NBA Finals 2023 primer: Everything to know about the Miami Heat

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Yaron Weitzman

FOX Sports NBA Writer

In 2006, the Miami Heat made the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. Now, after knocking out the Boston Celtics, they’re back in the Finals for a seventh time.

How incredible a mark is that?

No other NBA team over the span has matched that number, and only the Los Angeles Lakers, with their eight trips, have advanced to the Finals more times this century.

How have the Heat gotten here? And what do you need to know about them in advance of their matchup with the Denver Nuggets, which tips off Thursday night?

Glad you asked.

1. They’re not supposed to be in the NBA Finals

There is basically no precedent for a team with the statistical profile of the Heat reaching the Finals. They’re the second eight-seed to get to this point, but that’s nothing compared to some of the other odds-defying stats you can recite about this group.

For example, the Heat were outscored by their opponents by 26 points during the regular season. Only one other team in NBA history has made the Finals after being outscored during the regular season, and you have to go all the way back to 1959. The Heat are also the first team in NBA history to finish the regular season last in points per game and still make the Finals.

And don’t forget, just a little over a month ago they trailed the Chicago Bulls with less than four minutes remaining in the second round of play-in tournament!

None of this is meant to disparage the Heat. It’s more to illustrate just how miraculous of a run they’re currently on. They’ve become a different team in the playoffs, especially on offense. They’ve scored at a rate that during the regular season would have been a top-five mark, and after shooting just 34.4% from deep during the regular season, the league’s fourth-worst mark, they’ve drilled 39% of their triples.

2. If not for a J. Cole recommendation, the Heat wouldn’t have beaten the Celtics

In the summer of 2021, after being released by the Charlotte Hornets, Caleb Martin returned to his home of North Carolina. He and J. Cole, a fellow North Carolina native, had developed a friendship over the years, and so Martin, while waiting for another NBA shot, spent his days training in J. Cole’s gym.

“He kept asking every day why I’m not with a team working out in their facility,” Martin said in a recent interview with TNT. “And so he just went straight to his contacts and hit up Caron.”

Caron is Caron Butler, a Heat assistant coach who J. Cole had been friends with since 2010. The Heat, according to an ESPN story, already had Martin on their board, but the push from Butler seemed to help Martin’s case.

“Can you be here tomorrow?” he texted Martin.

Martin had gone undrafted in 2019 and averaged just five points per game the previous season. He knew he didn’t have a choice. He flew to Miami, worked out for the Heat, and soon after, was signed to a two-way contract.

Martin played well for the Heat over the past two seasons, but in this playoff run, he’s exploded. He’s averaging 14.1 points and 5.7 rebounds, while draining a ridiculous 43.8% of the 4.9 deep balls he’s launched per game. And against the Celtics he was even better — arguably the Heat’s best player.

It wasn’t just that he upped his scoring to 19.3 points per game on a video game-like 60% shooting. It’s that the spot-up 3s evolved into side-step and step-back triples, and the catch-and-shoots evolved into one-on-one attacks and run-stopping fadeaway jumpers.

“That might have surprised y’all,” Jimmy Butler told reporters after Martin’s 26-point Game 7 outburst. “To the untrained eye, he just looks like he’s an undrafted guy who has been in the G League, who has started with Charlotte and now he’s here. Started on a two-way contract. That’s what it looks like to y’all. To us, he’s a hell of a player, hell of a defender, playmaker, shotmaker, all of the above.”

What’s incredible is that Martin barely stands out among this Heat roster. He’s one of seven (!) undrafted players to step on the court for them during this playoff run.

Looking for the best example of what the vaunted Heat Culture built by Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra looks like? Look no further than this.

3. Playoff Jimmy is real, and spectacular … but he also might be running out of gas

What Butler has done since joining the Heat four years ago is incredible. This is his second trip to the Finals in four seasons. Last season, he and the Heat were one late-Game-7 missed jumper away from another Finals appearance. In those four seasons, he’s played 59 playoff games and averaged 25 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.6 assists. He rarely turns the ball over, and hounds opposing stars.

He also has a knack for coming through in big moments, in a way where it feels like he’s taken snatching the soul out of the body of his opponents. But it’s also worth pointing out that he’s shot just 42.4% percent over the past two series, and against the Celtics, there were times in Games 5, 6 and 7 where he didn’t seem to have any explosion or lift.

The Heat’s chances against the Nuggets could very well rest on Butler’s ability to resummon that explosiveness that helped him break the Milwaukee Bucks.

4. They’re about to have a Tyler Herro dilemma

Tyler Herro averaged 20.1 points per game during the regular season, the third-best mark on the team. He then went down in Game 1 of the first round with a broken hand and has been sidelined ever since.

Clearly, his absence has not affected the Heat.

This is not a fluke. While Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and the rest of Herro’s backups aren’t as dynamic off the dribble as Herro, they’re much better defensively and able to do enough on offense to make up the difference.

Herro, according to Bleacher Report, could return to the court during the Finals. The question then is what do the Heat do — and what should they do? Can they figure out how to integrate Herro into their current ecosystem without messing with the foundation of their success?

Against the high-octane Nuggets, they could use Herro’s scoring, but there won’t be much margin for defensive lapses.

5. They play more zone defense than anyone, and are great at it

Erik Spoelstra has won two titles, but this playoff run is going to be what he’s remembered for. It’s the greatest testament to — and example of — his genius. No one in the NBA is better at getting more out of less and a perfect example of how he’s able to do so is the way he’s deployed a zone defense.

No team plays close to as much zone as the Heat, and in the conference finals it absolutely flummoxed the Celtics.

How and when the Heat utilize the zone against the Nuggets will be fascinating to watch. On the surface, the Nuggets would seem like a team designed to beat a zone. They have a ton of shooters, good cutters and Nikola Jokic’s brilliant passing in the middle.

Then again, nothing about this Heat run has made sense. Why should we stop believing in them now?

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.

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