Erik Spoelstra is lucky to have had the opportunity to face Greg Popovich and ridiculously tough Spurs in the early 2010s.
That Spurs team threw all kinds of plays/roster combinations. Spoelstra even with a deep lineup went through hell.
This is a good lesson for Brad Stevens. Not sure he will graduate this time around. All I ask for is 1 or 2 wins. So that the team can build off of it moving forward
I like your mental approach to the remainder of the series. However, this is the third time Brad Stevens has taken this team to the conference finals. Most experts believe that we have more high end talent than the Heat. Now is the time to get over the hump. To win 2 or even 3 games shows no progress over prior versions of this team that lost the in the conference finals with inferior talent. I do believe there is more room for our players to grow, but I also don't think the timing is ever perfect and the team has to overcome some adversity to get to the top of the mountain. There are superteams built every year in the NBA. Giannis could end up on Toronto or Miami in the future. Philly will not always have Simmons hurt during the postseason and they are going to have a better coach on the bench in the future. Brooklyn is trying to build a superteam.
The time is now and Stevens needs to "C's the moment." I believe he is intelligent and learns from his mistakes after he goes back and studies what went wrong. He needs to do much better learning in the moment and making adjustments on the fly and the time to get better in these areas is NOW. If he cannot do it, I am not sure if we fire him or find a good bench coach that can help suggest in-game adjustments, but something needs to be done or our top end talent will get older or get frustrated and leave and we will waste our window to compete.
This is the best opportunity we have had to go to the finals since 2012. I might even argue it is the best chance we have had since 2010. We should feel happy about the speed at which the rebuild took place, but we cannot keep losing and hoping it comes together next year. One day that next year will not be plausible.