Never Forget The Time Heat Fans Left The Arena Early Before Ray Allen's Epic Finals Three
It feels crazy to me that this was already 7 years ago, but it's true. On June 18th 2013 Ray Allen made that corner three that you could argue saved LeBron's legacy. They lose that game he moves to 2-7 in NBA Finals which isn't exactly great. But as we know, Pop left TIM DUNCAN on the bench for the final 23 seconds, Chris Bosh was able to snag the offensive rebound and found Ray in the corner. That's a shot Ray Allen can make with his eyes closed, and I know when I saw this play unfold there was no doubt in my mind Ray was going to knock that shot down. I've seen it a million times.
But that play wasn't even the best part. No no, the best part of the whole sequence is all the Heat fans that bounced early when they thought this game was over, only to try and rush back into the arena. Fraud city.
How on earth can you leave in this situation as a fan? I'll never understand it. Crazy shit happens in the NBA all the damn time in the closing moments. A 5 point lead with 28 seconds left is in no way a done deal. Seeing all those people try and run back into the arena will never not make me laugh.
This is why it is a personal rule of mine that under no circumstances do I ever leave a game early. I don't care what the score is or what's happening. I'm not budging until 0.00. I remember there were numerous times the Celts would be getting killed and my Dad wanted to leave early so we could beat the traffic heading back to Worcester and there was no getting me out of my seat. To think that you would be down to leave a close Finals game is not something my brain can comprehend. This is why I laugh whenever I see Heat Twitter talking that shit online. It's some of the same people that 1000000% left early in that Game 6.
Of course, every fanbase has bandwagon fans, especially when you suddenly become the best team in the league in a short period of time like the Heat did. And I'm sure the die hard Heat fans out there will spinzone what happened that night. But the tape don't lie. I can only imagine the rage I would feel if I was with someone who forced me to leave with 28 seconds left and I missed the Ray Allen three. That's a relationship dealbreaker or at the very least it would be the end of our friendship.
For example, I was in the arena during this moment and I can honestly say it was one of the coolest experiences I've had at the Garden. Nobody around me in my section even considered leaving. And this was after one of the most painful games we ever had to witness of the Big 3 era. I think part of it was the fact that deep down we probably knew this was it for that team and that core, but either way it was an awesome moment.