Heat struggles to solve elite Cavs offense and other takeaways from Sunday’s Game 1 loss
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 121-100 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night at Rocket Arena in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. The Eastern Conference’s eighth-seeded Heat are now down 1-0 to the top-seeded Cavaliers in the best-of-7 series, with Game 2 on Wednesday in Cleveland (7:30 p.m., NBA TV and FanDuel Sports Network Sun):
The Heat simply didn’t have an answer for the Cavaliers’ historically great offense in Game 1.
Not only did the Cavaliers record the NBA’s best offensive rating this regular season, but they also posted one of the best offensive ratings in league history.
Even after a week off between the end of the regular season and playoffs, Cleveland showed little signs of rust.
The Cavaliers scored 121 points on 51.1 percent shooting from the field and 18-of-43 (41.9 percent) shooting on threes while committing just eight turnovers in Game 1.
“You get to the playoffs, there are going to be dynamic offensive teams,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And they have guys that drive and break you down off the dribble and they can also just shoot pull-up threes and they’re very good spot-up shooters, as well. So that’s the task and it’s up to us to figure out how to beat that.”
The Heat struggled to contain the Cavaliers’ drives early, allowing 18 first-quarter paint points.
Then Cleveland’s outside shooters got going, making six threes in the second quarter.
Cleveland led by as many as 16 points in the first half before entering halftime with a 62-54 advantage.
The Cavaliers’ lowest scoring quarter of the game came in the third quarter, when they totaled 25 points on 10-of-22 (45.5 percent) shooting from the field and 2-of-7 (28.6 percent) shooting on threes.
That helped keep the Heat close, entering the fourth quarter in an eight-point hole. Miami even cut the deficit to seven with 8:32 to play.
But the Cavaliers exploded for 34 points in the fourth quarter behind the shooting of Sixth Man of the Year candidate Ty Jerome on their way to the 21-point win. Jerome scored 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field and 3-of-3 shooting on threes in the final period.
“That’s what makes that team really good and the [No. 1 offense],” Heat guard Davion Mitchell said. “That makes them good because when one of them goes out, you got Ty Jerome coming in. There is no drop-off.”
Three Cavaliers players scored more than 25 points on Sunday.
Donovan Mitchell totaled a game-high 30 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field and 2-of-9 shooting on threes, five rebounds, four assists and four steals.
Jerome added 28 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field and 5-of-8 shooting on threes in 26 minutes off the bench.
Darius Garland contributed 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field and 5-of-9 shooting on threes, three rebounds and five assists.
The Heat’s defense has been among the league’s best in recent weeks, posting the NBA’s fourth-best defensive rating (109.2 points allowed per 100 possessions) over the final 15 regular-season games. Miami also only allowed 101 points per 100 possessions during its two-game play-in tournament run for a defensive rating that would have ranked No. 1 in the league among teams this regular season.
But the Heat allowed 137.5 points per 100 possessions in Sunday’s Game 1 for its worst single-game defensive rating of the season.
The bottom line is the first-place Cavaliers finished 27 games ahead of the 10th-place Heat in the standings this regular season.
The Heat became the first 10th-place team in either conference to make the playoffs from the play-in tournament, but its season won’t last much longer if it can’t find a way to slow the Cavaliers’ prolific offense in the coming days.
“They’re a historically good offense,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “Obviously, they’re No. 1 in the East for a reason. I think we lacked a lot of communication, just mental errors that we can cover up. I think, obviously, the two days in between will give us time to watch film, have a practice and then clean up the things we need to clean up.”
The Heat’s offense kept it in the game for the first three quarters, but then went cold in the fourth quarter.
The Heat didn’t generate the easiest shots, finishing with just five attempts from within the restricted area.
But the Heat’s recent hot outside shooting continued, finishing Game 1 on Sunday 13 of 31 (41.9 percent) on threes.
Herro made three three-pointers. Andrew Wiggins, Alec Burks, Mitchell and Duncan Robinson each made two threes.
