‘Heat culture is a thing:’ From Butler to Barkley to Brunson, the Heat way warrants praise

As the losses to bad teams piled up, as the Heat meandered through uninspiring performances against Charlotte and Detroit and other NBA doormats, the whispers began.

“Heat culture is slipping,” one former Eastern Conference front office official texted a Miami Herald reporter in March.

But if the culture slipped at all during the unevenness of a 44-38 regular season, it’s certainly back, in all its glory, during this improbable playoff run that has propelled Miami to the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four seasons and the seventh time in 15 seasons under Erik Spoelstra.

“I’ll say this,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said recently. “The Heat have a known culture of how they play and who they are, and what they’re about.”

And even when they’re without important players, “they play with the same mentality, same physicality, same attitude,” Brunson said. “They don’t miss a beat, no matter who’s on the floor. That’s just who they are.”

For the Heat — which opens the Eastern finals in Boston on Wednesday (8:30 p.m., TNT) — “culture” isn’t simply a buzzword. It’s a way of doing business.

“It’s real,” Jimmy Butler said Tuesday. “More than anything, it’s the belief we have in one another, the belief you must have in yourself to realize how special you can be in this league, in this moment, in this organization. I think everybody has bought into that. Everybody is confident. The confidence that Heat culture instills in every one of us is very real.”

And any national skepticism by some pundits about “Heat culture” has morphed, again, into deep-seated respect.

“Hashtag Heat culture: People have kind of made a joke about that over the last few years. It has become a thing: ‘Here we go with the Heat culture. What makes the Heat so special?’,” ESPN’s Zach Lowe said, contorting his face to reflect the skepticism that some display when discussing the matter.

“I don’t want to hear anybody joke about that again,” Lowe said. “... How many teams have we seen already in the playoffs look a little shook under the bright lights? The Heat are never shook. It’s not some super magical secret sauce they have that nobody else has, but Heat culture is a thing. It’s not for everybody. But when they get a bunch of players that buy into it, some special stuff can happen.”

After the Heat’s 2020 run to the NBA Finals in the Disney bubble, team president Pat Riley — asked about Heat culture — said the standard remains being “the hardest-working, best-conditioned, most-professional, unselfish, toughest, nastiest team in the league. And I believe in it to the core.”

The unselfishness that’s central to Heat culture is reflected in their pair of two-way stars, Butler and Bam Adebayo, who do what’s best for the group, not what will necessarily produce the gaudiest statistics.

“You have a superstar who doesn’t act like a superstar and shares the wealth,” TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal said of Butler.

And the Heat’s exemplary conditioning has been a major advantage so far in the playoffs, because it allowed Butler, Adebayo, Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent — among others — to expend maximum energy on both sides of the court.

For Martin and Vincent, that meant trapping opponents and applying full-court pressure, at times, and still maintaining the stamina to hit jump shots and run offense.

“Heat culture is real,” ESPN analyst Richard Jefferson said. “It’s like Spurs culture [during the Tim Duncan/Tony Parker years]... Greg Popovich will coach you in Game 3 the same way he coaches you in Game 3 of the postseason. All of these guys have been coached so hard by Erik Spoestra all year. So when they get in the postseason they are all prepped and ready to go.”

ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins put it this way: “Teams around the league need to take notice of what the Heat [is doing] and how they’re getting it done and what they’re getting it done with. We’re talking about four [rotation] guys who were undrafted who the Heat has built through player development.

“So when you talk about building it from the ground up and getting it out of the mud, that’s the true definition of culture. When you see Gabe Vincent picking up full court, guys like Max Strus and Haywood Highsmith playing rotation minutes, and put their bodies on the line. Kevin Love and Kyle Lowry taking charge after charge.

“When you talk about the Miami Heat, everybody around the league needs to take a look at them and say, ‘Do we actually need to go get a Big 3 or need to go top heavy or do we need to correct some things in our organization?’”

Hustle plays epitomize Heat culture, and the Heat leads the league in essentially every hustle stat during the playoffs, averaging an NBA-high 11.6 screen assists, 17.3 deflections, 7.3 loose balls recovered and 1.5 charges drawn per game.

So what aspects of Heat culture were lost somewhat during the season but returned during this playoff run?

“Ultimately, just being scrappy,” Caleb Martin said. “We’ve always been that scrappy kind of team. New York was a prime example of that’s how we were going to win games. It wasn’t making shots. It’s a battle of who’s going to be the bigger dog and that’s always been instilled in the culture.”

Udonis Haslem said nothing lagged in the culture this season and added: “Heat culture is doing the hard things. The easy thing would have been to quit when things weren’t going our way, shut it down, get into the play in, not really try, or when we lost the first game, not really give a damn about the second game. Heat culture is sticking with it until you get over the hump, and that’s what we did.”

The hustle plays, defensive resilience, immaculate conditioning, unselfishness and toughness that are the fabric of Heat culture have allowed the Heat to overcome what some would consider a slight talent deficit in some series.

“Whoever is on the floor, they get maximum effort out of everyone,” said ESPN’s Tim Legler, who gives much of the credit to Spoelstra. “They don’t make mistakes.”

During this stretch of three Eastern Conference finals appearances in four years, NBA superstars Luka Doncic and Kawhi Leonard have made just one conference finals appearances, and Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and James Harden have made none.

“We get so enamored with talent, guys who can really, really run, really really jump who can’t play dead,” TNT’s Charles Barkley said. “That’s what we show on television. If you play hard and play smart and take care of the ball, you have the Miami Heat. They’re very well coached. They have a system.

“The Spurs used to be like that. We’re going to be smart, not going to take bad shots. You’re going to get with the program or you’re not going to be here. That’s why the Miami Heat is successful.”

BUTLER CONFIDENT

Butler expressed his usual confidence on Tuesday. “This year is our year,” he said. “We’re going to go into this game 1 and do what we’re supposed to do and be the first one to four. We are very capable of it. We have enough. Guys are playing some incredible basketball. I like our chances, as does everyone in this organization.”

Butler added: “I mean every year when I say we are going to win a championship.” And he praised Boston, noting “if there’s ever a need for perfect basketball,... we better get as close to it as we can.”