed in 1999 after a lockout-shortened regular season.

The Heat, which was outscored by a total of 26 points this regular season, is also the first team since at least 2000 to advance to the conference finals after posting a negative point differential in the regular season.

“We don’t take any of this for granted. It is hard to win in this league,” Spoelstra said. “It’s hard to win in the playoffs. And it is really freaking hard to get to the Eastern Conference finals. We’ve had our normal big audacious goals for this season. But when you get to one step like this, you just have great gratitude because there are a lot of other teams that would love to be in this position and we’ve had to fight and claw to earn everything that we’ve gotten in this postseason. We don’t take this for granted.”

The Heat now gets some much-needed time off before opening the East finals on the road Wednesday against either the second-seeded Boston Celtics or third-seeded Philadelphia 76ers. Miami’s opponent will be the winner of Sunday’s Game 7 between the Celtics and 76ers in Boston (3:30 p.m., ABC).

The full schedule for the East finals loos like this: Game 1 on Wednesday in Boston or Philadelphia, Game 2 on Friday in Boston or Philadelphia, Game 3 on May 21 in Miami, Game 4 on May 23 in Miami, Game 5 on May 25 in Boston or Philadelphia, Game 6 on May 27 in Miami and Game 7 on May 29 in Boston or Philadelphia. All the games will start at 8:30 p.m. and be on TNT.

“It means that we’re one step closer to our goal, which we already knew that we were capable from the jump from the beginning of the season,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said of making the conference finals for third time in his four seasons with the organization. “We got eight more [wins] to get.”

The Heat’s goal of winning a championship never changed despite a frustrating 44-38 regular season that didn’t meet internal or external expectations. Instead, Heat players and coaches insist the adversity and circumstances that helped make it a disappointing regular season helped them.

The Heat closed this regular season with the second-most missed games in the NBA (289) due to injury, according to Spotrac.

The Heat also played in a lot of close games this regular season, finishing with the second-most clutch games (one that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter) in the NBA with 54. Miami tied the single-season NBA record for the most wins by five points or less with 24 such victories in the regular season.

“These are the kinds of lessons that hopefully that we impart on our children, that you can develop perseverance and grit when things are tough and when people are criticizing you,” Spoelstra said. “I’ve said many times about our regular season, there was nothing easy about it. But the guys came in with a spirit every single day to try to get better and not make excuses for everything.

“We were well aware of all the injuries and moving parts and changing lineups. I think we got better in a lot of areas and finding different solutions. But we had to do a lot of things the hard way.”

That adversity has continued in the playoffs.

The Heat lost starting guard Tyler Herro to a broken right hand in Game 1 of the first round and he’s not expected back until the NBA Finals, at the earliest. And Heat reserve guard Victor Oladipo will miss the rest of the playoffs after tearing the patellar tendon in his left knee in Game 3 of the first round.

Also, six of the Heat’s first 11 playoff games have fallen into the clutch category. Miami is 4-2 in those situations this postseason.

“You hope the adversity brings a group together rather than take away your spirit and it definitely did that,” Spoelstra continued. “I had that feeling for the last three months of the regular season, but then it was cemented in my mind after we lost the Atlanta [play-in] game. I knew how badly, as soon as I walked into the film session the next day, I knew how badly our team wanted to keep this thing going. That’s a spirit you always hope you can cultivate in your team.”

That film session Spoelstra referenced happened between the Heat’s ugly 116-105 home loss to the Atlanta Hawks on April 11 and playoff-clinching 102-91 home win over the Bulls on April 14 during the play-in tournament. The Heat faced elimination following that play-in loss to the Hawks, but Miami bounced back to punch its ticket to the playoffs with a win over the Bulls a few nights later.

“I remember just walking away from that meeting, telling my staff that the look in their eyes and everything about that meeting, I was like: ‘Alright, we got a chance,’” Spoelstra said. “I know a lot that I don’t know, but I know when a team really wants to keep a season going and this team wanted to keep the season going.”

The eighth-seeded Heat entered each of the first two rounds of the playoffs as the underdog. Miami is again expected to be the underdog at the start of the conference finals, whether it faces the Celtics or 76ers.

But the Heat believes it’s not the typical No. 8 seed. The historic run to the East finals has validated their confidence

“I think when we were going through all the injuries and everything, we were being, I think, unfairly criticized,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t think we would have been the No. 1 seed or probably not even a top-three team, but we would have been four or five, somewhere like that. We’re not your normal eight seed. There were a bunch of circumstances.”

Circumstances that have led to an improbable and incredible journey that’s not over yet.

“It’s a crazy story being written,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “Through all the ups and downs of this season, a lot of people counting us out and saying we weren’t even going to make it past the first round and now we’re in the Eastern Conference finals. It just shows the determination and the will that this team has.”