Heat’s season ends with first-round sweep to Cavs in historically bad loss. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 138-83 season-ending blowout loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night at Kaseya Center in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series. The Eastern Conference’s eighth-seeded Heat was swept, 0-4, by the East’s top-seeded Cavaliers in the best-of-7 series:
A rough Heat season ended with a huge thud that proved to be historically bad.
The Heat faced plenty of adversity during this turbulent season, dealing with Jimmy Butler’s ugly exit and then enduring a 10-game losing skid in March on its way to finishing the regular season with a losing record for the first time since the 2018-19 season and just the sixth time in Pat Riley’s 30 seasons with the organization.
But the Heat still made the playoffs for the sixth straight year by becoming the first 10th-place team in either conference to make the playoffs from the NBA’s play-in tournament.
It proved to be a short and painful playoff experience for the Heat, though, getting dominated by the Cavaliers. Cleveland outscored Miami by 122 points in the four games for the most lopsided playoff series in NBA history.
In fact, the Heat’s two worst playoff losses came in Games 3 and 4. After experiencing its most lopsided playoff defeat in franchise history in a 37-point loss to the Cavaliers in Saturday’s Game 3, the Heat reached a new level of bad in Monday’s season-ending 55-point loss.
“We were humbled,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But they had so much to do with a lot of how we looked. None of us would’ve guessed that the series would’ve gone this way coming out of our two play-ins and even how we competed in the first two games, but they just took it to another level.”
This marks just the third time that the Heat has been swept in a best-of-seven playoff series in franchise history, with the first two occurrences coming in the first round against the Chicago Bulls in 2007 and in the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021.
The Heat’s season ended in humiliating fashion, as it was outclassed from the start.
The Cavaliers won the first quarter 43-17, with that 26-point margin matching the worst for any playoff quarter in Heat history.
The Cavaliers entered halftime with a huge 72-33 advantage, with that 39-point hole representing the most points the Heat has been outscored by in any first half in franchise history. It also went down as the third-most lopsided first half in NBA playoff history.
The Cavaliers’ pulled ahead by as many as 60 points on their way to the 55-point victory for the fourth-most lopsided playoff game in NBA history. The Heat finished just three points shy of being on the wrong end of history, with the most lopsided playoff game in league history coming with a margin of 58 points.
“Our season is on the line with the game tonight,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “So when you go down that quick, a little bit of doubt starts to creep in. But none of us expected this, especially leaving Cleveland after Game 2.”
It was a rough night for the Heat’s leading duo, as Bam Adebayo and Herro combined for just 17 points.
Adebayo recorded 13 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field and 1-of-4 shooting on threes, 12 rebounds and four assists.
Herro totaled just four points on 1-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-9 shooting on threes, one rebound and one assist.
As a team, the Heat put together a dismal offensive effort that included only 83 points on 36 percent shooting from the field and 10-of-49 (20.4 percent) shooting on threes. Miami also committed 19 turnovers that Cleveland scored 28 points on.
“It’s not even about how they defended us,” Adebayo said. “I feel like we just weren’t patient enough to see what they were doing, especially the first quarter. Just quick shots, just playing random basketball. As you know in the playoffs, it can get ugly.”
The Cavaliers finished Game 4 with 138 points on 54.7 percent shooting from the field and 22-of-47 (46.8 percent) shooting on threes. It’s tied for the most points that the Heat has allowed in a playoff game and it’s tied for the ninth-most points that the Heat has allowed in any game in franchise history.
In the end, the Cavaliers were just much better. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the Cavaliers finished 27 games ahead of the Heat in the East standings this regular season.
But the Heat didn’t even put up a fight in the last two games of the series, as the Cavaliers won the two games in Miami by a total of 92 points. With those two blowout losses in Games 3 and 4, the Heat became the first team in NBA history to drop back-to-back playoff games by 30 or more points.
“These last two games were embarrassing, but Cleveland is also a very good team,” Spoelstra said. “We won whatever we won, they won 65. We’re as irrational as we usually are, thinking that we have a chance to win this series and they showed us why we weren’t ready for that.”
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers advance to take on the winner of the first-round series between the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks in the second round. The Pacers lead that series 3-1.
“This has got to fuel a lot of us going into the offseason,” Adebayo said. “We got a lot of time to understand what happened today, remember how this felt and then you come back next year and see what happens.”
This was a very disappointing series for the Heat. But among the most disappointing aspects of this series was the underwhelming play of Andrew Wiggins.
Wiggins, who the Heat acquired from the Golden State Warriors in the Butler trade in February, totaled just 34 points on 11-of-31 (35.5 percent) shooting from the field through the first three games of the series.
