Ryan: Snuffing out stubborn Heat stood as necessary hurdle for Celtics to clear on road back to NBA Finals

The road back to the NBA Finals (and the opportunity to secure that coveted 18th banner) was never going to be easy for the Boston Celtics this spring. 

Unlike, say, the NHL — where paths through daunting playoff brackets are often slashed and burned by the propensity for upsets and the parity that comes with a game often decided by a fortuitous bounce of a puck — the NBA doesn’t facilitate quite as many Cinderella runs. 

Some of that inability to get over the hump is often a byproduct of the daunting competition across the league — with a team anchored by a superstar talent or two (or three) standing as the inevitable barrier and immovable force at the end of a thrilling postseason run.

The Celtics know of such a fate all too well. 

Be it in 2012 when the flickering hope for one last run with the new “Big 3” core was snuffed out by a hell-bent LeBron James and the Miami Heat, or in 2018 — when James and the Cavaliers spoiled a memorable run by an overachieving young C’s squad — Boston has often been on the receiving end of statement performances from some of the titans of the game.

But in 2022, things have been different. 

Throughout the spring, the Celtics have validated their claim as giant killers in the Eastern Conference — exacting revenge and exorcising demons with each new opponent they've met on the parquet. 

In Round 1, this thriving C’s core not only managed to get the last laugh against Kyrie Irving and a Nets team that bounced them in 2021, but Jayson Tatum arrived on the big stage by out-dueling Kevin Durant.

In Round 2, the Celtics toppled another icon in Giannis Antetokounmpo and the defending champion Bucks, who sent them packing back in 2019. 

But in Round 3, the Miami Heat presented a different challenge. 

Yes, much like the Nets and Bucks, Jimmy Butler and the Heat have doled out plenty of misery to the Tatum/Brown Celtics over the years, thwarting them in the Orlando bubble during the 2020 Eastern Conference Final.

But unlike Brooklyn or Milwaukee — clubs anchored by mega-star talent — the Heat are far more than just Butler and a bunch of spare parts (even though Butler did his best to re-write that narrative over the past four days). 

With Miami, it isn’t necessarily what it boasts in terms of a roster. Rather, it’s what the Heat represent — a veteran, scrappy squad armed with a willingness to compete that’s fixed into the bedrock of their foundation. 

They may not be the most talented squad on Boston’s docket, nor is Butler in the same tier as a Durant or Antetokounmpo. But the Heat are exactly the type of club that Boston had, up to this point, failed to solve under the bright lights of the postseason.

Well, until now. 

If there was ever a team that the C’s needed to vanquish in order to snap an 0-for-4 skid in Conference Finals, and secure their first road Game 7 victory since 1974, it was the Heat — a team who looks at scouting reports, oddsmakers and conventional media narratives and promptly hocks a loogie at them. 

It was fitting that the Celtics, in what should have been a few minutes of bliss en route to their coronation as the beasts of the East, were suddenly sweating things out due to the never-say-die Heat — with a potential kill-shot dagger from Butler (in the midst of an 11-0 Heat run) nearly giving Miami a go-ahead bucket with just seconds left on the clock.

It was the type of resilience and scrap that the Celtics will be wise to carry with them in the days ahead as they face a Warriors team that’s “been there/done that” for years now on basketball’s highest stage. 

In the seconds after the final buzzer sounded and the Celtics began to celebrate their Game 7 triumph at FTX Arena, Butler (35 points) — the man who nearly orchestrated a miraculous comeback for Miami after his club appeared dead in the water in Game 5 — was quick to embrace Tatum (26 points, 10 rebounds) and offer him some words of encouragement ahead of a meeting with Golden State. 

“He does everything: shoot the ball, play in the pick-and-roll, he passes the ball incredibly well, gets out in transition,” Butler said of Tatum. “He's a superstar, and he deserved that. They deserve the win. I wish them the best moving forward. He's one hell of a player, that's for damn sure.”

The road sure doesn’t get any easier for the C’s moving forward.

The last stop on the road back to basketball immortality is blocked by the Warriors, another veteran club anchored by superstar talent and wielding plenty of experience in the NBA Finals (123 games of combined experience, to be exact, to the Celtics’ … 0 games). 

But if there was ever a team capable of toppling another juggernaut, it’d have to be the Celtics — a team that has taken its fair share of detours and endured plenty of setbacks on the road to the NBA’s promised land.

A team that, at long last, seems to finally be in the driver’s seat. 

“You certainly have to credit the Boston Celtics organization and their team and their coaching staff,” Erik Spoelstra said. “Ime just did a tremendous job this year building on what they have done the last six, seven years. And they have probably done it the way that it's supposed to happen in this league. You build a team and you have frustrating losses. You stay together, keep your core together, keep your culture together and then you eventually find a breakthrough.

"We tip our hats off to them. They are a heck of a basketball team. They really can defend at a high level. They are competitive and they have two guys that are tremendous, but their role players really fill in the gaps and complement each other very well. …I can't compliment Boston enough. They have gone through the fire and they earned that right to go to the Finals.”