MIAMI — Max Strus? Max Strus!
So many reasons to love sports, and we keep finding new ones.
Add this one:
Max Strus, the hero of Friday night’s 102-91 Miami Heat must-win play-in triumph over the Chicago Bulls that saved a season. Thirty-one points from a player who had a total of three points in a loss just three nights earlier. And 7-for-12 shooting on 3-point shots from a man whose deep ball had left him much of this season.
Did we mention Strus is a Chicago kid who grew up a diehard Bulls fan?
You can’t make this up. And if you did, they wouldn’t believe you.
The Miami Heat had the will and resolve Friday night. And Max Strus. And Jimmy Butler’s 31 points. And Bam Adebayo’s 17 rebounds. And a 15-1 run to end the game to send Miami into the NBA playoffs as the No. 8 seed to face No. 1 Milwaukee in the first round of the NBA playoffs beginning Sunday on the road.
“Our team has not been perfect this year, but I know one thing about the men in that locker room,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said afterward. “I know how categorically and unequivocally our group wanted to get into this damn thing, to get into the playoffs and have an opportunity to compete for a damn title.”
Three nights after stinking up the home arena in a loss to Atlanta, Miami closed the league’s play-in tournament with a resounding win thanks to the dramatic, late charge.
I doubted they could do it. Thought the Heat looked spent Tuesday night. They proved me wrong.
No big celebration, though, please.
What Miami did Friday night was save face, that’s all. They did the minimum.
They avoided the embarrassment of two straight home play-in losses to fall from the 7-seed entirely out of the postseason, and instead salvaged a slip from 7th to 8th and a brutal first-round matchup with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks.
Barring a shocking first-round upset over the NBA betting favorites to win it all, Friday’s win did not erase but merely delayed the inevitable postseason talk. It’s probably gonna be a chatty offseason in Miami, folks. Gonna be an interesting summer surrounding a Heat team that sank to No. 8 after one year ago being No. 1 and coming within a made shot of reaching the NBA Finals.
You know Pat Riley is already itching for a last hurrah, a last run at a fourth Heat championship. Portland star Damian Lillard is predictably starring in all the speculation. But would that mean sacrificing somebody big like Butler or even Adebayo?
Something will happen. Not saying Miami will blow it up, but they sure as heck won’t run it back as is, and should not. Can’t tinker. A big swing is coming.
But let’s table all that for now with due respect for a Heat team that just snuck into the playoffs, at least, with a stirring late run that included Strus’ last 3 and then three free-throws when fouled — six late, crucial points to make it 99-91 with 40 seconds left.
Strus will be a free agent this offseason.
“Max earned himself a lot of money tonight,” said Butler.
Few will give Miami a chance now. Milwaukee was 58-24, its .707 win percentage best in the league. Bucks beat Heat both times this season when Giannis played, and by a combined 37 points.
“We got to play damn near perfect basketball,” Butler admitted of the Bucks challenge, but added. “Which we’re capable of.”
What a test ahead for both of South Florida’s playoff-bound teams.
In hockey the Florida Panthers also are No. 8 seeds after being No. 1 a year ago, and also drawing the overall No. 1 seed in the Boston Bruins — who just set an NHL record for most wins and points. With a plus-128 goals differential twice a big as anybody else’s.
It could be an ugly first round for both the Heat and Panthers. The oddsmakers would tell you so.
But give the Heat this night before any hard reality sets in.
They saved face. That’s something.
They are in the playoffs. That’s something, too.
And Max Strus will have this night forever, no matter what happens from here.
