Miami Heat
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Miami Heat, American professional basketball team based in Miami that plays in the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Heat have won three NBA championships (2006, 2012, and 2013).
The Heat, along with the Charlotte Hornets, entered the league in 1988 as an expansion team. Miami won just 15 games in their first season but improved on their record in each of the next three seasons, culminating in a playoff berth (albeit with only a 38–44 regular-season mark) in 1991–92. The Heat were swept by the eventual champions, the Chicago Bulls, in the first round of the postseason and returned to the playoffs in 1993–94, only to again lose (to the Atlanta Hawks) in the first postseason series.
In 1995 future Hall of Fame head coach Pat Riley took charge of the Heat. In just his second season with Miami, Riley guided a team featuring All-Stars Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway to a surprising 61–21 record and a division title. In the 1996–97 postseason the Heat defeated the Orlando Magic and the New York Knicks in the first two rounds of postseason play. The series against the Knicks included a notorious bench-clearing brawl in game five that marked the beginning of a fierce rivalry between the two franchises. The Heat’s playoff run in 1997 ended in the Eastern Conference finals, where the team lost to the Chicago Bulls.
Miami won three consecutive division championships beginning in the 1997–98 season. However, the Heat were eliminated by the Knicks in each of those respective postseasons, which included a stunning upset in 1999, when Miami became the second team in NBA history to lose its first-round series as a conference’s top seed in the playoffs. Miami’s six-year playoff streak ended in 2001–02, and, after the team limped to a last-place divisional finish in 2002–03, Riley stepped down as head coach to focus on his duties in the Heat’s front office.
After drafting guard Dwyane Wade in 2003, the Heat returned to the playoffs the next season. With the acquisition of centre Shaquille O’Neal in 2004, the team won 59 games and a division title in the 2004–05 regular season and followed by sweeping the New Jersey Nets and Washington Wizards in the playoffs before losing to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals. Riley returned as head coach 22 games into the 2005–06 season, and Miami defeated the Pistons in a conference finals rematch before dispatching the Dallas Mavericks in six games to win the Heat’s first NBA championship. Emerging superstar Wade led the Heat to a number of winning seasons from 2006 on, but Miami did not advance past the first round of the playoffs in any of those years.
The franchise’s fortunes went on another upswing after the 2009–10 season when free-agent Wade agreed to a long-term deal with the Heat and was joined by fellow superstar LeBron James and All-Star power forward Chris Bosh. The star-studded Heat were the focus of a great deal of media attention during the 2010–11 campaign. After an uneven start to the regular season, the team charged through the playoffs, losing a total of just three games en route to the NBA finals, where Miami lost its rematch with the Dallas Mavericks. In 2011–12 the Heat returned to the NBA finals, where they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder. The following season the team registered the second longest winning streak in NBA history (27 games) and won a franchise-record 66 games en route to a third straight NBA finals appearance, where the Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs in a dramatic seven-game series. The Heat won a fourth straight division title in 2013–14, which was followed by another quick run through the conference playoffs to set up a rematch with the Spurs in the NBA finals, the Heat having become the first team in 27 years to make four consecutive finals appearances. However, the Heat lost its second finals matchup with the Spurs, in five games.
All three of the team’s big stars opted out of their contracts during the following off-season to reassess their options and give the franchise (which was projected to be well over the league’s salary cap) more financial flexibility. Wade and Bosh both re-signed with Miami, but James left the team to return home to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the team failed to qualify for the playoffs in a weak Eastern Conference in 2014–15. The Heat bounced back the following season, winning 48 games and earning a playoff bid, where the team was eliminated in the second round. The team then had a series of nondescript campaigns until star forward Jimmy Butler joined Miami before the 2019–20 season. Butler led the Heat to the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, where the team lost just three times across three series to advance to the NBA finals. There the Heat were defeated in six games by James and the Los Angeles Lakers. In 2021–22 Miami had the conference’s best record (53–29) but lost a seven-game conference finals series to the Boston Celtics.
The Heat struggled through the following regular season, finishing outside automatic playoff qualification and needing to appear in two play-in games to claim the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. There the team went on one of the most unexpected postseason runs in NBA history, first knocking off the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in just five games before defeating the Knicks to set up a conference finals rematch with the Celtics. The Heat won the first three games of the series only to see Boston win the next three and threaten to become the first NBA team to overcome a 3–0 series deficit after 149 previous teams had failed to do so. However, the Heat rallied in game seven to soundly defeat Boston and send Miami to the NBA finals. In doing so, the Heat became just the second eighth seed to reach the finals and the first to do so following a full NBA regular season (the Knicks had advanced to the finals as an eighth seed in the lockout-shortened 1998–99 season). The team’s unprecedented playoff run then ended in an anticlimactic five-game finals loss to the Denver Nuggets.