America, are you starting to believe in the Heat? Butler’s 35 has Miami up 1-0 over Boston | Opinion

It’s the small smile you wear on the inside, because no one needs to know it but you. It’s the feeling when nobody believes in you, but you find out — again — that your own belief is enough.

When are you going to start believing in the Miami Heat, America?

Boston going in had a 97 percent chance of advancing over Miami, said the analytics of ESPN’s Basketball Power Index computers. The betting public nodded like Bobbleheads in making the Celtics an overwhelming favorite in this NBA Eastern Conference finals series, and a near double-digit pick in Game 1 in Boston on Wednesday night.

It seemed ridiculous.

Miami’s Udonis Haslem mocked those ESPN analytics, calling them “assolytics” on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz.

Yes, it seemed ridiculous to so severely doubt a Heat team that had proved it was no typical No. 8 seed, first eliminating the No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks and then upsetting the favored New York Knicks.

It was ridiculous. Would have been even if Miami had lost Wednesday. But the ludicrousness of not respecting the Heat is only underlined now:

Miami 123, Boston 116.

And the Celtics’ home crowd was stunned-silent enough afterward for Jimmy Butler to be heard quite well in the interview on court.

“So many different guys step up in so many different ways,” he said.

Playoff Jimmy leading them all. Again.

It was Miami’s third straight Game 1 win on the road this postseason to steal the other’s home-court advantage.

“That’s not enough for us,” Butler said. “We wanna get another one in two days.”

Butler scored 35 points Wednesday and had seven assists, a crazy six steals, five rebounds and only three turnovers.

He becomes only the third player ever in NBA playoff history to have multiple games of at least 35 points with five-plus each of rebounds, assists and steals. The other two? Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson.

He becomes the second Heat player with 30 points and six steals in a playoff game. The other: Dwyane Wade.

Butler is averaging 32 points this postseason. He is, right now (or should be), the playoffs’ MVP.

“One of the premier if not the premier two-way players in this association,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called his star. “Down the stretch he was willing to do everything we needed.”

He outplayed Boston’s Jayson Tatum, who scored 30 but disappeared late.

Someone told me YouTubeTV stopped working late in the game. Was that around the same time the Celtics also stopped working?

“If you have the belief, anything is possible,” said Butler afterward. “I’m playing at an incredible level because they’re allowing me to do so. They’re trusting me. That’s what anybody wants out of life. To be wanted, to be appreciated, to just let you go out there and rock.”

Bam Adebayo added 20 for Miami. Four others had 15 points. Kyle Lowry did, most in that big third period. And so did Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin -- undrafted, all three of them. (Heat Culture. It’s a thing, non-believers.)

Game 2 is back in Boston on Friday night.

What just happened doesn’t make the Heat confident. No. Because they already were.

“This year is our year. We’re going to go into this Game 1 and do what we’re supposed to do and be the first one to four [wins],” Butler had said. “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.”

This was a Heat team that barely made the playoffs, needing a second play-in game. Did they believe then they’d be here now?

“Damn right I did. Damn right we did,” said Butler. “We still don’t care if you all (media and public) pick us to win. We never have and we never will. We go out there and we hoop. We know the group of guys we have in this lockerroom. We pump constant confidence in everybody.”

Miami scored 46 points in the third quarter to take the game by the neck. Celtics coach Joe Mazzula, 34 (eight years younger than Haslem) got schooled by Spoelstra. Miami shot 52 percent on 3-point shots. Clutch wore a Heat uniform.

And the surreal run and ride continues in South Florida sports.

The Florida Panthers open their NHL Eastern finals at the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night, and the concurrent unexpected championship runs of Greater Miami’s two Little No. 8s Who Could has gripped this area in playoff fever.

The symbiosis showed Wednesday as Panthers players wore Heat T-shirts as they departed for Raleigh just hours before the Heat tipped off in Boston.

This is Miami’s sixth all-time playoff series vs. Boston and third in the past four years — all in the conference finals. The Heat has only played Chicago more often in the postseason (seven times), but not since 2013. The playoff rivalry with the Celtics on a high simmer right now is this franchise’s best since the epic, brawl-marred four straight postseason meetings vs. the New York Knicks in 1997-2000.

Miami beat Boston in 2020 to reach its last NBA Finals but lost to the Celtics in the 2022 ECF in seven games, so this is the rubber match.

“You want to embrace all those things,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said in Boston after Wednesday morning’s shootaround. “You get to this point, you really treasure these opportunities. To face a team three times in four years, you don’t get that very often. We have great respect for them, we’ve had some really good battles. It’s really good for the fan bases. There’s good narratives for all of you, but we have a big task we want to get accomplished this postseason, and Boston’s in our way.”

This is the fifth time Miami has faced the same opponent at least three times within four postseasons. The first four, chronologically: New York Knicks, four straight in 1997-2000; Celtics, three straight in 2010-12; Indiana Pacers, three straight in 2012-14; and Milwaukee Bucks, three of four in 2020-23.

The 1-0 series lead Miami holds now means nothing, but is encouraging.

In NBA history since the adoption of the current 2-2-1-1-1 seven-game series format in 1984, teams that start 1-0 are 313-102, a 75.4 percent advance rate.

Miami all-time in playoff seven-game series is 22-4 advancing when winning the first game and 8-10 when starting 0-1. That trend ran counter in last year’s ECF when Miami won Game 1 over Boston, but the Celtics prevailed in seven.

This feels different.

“This year is our year,” Butler said.

Crazy thought. It may be time to finally start believing the Miami Heat.