Longtime fans know the game well. On February 22, 1996, the Miami HEAT traded for Tim Hardaway. On February 23, neither Hardaway nor his trade-mate Chris Gatling was available to play. In town that day? The 48-6 Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan.
What happened that night is the stuff of legend. Behind Rex Chapman’s 9-of-10 shooting from three – in an era where that many attempts were hardly commonplace – Miami shot 15-of-23 from deep and toppled the future champions, and eventual owners of the single-season wins record, with effectively a seven-man rotation.
In beating the defending-champion Milwaukee Bucks, 113-104, Wednesday night without Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Markieff Morris, Miami has another improbable victory to add to the annals of the franchise’s many shorthanded tales.