Game Seven was beautiful.
Yet again the Heat turned us all into a stunning supernova of clanky pots and clinky pans. Everyone exhale. After the textbook magnificence of Game Seven, Miami is alive and absolutely knows it.
This morning and for the rest of the summer the Miami Heat are our guiding knights and definitively the best team in the National Basketball Association.
Coming off of one championship and smooth talking in to a second, “repeat”-ing is really exceptional for a sports fan. It means having a team that is an undeniable authority. This is a special team. Lebron is a special player.
We walk these paths as a fan, sometimes broken and always stressful, yet we never realize the moment of pure bliss until it hits with a final win. The finals win.
No matter how old or young each of us is, we will not see a team this spectacular any time soon. Possibly not ever again. So thank all that is holy that they are in Miami, and that right now they ARE Miami.
Respect, hat tip, and flat out love to the San Antonio Spurs. Though they thankfully played second fiddle in the best series basketball has shown us in years, the Spurs are consummate professionals.
But as much as we hated each one of them (and Danny Green twice), they fought entirely and impressively.
If you knew beforehand that Chris Bosh, Mike Miller, Ray Allen and Udonis Haslem would combine for zero points and not much else, you’d throw your arms up and pre-accept a debilitating loss.
But much like the last 20 seconds of Game Six, no one on the court cares about what fans think or worry about. Certain Heat fans proved themselves embarrassing in that moment, walking out on a team that didn’t deserve quitting followers. And the rest of basketball watching America had a reason to laugh at Miami. Cause of us. The fans.
But last night Heat fans poured into the streets and poured out their pots and and clanged them next to empty pans, the wooden spoons keeping a beat on each nearby party. It’s a tradition born from the islands, and one the rest of America can lay no claim to.
But that same rest of the country, Heat fans, hate us. They have, and they will. Partially because we don’t always keep it together or fit the standard of traditional loyalty, but they despise Heat fans mostly because our team is the goddamned best. And we have a player in Lebron already high up in the pantheon of basketball greatness, in the middle of his prime, ready to walk through those halls with the confidence of an assassin.
At 1:00 a.m., downtown Miami was a complete euphoric swarm. Concentric, together and around the city, we all banged the pots and clanked the pans, breathing in the joy heavily and all teetering past drunk. Thanks Miami Heat. Thanks. It really was fantastic.
And, please, as you take a hungover daydream, remember to salute the basketball gods for Shane Battier. He showed up at the right time. The Summer of Shane begins now.
