Miami Heat's crazy season rolls to NBA Finals

You know when it first registered? When these Heat players realized they were in an unprecedented collision of sports, celebrity, controversy, jealousy, animosity and the Internet Age on the way to these NBA Finals?

"Cleveland,'' Dwyane Wade said of LeBron James' return game in December.

"Bump-gate,'' Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of his accidental time-out brush with LeBron in November.

"When Barbara Walters asked President Obama about the Heat,'' center Joel Anthony said of that December interview. "She had, what, four or five questions for the President of the United States? And one of them was about us? We all said, 'This is crazy.' ''

It was crazy, this season. Crazy loud. Crazy weird. Crazy all the way to Monday when Heat players walked on the court at AmericanAirlines Arena to meet hundreds of reporters on the eve of tonight's Game 1 of the NBA Finals and shrugged.

"Just a normal day,'' forward Chris Bosh said."We've been under this kind of microscope for 100-plus games."

The dozens of media around him chuckled. Normal? Look around! But Bosh didn't laugh. And for good reason. This team has lived in the crosshairs of questions and photographers and bloggers and fans and Twitter and SportsCenter for months.

"Almost a year,'' Bosh said. "No team's ever seen anything like it."

None could. The world's changing with each spin. Udonis Haslem has played in the NBA eight years, traveled with Shaquille O'Neal in a championship season and even he couldn't believe the sight as he left the hotel for the team bus on his first road trip back after months of injury.

This was in Minnesota on April 1.

"Hundreds of people were out there just to watch us walk to the bus,'' he said. "I mean, hundreds. Eight, 10, 15 deep. And it was cold outside."

"I took a picture of that scene and sent it to people I know,'' said guard Mike Bibby, who was in his first days with the Heat after being acquired. "I'd never seen anything like that."

Bibby is a 13-year veteran. And what he said next seemed more unbelievable to him.

"It was like that everywhere,'' he said.

In fact, it was like that from the start. Mike Miller remembers walking to the team bus for the first preseason game in San Antonio. It was such a scene he called his brother from the bus and said, "This is going to be a different lifestyle, this season."

Different? You could say that. As Eddie House said, every Heat game became like, "a circus without the clowns. We don't bring clowns. But the circus tents went up wherever we went."

Remember when people said it was bad for the league? Well, the Heat drew a league-high 100.9 percent of capacity on the road (standing-room-only put it above seated capacity).

Their opener against Boston was the most-watched regular-season game ever on cable. Three of their playoff games against Chicago were three of the four most-watched games ever on cable.

"You get used to it,'' LeBron said. "It's life."

Well, he gets used to it. Juwan Howard remembers training camp at remote Hurlburt Field on the Panhandle and seeing an ESPN studio set up to do live shows.

"That's when something clicked in my mind this wasn't going to be anything I'd been a part of,'' Howard said.

Zygrunas Ilgauskas was a teammate of LeBron's in Cleveland. If anyone could have expected this kind of spotlight, he would have. And he didn't. And it didn't take long to register.

The day after he signed with the Heat in July, Ilgauskas walked from his New York apartment to the gym. At Broadway and Grand, a man started yelling at him across the street.

"You guys are going down!"

"You're a bunch of bums!"

"The Celtics got your number!"

Ilgauskas said nothing. But he thought two things: He's hearing about the Celtics in New York.

And the second?

Ilgauskas sat on the side of the court, on the eve of the NBA Finals, and said, "This season is going to be like nothing I've ever experienced."