Wiggins then began Game 4 with a scoreless first half that included 0-of-5 shooting from the field and 0-of-2 shooting on threes and two turnovers in 11 minutes.
Wiggins found some success in Monday’s third quarter, totaling 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting on threes in the period. But by that point it was too late, with the Cavaliers already well in control of the game.
Wiggins finished the season-ending loss with 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field and 2-of-6 shooting on threes, five rebounds, one assist and three turnovers in 22 minutes.
Wiggins averaged 11.5 points per game on 16-of-43 (37.2 percent) from the field in the first-round series.
This was a big drop-off from the regular season, when Wiggins averaged 19 points per game on 45.8 percent shooting from the field and 36 percent shooting on threes in 17 games after joining the Heat in the middle of the season.
When asked after Game 3 whether the ankle or hamstring injuries that forced him to miss time toward the end of the regular season were still bothering him, Wiggins didn’t want to make any excuses.
“It’s tough,” Wiggins said. “But no excuses. I’m out there on the court. If you’re out on the court, you’re 100 percent. That’s what it comes down to. I just got to do better.”
Wiggins is under contract for next season with a $28.2 million salary. If Wiggins is back next season, the Heat will expect a lot more from a player who’s currently slotted to be the third-highest on the roster behind only Adebayo and Herro.
There were some telling rotation developments in Game 4.
First, Duncan Robinson was not in the initial rotation on Monday despite being available after playing as one of the Heat’s top reserves in each of the first three games of the series. Robinson was limited to just 17 points and was able to get up only seven three-point attempts through the first three games of the first round.
Instead, the Heat went with a bench rotation of Haywood Highsmith, Pelle Larsson, Kyle Anderson and Nikola Jovic in the first half Monday.
Robinson didn’t enter for his first action of Game 4 until there was 2:33 left in the third quarter. He went scoreless and shot 0-of-5 on threes in 15 minutes after entering.
The Heat also made a change to its starting lineup midway through Game 4.
After going with the starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Herro, Wiggins, Adebayo and Kel’el Ware for the third straight game on Monday, the Heat opened the second half with Jovic in Ware’s place.
The first first playoff series of Ware’s NBA career didn’t go well, as the Cavaliers targeted the rookie center’s pick-and-roll defense and found great success. Ware finished Game 4 with two points on 1-of-6 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting on threes and seven rebounds in 15 minutes.
“It’s not necessarily an indictment on one player, but these are fundamental lessons,” Spoelstra said when asked about benching Ware to begin Monday’s second half. “The thing I like about Kel’el is he has a coachability to him. He has an ambition to him.”
The bottom line is the Heat simply couldn’t beat good teams this season.
The Heat finished with an ugly 12-34 record against opponents that finished this regular season with a .500 record or better. That record includes this first-round sweep to the Cavaliers.
The Heat built the 10th-best record in the Eastern Conference by beating a lot of bad teams.
Including the play-in tournament, the Heat finished with a 27-15 record against teams that closed the regular season with a losing record.
The Heat enters an offseason that will be filled with important roster decisions.
Aside from being armed with the No. 20 overall pick in the June 25 NBA Draft, the Heat also already has 13 players under standard contracts for next season: Adebayo, Herro, Wiggins, Terry Rozier, Robinson, Anderson, Highsmith, Jovic, Ware, Kevin Love, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Larsson and Keshad Johnson (fully nonguaranteed $2 million salary for next season) .
The only two players on the Heat’s season-ending 15-man standard roster who are set to enter free agency this upcoming summer are Mitchell (restricted free agent) and Alec Burks (unrestricted free agent).
However, Robinson can become a free agent this upcoming summer, as he has the right to terminate next season’s $19.9 million salary by June 29 and enter free agency. But the Heat also can make Robinson a free agent, as the team can waive him by July 8 to owe only $9.9 million of his $19.9 million salary for next season ($10 million in savings against the salary cap, luxury tax and aprons).
Herro, who is already locked into salaries of $31 million next season and $33 million in 2026-27, also becomes eligible for an expensive extension on Oct. 1. The Heat can tack on a three-year, $149.7 million extension to the two years that Herro already has left on his contract following this season.
Considering the Heat was just eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for the second straight season, roster changes are probably coming this summer. The question is: How will the Heat make those changes, as it enters the offseason with so many players already under contract for next season?
“There are going to be a lot of changes this summer,” Adebayo said when asked what Heat changes are needed this offseason. “Just from my point of view, understanding how the guy with the silver hair works. So just be prepared for that.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 10:26 PM.
