This was something we hadn't seen, in this strangest of all years, in almost five months, since March.
A big game.
It's almost tough to remember what those were, but Miami Heat vs. Toronto Raptors felt like one Monday in the NBA's Orlando bubble. It felt like a game that might mean something. Might tell us something.
It did.
Even in a 107-103 loss, Miami reminded us it is on a level with the defending NBA champions, and that a deep run in the looming playoffs _ maybe even one reaching the NBA Finals _ is not an unreasonable notion.
This arrived as a measuring-stick game for the one South Florida team best positioned to come out of this delayed, truncated, upside-down sports year with an actual shot at a title.
This eight-game regular-season restart will be over and the playoffs will be here in a flash. Can the Heat actually get through the Eastern Conference?
I say yes. Still. No matter Monday's loss, which saw the Heat play badly overall, once trailing by 17 points in the third quarter, before fighting back for a shot at winning in the final minute.
Reigning champ Toronto and Giannis Antetokounmpo's Milwaukee Bucks are the largest East hurdles for Miami. Small sample, but the Heat were 2-0 vs. the Raptors before this loss, and are 2-0 this season vs. the Bucks.
I watched Miami handle a pretty good Denver team 125-105 on Saturday to reopen the pandemic-delayed season, and I thought I was seeing a team that can beat anybody in the East.
I wasn't alone.
Amin Elhassan, the NBA analyst for ESPN, is a former longtime league executive, most recently as assistant director of basketball operations for the Phoenix Suns. He said this of the Heat on Sunday:
"If they stay in the four or five seed and play Milwaukee in the second round, I don't think its beyond the imagination: They're gonna beat the Bucks in the second round and they go to the conference finals at least," Elhassan told us in a conversation for our latest podcast.
Miami in fact, even with this loss, is 17-7 this season against the eight other East teams still alive.
The Heat has two legit stars in Jimmy Butler and young Bam Adebayo, who both scored 22 points on Saturday and made this season's all-star team. Coach Erik Spoelstra has a long, deep bench to manipulate. Monday that bench produced 56 points, 25 of them from Goran Dragic.
And if you see Milwaukee as the team to beat in the East, consider:
"Bam matches up with Giannis very well," Elhassan noted. "There's no one else big and strong enough to guard him who's also quick. Or no one quick enough to guard him who's also big and strong enough. Bam is quick enough and has the strength and length to bother Giannis around the basket."
(Quick aside: We're actually talking sports here, for a blessed change. Not coronavirus/COVID-19 or anything thing else sitting heavy on the nation's shoulders. Sports!)
And since we're letting the imagination run to the Heat actually having a shot to get to the NBA Finals, might as well go even further. To next summer and free agency. When Miami will be positioned, salary cap-wise, to go after the coveted "whale" Pat Riley is always casting for.
Because if Adebayo and Butler are your second- and third-best players in any order you like, then you are a championship contender.
And Antetokounmpo will be out there.
Might he leave Milwaukee? How will the Bucks winning or not winning a title this season affect that decision? Nobody knows yet. Likely not even the Greek Freak.
But if he does leave?
"Miami's right at the top of the list along with Toronto and Dallas," says Elhassan of likeliest landing spots for the big prize.
Elhassan, by the way, was the guy in the NBA media out front last summer in predicting Miami would go after Butler, and why that would be such a great fit.
"Jimmy Butler is Heat culture. Jimmy (came) in preprogrammed. He didn't have to upload the software," Elhassan says. "Giannis is like that."
For Heat fans, even with Monday's stumble, the balance of this strangest of seasons is something to greatly anticipate.
So is next summer.
