Following NBA basketball more closely, I've been stunned and saddened by the extent to which injury shapes the game. One day a team is putting on a show. Then, after what initially looks to the viewer like any other landing or stumble on the court, a key player screams in pain. It's a torn ACL. His season is over, he faces a long recovery, he may not return the same player he once was, and in the meantime the team has to compensate for his absence somehow. Then another player gets injured: out for weeks. Then another player gets injured: out during a crucial stretch. Losses mount. The team falls down the rankings. The show is over. They were contenders, fully healthy. Maybe next year. Or maybe age and contract intricacies and other circumstances put last year's contenders in the shadow of this year's contenders. From a distance, I thought it was the better team that eventually wins the championship. That's not exactly right. It's the better team that isn't too battered by the end of a long regular season and a high intensity postseason to prove it.
The Heat, the number one seed in the East during the regular season, on the verge of elimination, limped into Boston for game 6. Tyler Herro, a player who achieved his stated goal of being named (almost unanimously) as the 6th Man of the Year, was shut down by the Celtics when he was healthy and on the court. Now he was out entirely with a groin injury. Kyle Lowry was in but not at 100% as he recovered from a hamstring injury. And their star, Jimmy Butler, struggling with a knee injury, hadn't been able to make much of an offensive impact in recent games in the series, and no one else on the team could score like he can. I didn't watch but I heard all about it the next day: I, along with most everyone else, had made the mistake of counting out Jimmy Butler, who scored 47 points to beat the Celtics on their home court. That's a star for you. (Compliments went out to the Heat medical staff.)
Game 7 back in Miami. I made sure to watch. Boston looked healthier. They have a marquee tandem in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. And that defense, led by the Defensive Player of the Year, Marcus Smart. Yet with Jimmy Butler on the floor, one couldn't be so sure anymore. Could he do it twice in a row?
He came close to his hero numbers, leading in scoring for both teams again. Tyler Herro made a brief appearance somewhere in the middle of the game and never returned. The team didn't do so well on free throws, overall. Max Strus stepped out of bounds just barely so the refs took away his 3. But Bam Adebayo was fairly aggressive on the offensive end. Little by little the Heat came back from being down seventeen - a clutch 3 from Lowry, a clutch 3 from Strus, drawing offensive fouls, forcing turnovers - and had a chance to take the lead. It's the next part that is the subject of some debate: There are about 20 seconds left in the 4th quarter. Jimmy Butler, rather than attack the basket against Al Horford, who was on his heels, and Jaylen Brown, who had five fouls, took a 3. He's not the best 3 point shooter but a 3 would put the Heat ahead by 1 in the closing seconds. The ball hits iron and bounces off. Al Horford collects the rebound. Boston wins the series and the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Celtics are now heading West to face the Western Conference Finals champions: the Warriors.
Oh, seems I forgot to mention the Warriors's success.
Years ago, when the Warriors, the hometown team, were first headed for the Finals, I wasn't there. I heard about it from a friend. He never talked basketball but suddenly he was criticizing the game like a veteran coach. I said: You fair weather fan! He heard the Warriors were winning so he slipped on a jersey! I told that story to everyone we knew. But it wasn't until I moved East that I bought my own team merchandise. The bubble playoffs finally hooked me - LeBron James's dunk on Russell Westbrook that sent him to the parking lot, Jamal Murray's perfect Jordanesque layup on James, along with the prominence of Black Lives Matter messaging - though the Warriors were nowhere to be seen that year. The team didn't make it to the postseason the next year either. I came into the fold as the organization was dealing with catastrophic injuries to key players. Steph Curry, the face of the franchise, was making a comeback after an extended period spent recovering. But Klay Thompson, another star and fellow 3 point shooting master, had just suffered a second injury that would keep him out another year.
Even so, as I followed along in that first season after Curry's return, the franchise didn't seem completely adrift like certain others, I didn't fall into despair or frustration. Somehow it felt like there was a plan, moves being made in the background. And Thompson, who seemed pretty skilled based on the highlights I found, would return one day. Steph Curry won the scoring title. He spoke of the special distinction of sticking to one franchise for his entire career. The team ended the regular season strong. And after they lost in the first ever play-in tournament, he said farewell with a warning: "You don't want to see us next year."
This year: Every Warriors player seemed to bring their best game to close out the Mavericks, making it the best Warriors W of the postseason. Luka Dončić didn't have an easy time, no smiling through the night here. Spencer Dinwiddie made me a little nervous, draining shot after shot. But Klay Thompson drained a few more, ending the night with 32 points. Draymond Green, another star, flexing. Andrew Wiggins, who had the play of the series and the dunk of the playoffs and a career highlight all in one: the dunk on Dončić. Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney.... And Steph Curry: The inaugural winner of the Western Conference Finals Magic Johnson MVP award.
Severe injuries presented major setbacks to the team's title aspirations. But they overcame them and, after another gentleman's sweep, now return to the NBA Finals, their sixth trip in eight years. Let's go, Warriors.
