The Heat’s first wrinkle for the Bucks was to get down the court faster than usual. Miami ended the regular season as the second-slowest team in the NBA, but in Game 1 of the quarterfinal at Milwaukee, the visitors were operating six percentage points higher than their normal pace.

The hit-ahead pass plus instant takeoffs after defensive rebounds generated the Heat eight fastbreak points in the first quarter. Bam Adebayo hurled a full-court pass to Jimmy Butler that was laid in softly a foot away from the rim. Kyle Lowry found the first man on the break twice, outrunning the deer. And Gabe Vincent stumbled to the nail and pulled up for two in transition.

To start, Butler dropped 14 points on six of eight shots to power Miami to a 33-24 lead. He was guarded by Jrue Holiday and Wesley Matthews in single coverage, but it wasn’t enough as JB got into the paint whenever he pleased.

Defensively, Miami was on time contesting 3-point shots, allowing just 2 out of nine makes for Milwaukee through quarter one.

Eight minutes in, Giannis Antetokounmpo hurt his lower back on an unsuccessful drive to the rim. He collided with Kevin Love, picking up the charge foul, but tumbled on his posterior. Toward the end of the period, he plunged into Love again and went to the locker room after getting subbed out for Jae Crowder.

The Freak came back but had to return a second time to Milwaukee’s private chambers, and here, he was ruled out for the rest of the game. In total, he contributed six points and three rebounds.

Antentokounmpo’s absence eliminated the presence of a weak side shot blocker. Brook Lopez didn’t have backup getting attacked in drop coverage, plus Miami’s executed off-ball cuts trailing the handler without the Bucks’ security blanket to disrupt.

In the second frame, Miami mixed man protection with the 2-3 zone. To close off the paint, the Heatles sagged away from the corners and recovered on kick outs to force the Bucks into misfiring on 83.3% of deep tries.

With a minute left in the first half, Tyler Herro poked the ball free from Grayson Allen, but he hurt himself as he missed reaching for it on a dive to the hardwood. He broke his middle and ring fingers on his shooting hand, likely keeping him out between four-to-six weeks per TNT’s Chris Haynes.

When Miami got the ball back, Herro retreated to the corner and crouched, holding his hand in pain. The ball swung to him anyway, yet he air-balled it and swiftly grabbed at his wound again. On Miami’s next possession, he roamed to the corner and put his hands by his knees, the signal he needed medical attention, but the second quarter ended first.

In the first half, Butler had 20 of Miami’s 32 paint points. Additionally, he seized the passing lanes twice and stripped Khrid Middleton to initiate the break.

At halftime, the visitors were up 68-55 while uncommonly blazing from the field at 59.6% and 57.1% outside the 3-point line.

Duncan Robinson started in Herro’s place in the third quarter. Even with #55 having a down season, the Bucks wouldn’t concede much space off-ball. With Robinson on the floor, Milwaukee couldn’t cheat, flashing a corner defender at Adebayo when he got to work at the nail and in. As a result, Adebayo drained three midrange jumpers.

Coming out of halftime, Butler tallied six dimes. He repaid Adebayo with a full-court hit-ahead pass that turned into a two-handed jam and found open teammates when Milwaukee doubled on rim runs or post-ups.

When Antetokounmpo came out in the second quarter, the Bucks’ primary offensive focus shifted to Middleton. Even in front of solid contests, Middleton’s jump shot was on target from midrange and deep. Through three quarters, he had 20 points and had kept the Bucks within striking distance after falling behind by 14.

In the fourth quarter, Vincent was the Heat’s leading scorer with nine points. He made one jumper curling around Adebayo’s dribble handoff on the left wing, another in the corner when the Bucks failed to closeout, and his last shaking Allen away with #13’s screen. He was also the lone Heatle to play the entire period.

Butler added six points and an assist in the final frame to bring his total to 35 on 55.7% field goal efficiency with 11 dimes.

At the postgame presser, Adebayo and Butler answered questions together. I’m unsure if he was puffing smoke, but Butler said the Heat “can be better in a lot of areas.”

Adebayo said the turbulence the team went through to earn a playoff spot prepared them for the challenge present.

It’s unknown when Antetokounmpo will return, but as long as he is out, this encounter has become an even affair. Milwaukee still has weapons and disruptors to win a pair of matches, but home-court advantage will merge to Miami after Game 2.

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The Heat held a lead fewer than two minutes. The offense snapped, the guys couldn’t guard by themselves, and Atlanta continued to score on second attempts. At one point in the first half, the deficit Miami found itself in was so degrading that team captain Udonis Haslem was compelled to give a fiery speech to inspire the team during a stoppage. He’d later bowed in disgust as the point differential ballooned in the guests’ favor.

