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MIAMI — The Miami Heat have created some epic playoff upsets in recent years to define their organization and further “Heat Culture.”
This coming chance would dwarf them all.
The Heat were a fifth seed that beat the fourth (Indiana), first (Milwaukee) and third (Boston) seeds en route to the Bubble NBA Finals in 2020 during the pandemic.
None of those compare to the dizzying odds starting Sunday against top seed Boston.
They were the lowly play-in team last year that beat top seed Milwaukee in five games. That was followed by the Game 7 stunner in Boston on the heels of Derrick White’s game-winning tip in Game 6 that threatened to bring the Celtics back from a 3-0 series deficit and steal the Heat’s soul.
Remember? The Heat rallied so furiously right from the start of Game 7 that Boston fans began booing and TNT’s Charles Barkley said at halftime, “Watching these dumbass Celtics play is making my head hurt.”
Yes, the Heat have had some epic upsets.
And you can combine them all, throw in David’s slingshot, Buster Douglas’ right hook on Mike Tyson and Al Michaels shouting, “Do you believe in miracles?” — and only then are you nearing the neighborhood of long odds starting with Game 1 Sunday in Boston.
They don’t even have to win the series without star Jimmy Butler.
They just have to somehow make it a series.
Win a game. Threaten to take two. Can you expect any more? And isn’t it unfortunate to have to frame it like this?
“We want Boston!” the Heat fans chanted in a cute and celebratory way while drubbing Chicago 112-91 in what showed some organizational bona fides.
They got Boston.
“It’s going to be a dogfight,’’ Bam Adebayo said.
Bless him.
“It’s going to be fun,’’ Jaime Jaquez Jr. said.
He’s a rookie.
The Heat have no chance in a best-of-seven series without Butler and probably injured guard Terry Rozier. None. Stating such ill-fated realism would mean banishment from the Heat, considering that’s exactly what Adebayo told any player who didn’t think they could beat Chicago on Friday for the final -play-in spot.
“It only infects those who think we can win,’’ Adebayo said after the Heat’s win.
He sees this series as an opportunity, just as he should. It’s the biggest opportunity of all. Boston was a dominant 64-18 this season and has all players healthy and rested. The Heat were the last-play-in team in the East to the playoffs are down not just Butler but guard Terry Rozier.
Boston isn’t going to be taking the Heat lightly, either, after stewing since last spring over their loss to the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
“We failed,’’ Boston’s Jaylen Brown after that Game 7. “I failed. We let the whole city down.”
The Heat created such pain the Celtics re-did their blueprint. They traded veteran leader Marcus Smart for Porzingis. They brought in tough guard Jrue Holiday. Their two All-Star wings in Tatum and Brown now have the cast to help them.
Can the Heat dent them over a series? Sure. Coach Erik Spoelstra will come up with some strategic wrinkle. He threw a shifting zone at Philadelphia that stumped them for a quarter in the first play-in game.
On Friday, he had Adebayo defend Chicago star DeMar DeRozan. That meant 205-pound Nikola Jovic, a kid at 20, was matched against 260-pound Nikola Vucevic. It all worked, too. Chicago was lost in the opening quarter.
Spoelstra also prepped his team for Friday’s game in the way a good coach does.
“What we talked about (Friday morning) was to forget how we got here,’’ he said. “We could be frustrated. We could say it sucks. OK, when you pass all that, you say we have a came of this competition and these consequences. We have a bunch of Type-A competitors. I wanted them to embrace it, to feel it and enjoy it.”
Didn’t he create a good, new narrative for that game?
“I have an appreciation for the things you can’t buy, the things that you have to earn,” Spoelstra said. “We had to earn this. You can’t influence it. You can’t pay money for it. You actually have to collectively come together to earn it — and we had to do it the hard way, just to get this first ticket punched for the invitation to this dance.”
Their ticket is punched. Boston awaits. This franchise has had some defining upsets in recent years. This one would re-define all of them.
This time, the people marched in resistance to the harsh treatment of immigrants by the Trump administration.
“We descend from Immigrants and Revolutionaries,” read a battle cry beamed onto the side of the brick meeting house Tuesday.
“The society that stops seeing the people at the grocery line or the people that ride the bus with us, as human beings with beating hearts, then it’s not far off before our society devolves into no society at all,” Gilberto Calderin, director of advocacy at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition said to the crowd of hundreds.
The protest was organized by activist groups Boston Indivisible and Mass 50501, and began at the Irish Famine Memorial Plaza, just steps from the meeting house.
The lively crowd held up signs, waved American flags, and chanted during the march along Milk Street and Congress Street to the harbor.
Janet England of Brighton held a sign that read, “Democracy Needs Courage.”
The protesters, she said are “true patriots because we want freedom and democracy.”
“Although protest is a long game, we can’t give up. If you think about women’s suffrage, gay rights, the civil rights movement, it took years, but we just can’t give up,” she said.
Gloria Krusemeyer, from Alrington, used a walker to join the march.
“I’m irritated that I haven’t done more, and I’m just lucky that I can walk fast enough to be doing this,” she said.
Rick Mueller, from Cambridge, was dressed as Uncle Sam and held a large sign that read, “Liberty and Justice For All.”
“We’re fighting for America, so I’m gonna be America,” he said of his costume.
He handed small American flags out to protesters who waved them enthusiastically.
Ice dumping duties was limited to volunteers and select people.
Among them was Sarah, a mother who brought her 4-year-old daughter, Fiona.
Sarah declined to share her last name for her daughter’s safety.
After throwing ice into the harbor, Fiona shyly said that she wanted to come to the protest to “help families stay together.”
Through tears, Sarah said her decision to bring along Fiona came from wanting to teach her daughter to care about people from all walks of life.
“Kindness and compassion are things we learn in kindergarten and she will be in kindergarten so it’s really important for her to be kind and compassionate,” Sarah said, kissing her daughter’s check.
Likewise, Sara Sievers, from Cambridge, brought her parents, sister, her nephews and niece to dump ice.
“I think this is one of the most brutal regimes we’ve had in this country, and I want my niece and nephew to remember that it’s important to protest, and that we in Boston are part of a proud tradition of dumping things into the harbor with which we disagree,” Sievers said.
The family wore costumes of historical figures including Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and King Charles.
As the protest came to a close, Martha Laposata, spokesperson for Boston Indivisible said she wanted protestors to walk away knowing their voices matter.
“We cannot stand down,” Laposata said. “When people rise up against an authoritarian government, if they stay consistent and they keep growing, ultimately an authoritarian government will stand down.”
Camille Bugayong can be reached at camille.bugayong@globe.com.
Crime
An MIT professor was shot and killed in Brookline on Monday night.
Brookline police responded a report of a man shot in his home on Gibbs Street, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was transported to a local hospital and was pronounced dead on Tuesday morning, the DA says.
Loureiro was the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a professor of nuclear science and engineering and physics. Originally from Portugal, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs announced his death in a regulatory hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Communities on Tuesday, according to CNN.
“Sadly, I can confirm that Professor Nuno Loureiro, who died early this morning, was a current MIT faculty member in the departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics, as well as the Director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving,” an MIT spokesperson wrote in a statement.
In January, Loureiro was honored as one of nearly 400 scientists and engineers with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from former president Joe Biden.
The investigation into the homicide remains ongoing. No further information was released.
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A man was hospitalized after being shot Monday night in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The shooting happened on Gibbs Street. There was a large police presence at the scene.
The victim was brought to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His condition was not known.
Police said the victim was shot three times and grazed by another round.
Authorities did not say if any arrests had been made.
No further information was immediately available.
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