The Miami Heat are on the Verge of History
How the Heat are on the cusp of the most improbable championship run
The Miami Heat punched their ticket to the NBA Finals with a 103-84 victory over the Boston Celtics in game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. The 84 points mustered by the Celtics were the fewest points they scored all season and put an end to their quest to become the first team in NBA history to overcome a 0-3 series deficit. As the Heat ended the Celtics’ quest to make history, they continued their own pursuit.
A lot will be made of the Heat being the second eighth seed and first since the 1999 Knicks to make the NBA Finals, but that’s a tad misleading. The Heat finished the season 44-38 and owned a three-game lead for the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. A loss in the first game of the NBA play-in tournament pushed them into a do-or-die game for the eighth seed, which they won, but calling them an eighth seed just doesn’t seem fair. However, the history the Heat are on the cusp of isn’t about seeding, it’s about simple rating.
If you’re not familiar with Simple Rating System (SRS), this is how the good folks at basketball reference describe it:
“Simple Rating System; a rating that takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule. The rating is denominated in points above/below average, where zero is average. Doug Drinen, creator of Pro-Football-Reference.com wrote a thorough explanation of this method.”
It’s not the most sophisticated system to gauge team success, but it is undoubtedly the best metric that spans the entirety of NBA history. So while the Heat could become the first seven/eight seed to win the NBA Finals, they could also claim some SRS-based history.
If the 2022-23 Miami Heat were to win the NBA Championship, they would set the record for the lowest regular season SRS (-0.13) of any champion. The current low is shared by the 1957-58 St.Louis Hawks and the 1977-78 Washington Bullets with a SRS of 0.82. Even if the Heat come up short in the finals, simply winning their conference with a negative SRS is historic. They are the fourth team in NBA/BAA history to make the NBA Finals with a negative SRS, the first since the 1980-81 Houston Rockets, and are the only team to do so in a three-round conference tournament.
The Heat are also positioned to steal a record held by the 1994-95 Houston Rockets, the poster child for surprising championship runs. In 1994-95, the Rockets were defending champs but were far from contenders, limping to a 47-35 record and a 2.32 SRS. While they swung a mid-season trade for Clyde Drexler, they actually performed worse over the final 34 games with him, going 16-18 with a +0.4 point differential per game. Then the playoffs started, and they beat juggernaut after juggernaut. In the first round, they beat the 60-win Utah Jazz (SRS 7.76). In round two, they beat the 59-win Phoenix Suns (3.86 SRS). In the conference finals, they beat the 62-win San Antonio Spurs (5.9 SRS). And in the finals, they beat the 57-win Orlando Magic (6.44 SRS).
The Rockets faced the highest total opponent SRS in history, the highest average opponent SRS in a four-round championship run, and weathered the largest average (-3.67) and total difference (-14.68) in SRS between them and their opponent. Those first two opponent quality records are safe, but a Heat championship would see them set the mark for the greatest average and total SRS difference for an NBA Champion.
To put in perspective how incredible this hypothetical run would be, the Philadelphia 76ers finished the 2022-23 season with a SRS of 4.37, and the Atlanta Hawks finished with a SRS of 0.32. If the Heat win the championship, it would be like if the 2022-23 Hawks beat the 76ers four consecutive times in seven games series.
The Miami Heat have already made history. They made the Finals as an eighth seed and are the worst regular-season team, according to SRS, to ever traverse three rounds to make the Finals. A series win against the Denver Nuggets would cement this as the greatest Cinderella run in NBA playoff history. Regardless of the outcome, the 2022-23 Miami Heat have already made history.