When did the Heat start to win Game 7 over the Celtics? As soon as Game 6 ended - 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, 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.

It sounds simple, but Spoelstra's read on his team — and what to do — was perfect. Confident and collected, the longtime coach was not at all interested in rehashing what had just happened.

Facing living the rest of their lives knowing they might be the first team to blow a 3-0 series lead, and perhaps having to see the White shot every spring on the all-time highlight reel, Spoelstra looked his players in the eyes and told them, essentially, it was business as usual.

As it would turn out, the Heat started winning Game 7 moments after they'd lost Game 6.

«Professional sports is just kind of a reflection