It may be springtime, but the stunning miracle of the winter sports teams of South Florida is still very much in the air.
The two lowest seeded longshots in the NHL and the NBA are still very much alive as they roll into the championship finals.
The Florida Panthers and the Miami Heat have an opportunity to become the first teams from the same area to capture titles in the same year in hockey and basketball.
The Panthers will face the Las Vegas Golden Knights on the ice, and the Heat will battle the Denver Nuggets on the court.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The word drama is so prevalent in the story of these two underdogs that to continually repeat that phrase would be a cliche.
The Heat almost didn’t get there.
After shocking the Milwaukee Bucks, who had the best record in the league, then the New York Knicks, you figured the road would end against the Boston Celtics who were only a game behind the Bucks in the regular season.
But it didn’t.
Instead the Miami crew, with four undrafted players in their core unit, opened up a 3-0 edge in the best-of-seven series over Boston.
No team had ever comeback from that deficit in league history.
We’re talking 150 times.
But the Celtics rallied to win three straight, including an incredible tip-in of a missed shot with less than a second remaining to turn a sure loss into a one-point victory to send the series into a deciding game.
What was anticipated to be a record-breaking comeback for the Green, proved to be a blowout 103-84 triumph for the underdogs, who were left for dead after squandering a three-game lead.
The 84 points were easily the lowest scoring output by the favorites in the playoffs.
Perhaps the tone was set on the very first play, when Boston’s star, Jayson Tatum turned his ankle on a drive to the basket. He was never the same, which tells you that injuries are the unspoken factor in any sporting event.
In my view, while the Heat came up big, on the road, with the odds against them, the Celtics lacked a killer instinct on the court throughout the playoffs.
That’s a trait virtually all of the great Boston Celtics teams of the past had going for them.
Earlier, I referred to the four undrafted players who made major contributions to the Heat cause. That’s a testament to their president, Pat Riley, also their former coach who won several championships with the Heat and, of course, before that with the LA Lakers.
Riley discovered their current Eric Spoelstra, who may not have as many titles, but has more coaching victories than his mentor.
It’s obvious, Pat Riley is brilliant at knowing talent. Players and coaches alike.
I love hearing the fans and media, which I have for decades.
When you win, you’ll never lose, and when you lose, you’ll never win.
Until the reverse happens.
Once the Celtics tied the series, the Heat were toast. That’s a lot of heat.
I’ve learned through my years covering sports that if you relied on the emotion and fears of fans and the commentators predicting the outcome (usually wrong), you’ll be taken.
It’s the players who decide the outcome of games.
Not the observers. That’s why I never predict. I have no idea.
That’s why they play the game.
Players aren’t shaken by the crowd, or by the deficit in games.
They know they have to execute and they keep doing it.
Ultimately, one team will get it done.
There is no momentum involved.
It’s how you do on the next play. And the next. And so on.
No one stays hot forever. No one stays cold forever.
It’s really the same with the games we all play.
Except we’re talking about the highest level of competition.
It’s really no different.
For the Florida Panthers, who barely edged into the Stanley Cup hockey playoffs, they are resting up for their next challenge.
The first one they encountered was weeks ago, but historic nonetheless.
The Panthers trailed the Boston Bruins, in the first round 3 games to one.
The Bruins established a league record 65 points during the regular year, and were odds-on favorites to go all the way.
But the Panthers, in astonishing fashion, tied the series at 3-all, before surviving in overtime to advance to the next round and eliminate the powerful Bruins?
Come to think of it, if this a time for glory in South Florida, what do you call what’s happened in Boston, with the Bruins, and now the Celtics getting knocked off?
Burial in Beantown?
The next hurdle the Panthers faced were the Toronto Maple Leafs, seeded right behind the Bruins in their division.
This time the Florida outfit took command and never let go, winning in 5 games.
The Carolina Hurricanes were champions in their half of the East, but this time, the Panthers didn’t even lose a game, sweeping the team that finished 22 points better during the season.
How they did it, is the real story.
It took 4 overtimes in game one. That’s well over two full games.
It was the sixth longest game in NHL history.
It was decided on a goal by Matthew Tkachuk (pronounced Ka-Chuck), with only 13 seconds away from a fifth extra session.
Tkachuk was the clutch hero for the Panthers throughout the series, and perhaps the others as well.
But against the Hurricanes, Tkachuk scored the winning goal in the first two minutes off, yes, another overtime clash, and Florida was heading home with a 2-0 lead in games.
They never let up.
The Panthers swept the best-of-seven in four straight.
The scores were 3-2, 2-1, 1-0, and 4-3.
The final game was decided on a power-play goal by that man again, Matthew Tkachuk, with less than five seconds remaining in regulation.
I mention the scores because therein lies the headline of the Panthers success.
The goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky.
The 34-year old Russian who has known success in the NHL, has been a rock.
He stopped 174 of the 180 shots he faced in the series,.
He has been, in a word, magnificent.
So now, the Panthers and the Heat try to finish their unheralded missions.
As champions of the East, they face the survivors of the West.
The Vegas Golden Knights were the best team out west in the NHL, and the Denver Nuggets were #1 in the West in the NBA.
Somehow, someway, the cream always seems to rise to the top in the those two wintertime sports playoffs.
Will that be the case this time, after all the “drama” staged by the South Florida hopefuls?
Or will we see one or both of those miracle stories end on the highest of notes?
We’ll see.