Despite the unfortunate ending to their memorable run, Erik Spoelstra is nothing but proud of what the Miami Heat have shown to the entire world in this year’s playoffs.
Regardless of the outcome, Spoelstra is hopeful that his squad was able to hand inspiration for many beyond the game of basketball.
“This is a team that a lot of people that can relate to, if you’ve ever felt that you were dismissed or felt that you were made to feel less than. A lot of people in our locker room probably have had that and there’s probably a lot of people out there that have felt that at some time or another.
“But also the way this team handles setbacks and adversity to develop a collective grit and perseverance, hopefully these are lessons that’ll transcend this beautiful game, that hopefully these are lessons that we can pass along to our children that even though it is sport, you can learn lessons of life from this game that you can persevere, you can handle what people may view as many failures along the way, and become stronger from it, and to be able to overcome things and find beautiful things on the other side of that,” he said in a lengthy remark.
“Obviously we didn’t get the final win, but sometimes that’s true in sport and also in life – that you don’t always get what you want.”
The Heat were massively counted out and disregarded to contend as they entered the playoff arena holding the lowest seed out of all the Eastern Conference teams. But they shocked the entire association en route to a historic postseason journey.
They went to upset the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, followed it up by ousting their old rivals in New York Knicks, and managed to survive in a blunderous fashion against the rally of the Boston Celtics in their grueling seven-game showdown in the last Conference Finals.
From making history as the first eight-seeded team to reach the NBA Finals in a non-lockout season while putting up a massive fight against a steamrolling Denver Nuggets club featuring a generational talent in Nikola Jokic, Spoelstra spoke on behalf of Miami that they truly had a heck of a story that amid of the unwanted conclusion, they’ll still be proud to tell to anyone in any moment in time.
“There’s no regret from our side,” Spoelstra said. “Everybody, staff, player alike in the locker room put themselves out there and put themselves into the team, whatever was best for the team. And the tough pill to swallow is it just wasn’t good enough. We ran up against a team that was just better than us in this series.”