Through three quarters, the Heat had 79 points on 47.6 percent shooting from the field and 12-of-25 (48 percent) shooting on threes.
But the Heat then scored just 21 points while shooting 1 of 6 (16.7 percent) on threes in the fourth quarter.
A big part of Miami’s late-game struggles came down to Herro’s quiet finish, as he scored just two points on two shots in the fourth quarter after scoring 19 points on 16 shots over the first three quarters. The Cavaliers played Herro aggressively, denying him the ball and working to keep him out of the Heat’s offensive actions.
“I just got to continue to be aggressive in finding my shots,” Herro said. “Obviously, they’re denying me and picking me up full court and just trying to make things tough. But we’ve faced that literally all year. I just got to be better.”
The other issue for the Heat was turnovers, with the Cavaliers scoring 11 points on 14 Heat turnovers. That advantage paired with a 14-11 edge in offensive rebounds helped Cleveland win the possession battle, taking eight more field-goal attempts and four more free throws than Miami.
The Heat’s leading duo of Bam Adebayo and Herro combined for 45 points.
Adebayo finished with 24 points on 10-of-22 shooting from the field and 1-of-5 shooting on threes, nine rebounds and three assists.
Herro closed with 21 points on 7-of-18 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes, three rebounds and two assists.
Heat rookie center Kel’el Ware very much looked like a rookie in his first NBA playoff game.
Ware, who turned 21 years old on Sunday, finished his first playoff game with two points, three rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 20 minutes.
Ware was especially quiet in the first half, going without a point or rebound while playing 12:30 in the first two quarters.
Ware grabbed his first rebound of the night with 10:10 left in the third quarter, picking up an offensive rebound off a missed free throw from Adebayo.
Ware then scored his first and only points of the night on a tip-in dunk with 7:08 remaining in the third quarter.
“This is the life of a young player,” Spoelstra said when asked about Ware’s rough playoff debut. “You’re being fed through a fire hose and he’s important to what we do. He’ll get to work.”
The Heat stuck with the same rotation that has been working in recent weeks. But it didn’t work on Sunday.
The Heat again turned to its regular-season-ending and play-in tournament starting lineup of Herro, Burks, Wiggins, Adebayo and Ware for the first game of the playoffs. After all, the Heat was 5-1 this season (including the play-in tournament) when using this starting group.
But the Heat’s starting lineup was outscored by four points in 12 minutes together Sunday.
The Heat also again went with a four-man bench rotation of Haywood Highsmith, Mitchell, Robinson and Kyle Anderson before emptying its bench late in the lopsided loss.
Nikola Jovic played the final 1:23 of Sunday’s blowout defeat, marking the first time he has played in a game since breaking his right hand on Feb. 23.
Kevin Love was the only Heat player unavailable, as he was again away from the team on Sunday because of personal reasons.
Two-way contract players are not eligible to take part in the postseason.
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers had their full 15-man standard roster available for Game 1. Cleveland leaned into its quality depth, too, using a 10-man rotation on Sunday.
The Heat’s uphill battle in this series has become stepper.
That’s probably obvious because the Heat is now down 1-0 in the series. But entering this year’s playoffs, teams that drop Game 1 of a best-of-7 series have gone on to lose the series 75.2 percent (153-465) of the time.
The last time the Heat won a playoff series after losing Game 1 was when it dropped the first game in the 2014 East finals against the Indiana Pacers and then went on to take the best-of-7 series 4-2.
The Heat was already heavy underdogs in this series against the Cavaliers, entering Game 1 as a 12.5-point betting underdog. Also, only six No. 8 seeds have eliminated a No. 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs since the current 16-team NBA playoff format was instituted for the 1983-84 season.
As for the other series in the Heat’s half of the East bracket, the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers earned a Game 1 win over the fifth-seeded Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday. The winner of the Heat-Cavaliers series will play the winner of the Bucks-Pacers series in the second round.
“The beautiful thing about playoffs is every game is different,” Wiggins said after Sunday’s Game 1 loss. “Every game is its own game. So, next game will be a big one.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2025 at 10:09 PM.