The Hosts were overhelping on the Hawk’s intrusions into the lane, exposing the perimeter. Trae Young tallied five dimes and sullied the Heat’s drops coverage with a pair of floaters to start.

Off Atlanta’s bench, Onyeka Okongwu infiltrated the paint three times for six of its 15 reserve points to Miami’s nine in the first quarter.

The harbinger of gloom was Jimmy Butler’s four missed shots at point-blank range. He managed to log 10 points but on 33% of his tries early.

Bam Adebayo had a donut on the stat sheet until the second quarter. He missed both first-period attempts, but more problematic was that playmakers weren’t looking for him. In one instance, after setting a screen that got Tyler Herro into the paint for a finish, Adebayo stood open on the baseline but with his hands at his side. He was uncovered but not calling for the ball. That might explain a lot.

Butler’s inefficiency trickled down to all but one of his teammates; the 37-year-old with over 38,000 minutes recorded, Kyle Lowry.

Lowry dashed into the lane twice, scoring with a pivot past De’Andre Hunter, plus a reverse layup over Okongwu. Without the quick burst of production provided by #7, Miami likely wouldn’t have broke 20 points to start the match. By halftime, he was the team’s leading scorer with 19 points on six of eight shots.

Running downhill in transition, vintage Lowry spun past Saddiq Bey for a layup. With the 6 ’11 Clint Capela switched on him up top, Kyle canned a step-back jumper from 28 feet out.

At the intermission, the Heat was down 50-65 and only making 37.5% of its attempts. Fortunately for Miami, Butler, and Herro kept the squad on life support in the third quarter. JB was freed on a Gabe Vincent backscreen that opened the baseline for a slam; then he hit a fadeaway jumper over Dejounte Murray and finally a close-range shot when he rolled to the rim after the pick.

Herro dropped a handful of buckets in the third on eight attempts for 11 points. On multiple tries, Atlanta could not stop #14 when driving left after the screen. He used a human shield for space on three scores; the others were a step-back jumper over Young in the post and a lay-in off a cut contested by John Collins.

When the Heat made runs to cut the deficit to single digits, the Hawks countered with body blows of its own. Early in the third period, the hosts erased 10 points off Atlanta’s lead. But the visitors next went on a 20-12 run to extend the advantage back to 13 to start the fourth quarter.

With 12 minutes left in a pre-elimination game that gave direct playoff entry to the winner, Miami had already allowed Atlanta to recover 15 offensive rebounds creating 13 second-chance points.

Lowry and Caleb Martin were the only reserves coach Erik Spoelstra used in the final stretch. With the season on the line, #7 converted four out of five triples and blew past Young on the wing for a three-foot shot. Martin contributed just a rebound and an assist in 11 fourth-quarter minutes.

The Heat’s 2-3 zone and man-to-man coverage left the glass unattended. The Hawks added seven offensive rebounds to its output, pushing the total to 22 for 26 second-chance points.

Atlanta invited Miami back into the game with 10 missed free throws through 36 minutes, but the Heat said thanks but no thanks by losing nearly all of the 50-50 balls.

At the postgame presser, Spo said his team crawled back into the match, but the story was the second chance points given up.

“I thought we defended fairly well, particularly in the last five minutes of the second quarter on through the second half,” Spo said. “We just were not able to come up with those finishing rebounds. It was like a highlight film gone bad of either missed block outs, bobbled balls, tipped balls, or [Atlanta] there, and they were able to come up with the rebound.”

Miami is a solid defensive rebounding team, but after Spo’s group put on one of its most embarrassing performances of the season, he wouldn’t identify what caused the slippage. Like a good soldier, he said they’d watch the film on it.

And just like that, the Heat arrived at DEFCON 4. Its next rival will be determined with the winner of Chicago’s visit to Toronto Wednesday. Each of those squads presents issues for the Heat. The Bulls have two point-of-attack incinerators, and the Raptors have the length to make a duel uglier than what Miami suffered at home Tuesday by clogging the lane.

The level of concern for the Heat shouldn’t change based on the outcome Wednesday. It’s difficult to trust any unit that needs to get humbled before getting its act together, and Miami has looked like a team ready to punch its time card for weeks.

Over a decade of watching the NBA has taught me that when a group gets shamed, it usually responds with a stronger showing. But what is there left to play for? Pride or eighth place? That’s a tough sell. The Heat lost the game it needed as it would have secured a preferred matchup with the Boston Celtics in round one instead of seeing the Milwaukee Bucks, who Miami has few counters for if they win Friday.

This Just In: An APB has been issued to locate Adebayo’s heart. A search party is also being assembled to find Max Strus’ jump shot after shock therapy was opposed.

