(This is one of many posts you can find from me over at The Sportfolio, a blog collective covering the latest in every major sport with the same uninsured bravado you’re accustomed to here. Ride the wave.)

Tom Thibodeau look like a goblin.

That is, verbatim, the first thing I wrote down in my nerd journal when I sat down to watch last Sunday’s Knicks – Heat game 1 matinee.

It felt essential then, and it feels essential now. Because Thibs should and will be vilified for the Knicks blowing their home court advantage in front of the most ravenous MSG crowd since Linsanity.

The Knicks had that game. They were out-shooting Miami, out-rebounding Miami, but they were not (Jesus, I’m really gonna say it) out-culturing the Heat.

For every scoring run New York made, fervent and cathartic as they were, they just couldn’t capture enough momentum to drag themselves beyond a dozen point lead. And with each passing quarter, the Kicks got tighter, and the Heat got looser.

Just to even the series last night, again on their celebrity-encrusted home floor, it took everything and everyone the Knicks have just to not cover the spread. Against a team with Himmy in street clothes.

Look, I don’t wanna just call them the Zombie Heat. I already rip off Bill Simmons plenty. So I’m gonna take it a step further.

As we all know, there are primarily 2 different flavors of zombie out there in media. You have your fast zombies, like in 28 Days Later or World War Z… and your slow zombies, ala The Walking Dead.

Both types are dumb, frequently dispatched, and basically amount to CGI ornaments hung on a subpar script.

The Heat are neither of these. Because the Heat, the Heat Culture©, isn’t just original. It’s the original.

It all stems from that silver snake, Pat Riley, and trickles down the organization all the way to Jimmy’s morning coffee.

Riley has been leading teams to titles since before Reagan was selling crack. His once groundbreaking vision and methodology is still traced (yet seldom replicated) by every other franchise as the premier winning formula.

The Heat do not operate like modern blockbuster zombies, because their strength, their relentlessness, their… inevitability, is entirely self-generated and self-fulfilling. Injuries, talent disparities, none of it seems to make a difference after tip-off.

Who you are is irrelevant. How you think you’re protected from them is irrelevant. They move as a united force, singular entity, after a single goal:

They’re coming to get you.

The ‘Zombie Heat’ moniker is valid, but it’s incomplete. This is not just a lineup of sneaky retreads and undrafted contributors.

This is Pat Riley’s Night of the Living Heat.

Ok so for my sports-fiend contemporaries, Night of the Living Dead came out in ’68 and was the original zombie movie. Made by a guy called George A. Romero. It’s one of those movies that’s so iconic you probably already know a quote or a trope from it because it’s got that much foundational influence.

Like the shuffling, hobbling movement. That came from Romero. And yknow how in every horror movie the survivors are always literally or metaphorically tripping over themselves to escape? Romero.

That’s who Miami is in these playoffs. They aren’t blowing anybody out, they take it slow; plotting through the first 50-75% of each game with just enough gumption to prevent you or your lead from feeling comfortable.

Then, right when Spoelstra gets a final whiff of your underestimation, they ramp up the intensity. And all of a sudden you’re fucking up possessions left and right with poor shot selection or outright turnovers.

You can’t believe what’s happening as it’s happening. It’s so out of character for your team. They played so well all regular season… They played pretty well just last half!

You rub your eyes before you glance at the score bug again, hoping against hope that it’ll look differently… Nope. 5 minutes to go, one possession game. 

By this point, the Heat have already won. They are exactly where they always intended to be. In any game where a single bucket makes the difference between losing and winning, Miami simply trusts themselves to get it done.

And why wouldn’t they? Erik Spoelstra is putting together one of the greatest head coaching runs we’ve seen in the 21st Century. Jimmy has proven he’s got however much star power they ever need. They’re an 8 seed who already took down the title favorites. On the road. In 5 games.

The Knicks are in trouble. That’s a redundant statement.

But when I look at the poorly coached Celtics, the Embiid-dependent Sixers… the no defense Suns, the glass Lakers, the aging Warriors, even the choke-primed Nuggets… Who are you confident is surviving The Night of the Living Heat?

Get that 8 out of your head. Seeding is but a number.

Miami has 5 players getting real rotation minutes that all went undrafted. Tyler Herro is on the bench with a bright pink cast on his shooting hand. None of this makes any sense.

Although of course, enough dollars make sense, so let’s talk dead presidents.

Heat to win series vs Knicks: -116

Heat to win Eastern Conference: +600

Heat to win NBA Finals: +2400

Yacht Locks, these are not. But I’d say certainly worth a sailboat sprinkle after what we’ve seen so far.