For a good stretch of this season, the Brisbane Heat looked like the only team in the BBL capable of losing two games in a row and then going into a slump.

Former NBA coach Bill Fitch first delivered that classic line many years ago when talking about yet another dud Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team.

What makes the Heat’s rise to the BBL final on Saturday so remarkable is that they gave every cricket fan so many good reasons to sneer at them.

I challenge any Queensland cricket fan to deny saying this at some point of the season: “The Heat are the worst BBL team going around.” Confession…I even started looking up the stats because last season was a 3-11 fizzer.

With just two wins from their first nine games, it was a fair assessment too for a team with less appeal than a warm Great Northern lager.

Now, they are what every sports’ fan truly loves…an underdog tale of extreme proportions, comeback drama and teamwork. Even their fightbacks are flawed.

We have found a new star in left-arm quick Spencer Johnson, a deceptive, competitive spinner in Matt Kuhnemann, keeper-batsman Jimmy Peirson finally glowing with his full potential and we have that most magnetic of figures, a local hero.

Michael Neser is what Sam Trimble, Phil Carlson, Carl Rackemann, Stuart Law and so many others have been to Queensland cricket.

They are the performers that the Australian selectors too often ignore for a shiny new toy from NSW or Victoria.

Invariably, they write themselves into Queensland cricket folklore instead. Neser’s rapid 48 not out and 2-28 as Man of the Match was the irresistible force that made sure of the upset over the Sydney Sixers at the SCG on Thursday night.

Don Bradman may have stroked the boundaries with more artistry but rarely with more value than the 4-4-4-4 streak from Neser’s bat to turn the sudden-death play-off that put the Heat in the final. A whack to leg, a clump wide of mid-on, a cut and a straight drive were straight from the T20 handbook.

The Heat are so fallible, it’s engrossing. The collapso debacle to lose against the Hobart Hurricanes in the final regular season game was one thing but there was a hint of another when a 5-25 tumble threatened the epic upset at the SCG.

Make no mistake, Queensland was one minute away from switching the dial to footy mode full-time this week with pre-season trials and Brisbane Broncos-Dolphins cage fighting.

The Heat have delayed that seasonal switch and grabbed a window for potential history which has many of us enthralled.

They can’t beat the red-hot Perth Scorchers in 39-degree heat in Perth? In the final? Away from home for the fourth time in the finals? Surely, not.

The “maybe” has us all intrigued.

No one ever imagined Leicester City winning the English Premier League in 2015-16 yet they did.

Or the Sunshine Coast Lightning winning the Suncorp Super Netball competition as an upstart start-up in 2017.

A few readers will remember finding a TV at the old Gabba during a cricket match on February 11, 1990 to have a quick look at Mike Tyson making short work of James “Buster” Douglas.

Instead, they witnessed one of boxing’s greatest upsets when Douglas KO’d the undefeated heavyweight champion as a 42-1 outsider.

Memorable upsets run to a long list and it gives sport the wonderful heartbeat it has.

Perhaps, more than anything it shows the power of the mind and positive vibes.

The Heat’s season resurgence came on the back of match-winning contributions from Australian batsmen Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne and Matt Renshaw when four games in a row were won.

When those same players were removed for the Test tour of India, the belief they fortified in their team-mates remained for the upset of the Sixers.

There’s something extra-appealing about underdogs finding their feet.

Opener Josh Brown makes his own bats. He makes up some of the shots he hits for six as well.

Making the final is vindication for the Heat organisation re-making the side after the tough call to split with long-time box office star Chris Lynn. Lynn’s Adelaide Strikers didn’t make the finals. The Heat are into the final.

Brown’s name wasn’t even emblazoned on the back of his Heat shirt when he walked out at the Gabba on January 1.

It sort of sums up an under-the-radar team which is now earning recognition it deserves.

They knew Brown’s name after he walloped six sixes that night at the Gabba just as other names like Hain, Bazley and Bartlett are now winning approving nods.

Cricket Australia can thank the Heat as well.

The BBL season is overlong. It has dragged on into the school year again and the time for finals might well have been 10 days ago.

The Heat’s crazy form reversal through this season has kept the play-offs interesting. Now, for the final.

Can Neser, Johnson and Co deliver one final, telling uppercut like Buster Douglas?

I switched off the Heat for good in late December or so I thought. Here we are in February and we can’t wait to see what a great sporting underdog can do in a final in February.

Jim Tucker has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.