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“One Shining Moment” is ubiquitous in CBS’s coverage of the NCAA Tournament. The song plays out the tournament, recapping a month of memories, reliving the ups and downs, the humanity of sports.

For Miami’s Athletic Program, shining moments over the past 2 decades have been mere blips on the radar, drowned out by a cacophony of failures, false starts, and dejections. The 2 programs that dominated from the early 80s through the early 2000s, football and baseball, have not sniffed championships.

As March 2023 came around, those dyed in orange and green Canes fans that still stuck around did so more out of a sense of love and obligation versus an actual belief in ultimate victory.

And that sense of doom was only amplified by Norchad Omier’s injury against Duke and the Women’s team being sent to a site where they would have to beat a #1 seed on the road. There was very little indication that both the Men’s and Women’s teams would go on a 3-week journey that would reinvigorate the entire community.

Beautiful Symmetry 

For some reason, I felt the Men’s team was special this year. They have been high seeds before, made Sweet 16s, but this felt more substantive. It’s abnormal for me to just follow the team around, but I made the decision to do just that several months ago. At the time I didn’t know it was going to take me to Albany to Kansas City to Houston. I just knew that I was going where the team went.

The Women’s team was a bit of a different prospect. For those that know me, you’ll know my affinity for that program and Coach Katie Meier. I briefly thought that about the logistics of bouncing back-and-forth between Albany and Bloomington before realizing it wasn’t really feasible.

And I considered going to Bloomington again late in the 2nd half when the Men looked like they were going to lose to Drake. And was happy I didn’t when the Women trailed by 17 to Oklahoma State.

But that is what made this run for both programs so fascinating. There was a symmetry to their paths.

-Men down 8 late in the 2nd half in their first game. Women down 17 at the half. Both won.

-Both then upset Indiana.

-Both then win a Sweet 16 game as the lower seed when no one really gave them a chance.

Miami, of all programs, was the last one with both the Men’s and Women’s team in the Elite Eight.

There were so many moments that will be indelibly etched on the minds of Canes’ fans, perhaps none more so than both teams traveling to the Sweet 16, leaving the Watsco Center, headed to different parts of the country, to carry The U forward.

The Finality of It All

One of the undervalued aspects of a deep tournament run is just how quickly the games run into each other. On any weekend, you have a day between games. No time to bask in victory, on to the next one. There is a constant state of peril. Whatever good you’ve done to get this far is erased when the next game starts.

And also that everyone that makes the NCAA Tournament, with the exception of 1 team, loses their last game. There is no happy ending. The taste of defeat will linger.

That’s how we were treated to the duality of emotions as the Men’s team clinched their first Final Four appearance with the Women’s team being eliminated at the Elite Eight, bloodied and battered, a few hours later.

That is sports, the extreme highs, and the extreme lows. It comes with the irrationality of sports viewing in general. To care so much about something that in the grand scheme of things should be irrelevant but in reality dictates a lot of the human emotional spirit.

It’s why several weeks of joy must necessarily end with Destiny Harden and Jordan Miller embracing their respective coaches, tears in their eyes, having left their schools and their programs in a much better place than they found them.

We watched the Canes collectively go 7-2 over a 3-week period, but the 2 came last, the 2 are remembered. The “what ifs” come into play.

Time Heals All Wounds

The symmetry for the Canes’ teams continued all the way through how they were eliminated, losing to the eventual champions while just not being able to score. Shots that normally fell didn’t. That’s probably the thing that left the most sour taste in the mouth of Canes Family, that they went out not playing their best games.

But as distance grows between the present and those losses, it’s easier to reflect on the journey, on the enormity of the accomplishment.

Miami, at its core, is a city of dreamers. We are enchanted with the what could be, with the conceptual, often at the expense of the reality.

It’s that audacity that has allowed a small, private school in Coral Gables to repeatedly achieve athletic excellence. We’re constantly told we can’t achieve, we don’t belong…and we don’t care.

The problem is that over the last decades, the doubters have been proven right. There is very little to show for the frustrated efforts at ascension to the top of college athletics. Miami has struggled to reclaim past glories.

And that is what the basketball programs collectively have restored. Our sense of pride in being Miami.

We can believe again. Believe in the dream of Miami. It’s no longer a pipe dream, a fanciful tale we tell ourselves to avoid the reality.

The reality is worth embracing.

I remember walking up to the stadium in Houston with a feeling I hadn’t felt in 20 years. Miami was playing in game with National Championship-level stakes.

Miami is back as an entity, as a dream, as a reality.

And we can thank the men and women of Canes basketball for the resurrection.

Vishnu Parasuraman is a journalist for @FiveReasonsSports. He covers the Miami Hurricanes for Sixth Ring Canes and Formula 1 for Hitting the Apex. You can follow him on twitter @vrp2003