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Everybody, please have a seat. Have a seat.
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Welcome to the White House.
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Actually, for these guys, it is welcome back to the White House -- (applause)
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-- after being back-to-back world champions, the Miami Heat.
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Now, one of the cool things about this job
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is welcoming championship sports teams from across the sporting world to the White House.
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And usually people enjoy coming to the White House.
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I have to say, I’ve never seen folks more excited than the Heat when they came last year. (Laughter.)
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I mean, LeBron was so pumped up I thought he was going to give me a hug
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and knock me over like the guy in the SportsCenter who hit the half-court shot.
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But it was wonderful to see them then.
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It is wonderful to see them back.
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We’ve got some outstanding members of Congress who are big fans of the Heat.
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They’re from both parties -- because we all know nothing brings people together like the Miami Heat.
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(Laughter and applause)
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Across the NBA there’s just a unifying -- (laughter) -- sense about the Heat.
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I want to congratulate Coach Spoelstra for the outstanding work that he does;
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legendary team president, Pat Riley, for his outstanding leadership;
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and all the coaches and players,
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members of the staff and crew to make a championship season.
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This group has now won twice, but it’s gone to the finals three times.
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And sometimes it feels like they’re still fighting for a little respect.
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I can relate to that. (Laughter.)
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Last season, the Heat put together one of the most dominating regular seasons ever by a defending champion.
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They won a team-record 66 games.
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At one point, they won 27 games straight –
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the second-longest winning streak ever, extraordinarily impressive
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-- almost as impressive as the Bulls’ 72-win season.
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(Laughter)
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Riley and I were reminiscing about those Knicks years. (Laughter.)
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But as these guys know, winning a title is never easy.
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In the playoffs, the Pacers put them through seven bruising games.
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In the finals, the Spurs showed us all that they’ve got an awful lot of life left in them,
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and one of the greatest players of all time,
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and one of the greatest coaches of all time,
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In fact, San Antonio had the series all but wrapped up in game six.
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As you will recall, Miami was down five points, less than 30 seconds to go.
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The last 122 times that happened in the playoffs,
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the team that was down lost 122 times.
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And then they brought out the ropes.
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And then Ray Allen saw them bring out the ropes. (Laughter)
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And with five seconds left, Chris Bosh gets an incredible offensive rebound,
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passes it out to Ray;
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Ray is backing up, he’s got to jump forward;
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hits one of the most iconic shots of all time.
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And then he added a few choice words about the ropes,
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which we cannot -- (laughter)
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-- which we cannot repeat here.
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But, Ray, I do want you to know that when you say those things on the court,
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like, people can read your lips, right? (Laughter)
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You do understand that?
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Ray:Yeah. President Obama:Okay. All right.
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So the Heat won game six, went on to win game seven,
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their third title in eight seasons.
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LeBron James earned his second straight Finals MVP
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to go along with four regular-season MVPs in five years.
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Dwayne Wade, warrior that he is, played through a pair of injured knees,
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always came through when it mattered.
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Chris Bosh was there playing great defence,
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getting the rebound, hitting a clutch shot.
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Everybody on this team participated.
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And from Ray’s big shot to the contributions of Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier,
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Udonis Haslem, Birdman, Birdman’s tattoos -- (laughter)
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Birdman’s mohawk -- (laughter) -- the Heat showed us the kind of heart
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and determination it takes to be a champion.
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And they also showed what heart means off the court.
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Last year, they raised close to $2 million for local charities.
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Before this event, they met with some of our amazing wounded warriors over at Walter Reed,
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and we’re proud to have some of those wounded warriors here in the audience here today.
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Honoring our troops -- (applause) -- honoring our troops isn’t just something
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that they do when they come to the White House
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-- it’s something they do all year round with their Heat Home Strong initiative.
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And Pat Riley I know has been hugely invested in this,
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and we talked a little bit about this
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-- his incredible admiration for our men and women in uniform,
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but more concretely his willingness to do something about how we support them
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I think is a credit to the entire organization.
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On top of that, Coach Spoelstra serves as a member of the NBA Fit team
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to encourage healthy habits among young people.
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I know Michelle is thankful for the support that many of these players have given to her Let’s Move initiative.
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I heard that all of you are getting ready to embarrass yourselves
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by singing some karaoke for Shane’s education foundation. (Laughter and applause)
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Just leave Al Green to the pros, people. (Laughter)
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So bottom line is, outstanding athletes, outstanding organization,
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outstanding team, but also outstanding members of their community.
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And so we’re very proud to have them back.
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We wish them great luck for the rest of the season, unless they’re playing the Bulls. (Laughter)
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And with that, I think we should take a picture,
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but we should make it quick before one of these guys starts yelling at Mario.
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(Laughter and applause)
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I mean, sometimes it’s just a bad pass, guys.
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It’s not Mario’s fault. (Laughter) I got your back, man.
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Well, this is a great honor for the entire Miami Heat family.
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It does not get old.
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And what this is, is we put this together before the playoff run last year,
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and it was a covenant between all of us that we signed that we would commit to each other
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-- all the way to the end.
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This is outstanding.
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So we have marks for each win, and it signified each player would mark the win for that game,
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and the final one was the team one.
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So this one right here, you can see “44” and your name right there.
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There you go. It was added to it.
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You know, you guys are winning me over a little bit. (Laughter)
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Getting there. Getting there.
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We promise we’ll put together another one for you and let you mark it this year. (Laughter)
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Congratulations. (Applause)