Only three coaches in NBA history have done what Erik Spoelstra is attempting to do in Miami. 
One is dead. One is approaching 100 while in assisted living in Minnesota. The third is off the grid somewhere, presumably in Montana.
The Heat are trying to become only the fourth franchise in NBA history to win three consecutive titles. The Lakers were the last to turn the trick, winning three in a row from 2000-2002. They were coached by Phil Jackson, who also won three straight titles with Chicago on two other occasions.
The late, great Red Auerbach won eight straight titles from 1959 to 1966. And John Kundla, due to turn 98 on July 3, won three straight from 1952-1954 as the coach of the Minneapolis Lakers.
Jackson, Auerbach and Kundla all are deserving members of the Basketball Hall of Fame. The coach they call “Spo” isn’t quite in that company yet.
Had the Spurs managed to get a defensive rebound at the end of Game 6 of last year’s NBA Finals, Spoelstra wouldn’t even be working on a three-peat. But the Heat got their second straight title, and that makes No. 3 all the more important, for it would put Spoelstra and Miami in very select company.
It’s pretty hard to even win two straight; just ask Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who has four rings, none of them in succession. OK, save for two plays, he might have won five straight from 2003 to 2007. But he didn’t.
No one did it from 1969 (the last of two straight for the Bill Russell-coached Celtics) to 1988 (when the Pat Riley-coached Lakers finally broke the Repeater Curse.) Since then, the Pistons (1998-89), Rockets (1994-95) and Lakers (2009-10) have repeated as NBA champions.
The eventual champion Mavericks ended the Lakers’ bid for a three-peat in 2011 in the second round of the playoffs. The 1996 Rockets’ hopes for a three-peat ended in the second round as well. The 1991 Pistons’ three-peat quest got to the conference finals, where they were ousted by the eventual champion Chicago Bulls.
In each of those three cases, the two-time champions were swept. So, too, was the last two-time champ to make it as far as the NBA Finals – the 1989 Lakers, who were broomed by the Pistons. To be fair, the Lakers were without Byron Scott for the whole series, and Magic Johnson went down during Game 2.
The cumulative effect of two long playoff runs eventually takes a toll on the defending champion. The team has to be “on” every game, knowing the opponent is going to bring its best. It has to labor through an uneventful regular season to get to the meat and potatoes portion of the schedule: the playoffs.
The Heat have a good record; they are 33-13 after Saturday’s dismantling of the Knicks. Only Indiana and Oklahoma City have lost fewer games, and Miami holds a healthy lead in its division. But the Heat haven’t been the blow-your-socks-off team of a season ago, when they won 66 games in the regular season, including a remarkable 27 in a row.
Through the first 46 games of 2013-14, the Heat are a ho-hum eighth in scoring and 10th in points 
allowed. They are dead last in rebounding (partially explained by the fact that they lead the NBA in shooting). They are resting Dwyane Wade a lot; he has missed almost one third of their games.
They already have lost as many games at home as they did all last season, when they were 37-4 in American Airlines Arena. They only lost five times at home in the 66-game season of 2011-12, their first championship run.
But barring a slew of injuries, does anyone foresee Miami getting swept in the second round, as was the case with the 2012 Lakers and the 1996 Rockets? Um, no.
Does anyone see them even losing before the conference finals, especially given the pathetic state of the rest of the East? Um, no.
But here is something the Heat have not had to do in their last two championship runs: open a playoff series on the road. Yes, they had some must-win road games along the way, none bigger than Game 6 in Boston in 2012. But they always had not only the cushion of a Game 7 at home, but also of playing Games 1 and 2 at home as well.
That could change this season. The Pacers seem determined to hold on to the East’s top seed. Should that happen, the Heat would be forced to do something they have not done since the 2011 conference finals – open on the road in a conference playoff series.
It should be noted that Miami won that series over the Bulls in five games.
In this way, this year’s Heat look a lot like the 1993 Chicago Bulls, the first of the two three-peat Chicago teams. The streak ended when Michael Jordan quit for the first time.
The 1993 Bulls, who won 67 games the previous season, didn’t finish with the best record in the East, which had been the case in the previous two years. But they breezed through the first two rounds, setting up a much-anticipated showdown with the Pat Riley-coached Knicks.
New York, which had taken Chicago to seven games the previous year (like Indiana did with Miami last year), had the better record. The Bulls trailed 2-0 in that series before roaring back to win the next four, a streak highlighted by Charles Smith getting blocked four times at the end of Game 5 in Madison Square Garden.
The Bulls then opened the 1993 NBA Finals on the road, but ended up winning all three games in Phoenix and defeating the Suns in six games.
Riley coined the term “three-peat” prior to the 1989 season. He also guaranteed a repeat in 1988. He, too, is in the Hall of Fame, deservedly. He knows how hard it to win two straight – and he never got that third one.
But his protégé, Coach Spo, could very well one-up the boss this June.
Peter May is the only writer who covered the final NBA games played by Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. He has covered the league for three decades for The Hartford Courant and The Boston Globe and has written three books on the Boston Celtics. His work also appears in The New York Times. Follow him on Twitter.