When did the Heat start to win Game 7 over the Celtics? As soon as Game 6 ended - ESPN
ESPN BOSTON -- Ten years ago, after a historically painful Game 6 loss to the Miami Heat that cost them a championship after an incomprehensible Ray Allen shot, the battle-tested San Antonio Spurs were shell-shocked.
Victory party canceled, Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich famously took the team to an Italian restaurant and gave them wine and went player-to-player, trying to coax them through the emotions in time for Game 7. They played well but lost anyway.
Saturday night, coach Erik Spoelstra looked at the wreckage that was the Heat locker room in the wake of a similarly spirit-crushing Game 6 loss after an unbelievable Derrick White shot at the finish and quickly made a decision on what to do.
Nothing.
"It wasn't scripted," Spoelstra said Monday night, wearing a 2023 Finals T-shirt after his team stopped the Boston Celtics from making history at the Heat's expense with a 103-84 Game 7 victory.
"When you have such an intimate relationship with a locker room and they have it with each other, the staff has it with them, they have it with the staff, sometimes it's just whatever's raw, whatever's real at that time," he said.
