All right, you can pinch yourself now.
It was real.
Wednesday night was one big playoff surprise from the Florida Panthers stacked on an even bigger one from the Miami Heat.
Two unbelievable Game 5s. Two overtime delights. Six double-decked hours of hoops and hockey hysteria that are unmatched in South Florida history with parallel endings that you never saw coming and rocked their respective sports.
The eighth-seeded Panthers really went into top-seeded Boston and won in overtime, 4-3, to keep their season alive for a Game 6 on Friday in Sunrise.
The eighth-seeded Heat really went into top-seeded Milwaukee and won in overtime, 128-126, to close out that shocking series and advance to play the rival New York Knicks.
Do you know how many times two teams from the same market had ever won playoff games on the road, in overtime, on the same night?
Of course you don’t know. No one has ever had the need to research such a stat in a sports world where every stat is researched. But you can guess how often this has happened.
Never.
Even now, with these games in the rearview mirror, each outcome was the kind that deserved an archaeological dig into the great plays that led to the sudden endings. The Panthers’ season was fading when Boston tied it 3-3 in the third period. The Heat were down 16 points in the fourth quarter.
Each game also had a show-stopper at the end of regulation. For the Panthers, that came when Boston star Brad Marchand had a chance for a breakaway buzzer beater and Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky came up with the save to keep the season going. Another save, that is. He had 44 on the night.
“I knew it wasn’t going in,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of his thoughts as Marchand skated in on Bobrovsky. “You can’t know it’s not going in. But, I don’t feel we’ve had a whole lot of advantage in this series in the karma of the game. That’s a nice way of saying I disagreed with a number of the calls. I just felt we had enough karma stored, that that puck wouldn’t go in.”
For the Heat, the end-of-regulation heroics came from Jimmy Butler again. Who else? Down two points with 2.1 seconds left, Gabe Vincent lobbed an in-bounds pass to the basket and Butler somehow fought off two Bucks, caught the ball and threw it in the basket as he fell to the court.
“I had a different variation of that play and [Butler] looked at me dead in the eye,” Spoelstra said of the time-out play call. “He just said, ‘No, let me be that guy.’ And I just said, ‘OK, but if we can’t get that pass?’ And he said, ‘I’ll get it. Don’t worry about it.’”
Great coaching. Even greater playing. All across the board Wednesday night. If Butler’s 42 points again show why he’s in the Heat pantheon with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk showed again why he’s become the face of his franchise, too.
Six minutes into overtime, Carter Verhaeghe sprinted down ice, forced a Boston turnover and threw the puck in front of the net. Tkachuk picked it up and backhanded the game-winner into the net.
The Heat won in overtime with a final defensive stand. Butler, first, stopped Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo from driving to the basket.
“That was probably the biggest play of the game,’ Spoelstra said.
There were several big plays, which led to Milwaukee misplaying the end so the buzzer went off before Grayson Allen took a shot. Milwaukee fans, like Boston fans, were stunned.
The Heat became just the fifth No. 8 seed in NBA history to beat a top seed. They were a weakened eighth seed, too, with the losses of Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo to injury.
Who gave them a chance? And who gives the Panthers a chance even now?
“We were supposed to get swept in this series, right?” Tkachuk said.
It was about a week ago these playoffs had a chance to be nightly torture for South Florida fans on the way to a quick exit to the offseason, considering these opponents.
Instead, we have one upset for the ages from the Heat. We have the Panthers forcing a pivotal Game 6 at home Friday. It all overlapped in a six-hour doubleheader of sports delight on Wednesday.
Pinch yourself.
All that really happened.
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