What can we learn from the Miami Heat’s Game 6 loss and their Game 7 win?
“Give light and people will find the way.”- Ella Baker
Game 7, two of the most compelling words in sports. The Miami Heat, the No. 8 seed in the East, took a 3–0 series lead over the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the team dropped three straight games (two at home), leading to a Game 7 at TD Garden in Boston on Memorial Day.
No team in the history of the NBA has ever won a series after being down 3–0, and Miami made sure that stayed intact, dominating the Celtics in Game 7. It was the team’s third road win of the series.
The Miami Heat had lost Game 6 at home when the Boston Celtics’ Derrick White got an offensive rebound on a missed shot and put it back as time expired for the win. After the crushing defeat, the Miami Heat Head Coach Erik Spoelstra quickly decided what to do after the loss. Nothing.
Spoelstra said, “It wasn’t scripted.” According to Spoelstra, “When you have such an intimate relationship with a locker room and they have it with each other, the staff has it with them, they have it with the staff, sometimes it’s just whatever’s raw, whatever’s real at that time.”
The Miami Heat and their Coach could’ve let the stunning Game 6 loss and the potential of blowing a 3-game to-none lead be a distraction. Instead, the Coach was confident, calm, and collected, which carried over to the players, and they all knew it was business as usual.
“Professional sports is just kind of a reflection sometimes of life, that things don’t always go your way,” Spoelstra said. “The inevitable setbacks happen and it’s how you deal with that collectively. There are a lot of different ways that it can go. It can sap your spirit. It can take a team down for whatever reason. This group, it’s steeled us and made us closer and made us tougher.
“These are lessons that hopefully we can pass along to our children, that you can develop this fortitude. And sometimes you have to suffer for the things that you want. Game 6, the only thing that we can do is sometimes you have to laugh at the things that make you cry.”
We’ve all experienced moments where things didn’t go our way. Yesterday my son was on his way to AAU basketball practice which is 2 hours away from us. He was riding up with my sister and he found out an hour into the trip that practice was canceled. Instead of complaining and making the situation worse, they turned around and grabbed some takeout for dinner on their way home. We all got to eat dinner together and my sister got to spend time with her favorite niece and nephew.
Will you respond mindfully the next time you run into adversity, as the Maimi Heat and Coach Spoelstra did after their shocking Game 6 loss? Or will you react mindlessly and let whatever isn’t going your way get the best of you? Forward, always!