Inside the final seconds and play that lifted Heat to a thrilling win over Cavs: ‘Just pure art’
Last season’s first-round playoff series between the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers is remembered for how dominant the Cavaliers were. After all, the Cavaliers swept the Heat out of the first round of the playoffs by outscoring Miami by 122 points in the four games for the most lopsided playoff series in NBA history.
But the Heat and Cavaliers’ first matchup this season will be remembered for how competitive it was, as Miami ended a wild game that included 15 lead changes and 12 ties with a perfectly drawn up and perfectly executed game-winning inbounds pass to escape with a thrilling 140-138 overtime win against Cleveland on Monday night at Kaseya Center.
“It was an instant classic regular-season game for early November,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
While the fact that there were 10 lead changes and nine ties in the fourth quarter and overtime is enough to make it a memorable regular-season game, it was the final 6.5 seconds that made it an “instant classic.”
With the Heat ahead by three points and 6.5 seconds left in overtime, the Cavaliers called timeout with possession of the ball in hopes of drawing up a play that would generate a quality three-point look to force overtime.
After Cavaliers guard Sam Merrill missed a three-pointer with 5.3 seconds remaining, guard Donovan Mitchell darted in for the offensive rebound and rushed to the corner to shoot a tough, high-arching three-pointer over 7-foot Heat center Kel’el Ware that miraculously went in to tie the score at 138 with just 0.4 seconds left on the clock.
“The three was crazy, I’m not going to lie,” Ware said. “He shot it high, and it went in.”
With so little time left for the Heat, it appeared the game was destined for a second overtime. But the Heat has a side out-of-bounds play named “CQ” for late-game situations like this that it has run different variations of in the past.
Named “CQ” because Heat assistant coach Chris Quinn helped design the play that’s meant to get a player open to catch the inbounds pass at the rim in short-clock situations, Quinn suggested during the ensuing timeout that Spoelstra use the play with so little time left in the first overtime.
“I’ve had that play on my card listed as ‘CQ’ for four years,” Spoelstra said. “So, when it got to that point, Quinny said: ‘Hey, we should run that.’ I said, you know what, there’s no better person to diagram it than the one who came up with the dang thing. So I just had him diagram the play.”
At first, Heat players were wondering why Spoelstra wasn’t running the late-game timeout huddle.
“I was confused because coach Spo just handed the board to Quinny and Quinny started running a play,” Heat forward Nikola Jovic recalled. “I think everybody was just looking around, and they couldn’t believe the shot that Donovan made. [Quinn] was making sure that we were locked in for the play.”
The Heat came out of the timeout with a lineup of Jovic, Davion Mitchell, Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins and Jaime Jaquez Jr.
The Cavaliers went with a lineup of Donovan Mitchell, Merrill, De’Andre Hunter, Dean Wade and Evan Mobley.
With Jovic called on to serve as the inbounds passer, he approached the sideline to get the ball from the official and immediately noticed who was standing in front of him to defend the pass. It was the 6-foot-2 Donovan Mitchell and not the 6-foot-11 Mobley.
“First, they put Mobley on me,” the 6-foot-10 Jovic said. “I thought that was a good idea for them because the pass would have been pretty hard to throw. As soon as they changed I was like, ‘OK, I got Donovan on me.’ A small guy, I can throw the pass over him.”
That’s exactly what Jovic did, as Quinn’s play had Powell sprinting by Wiggins and Davion Mitchell to the three-point line as a decoy to force the Cavaliers’ defense to overreact and leave the back end of the play open. Davion Mitchell then set a solid back screen on Wiggins’ defender (Hunter), and Wiggins sprinted toward wide open space in the paint before catching a perfectly thrown inbounds lob from Jovic for the game-winning dunk as the final buzzer sounded.
Mobley, who was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year for last season, couldn’t do anything about it because he was tasked with defending Jaquez. The Heat put Jaquez in the corner, which took Mobley out of the play.
“It worked beautifully,” Spoelstra said. “I thought Norm sold it really well, and then Wiggs made a great cut on it. And then Niko just put it right on the lip of the rim. He couldn’t have made a better pass. ... So it was a great execution to get that.”
Jovic knew the play would work when he noticed the Cavaliers put Mobley on Jaquez.
“As soon as I saw that they put Mobley on Jaime, I looked at Wiggs and Wiggs knew it was going to work,” Jovic said. “So as soon as they screened for him, I just knew I had to throw it perfectly at the rim, so he got just enough time to put it in.”
But even Jovic and Wiggins were surprised with how wide open Wiggins was as he cut into the paint off Davion Mitchell’s back screen.
“He was really open, he was wide open,” Jovic said.
Wiggins added: “I was so open. I was literally just focusing on catching the ball and putting it in the basket.”
All Jovic could do after he let go of the inbounds pass was admire the game-winning finish by Wiggins.
“Beautiful. Just pure art,” Jovic said.
From the Cavaliers’ perspective, they know the decision to put Mobley on Jaquez instead of having Mobley use his length to challenge Jovic inbounds pass turned out to be a mistake.”
“We talked about who should be on the ball. Should it be Evan, should it be me?” Donovan Mitchell said. “We thought they were going to put it at the rim, so we put all our length down there. Credit to Spo, they took all the length away from the rim and set a back pick. So that’s the chess piece in the chess match, and you got to give them credit. They made an excellent read, an excellent call.”
The dramatic win improved the Heat to 7-4 this season and served as further proof that this team is much different than the one that was crushed in the first round of the playoffs last season by the Cavaliers.
After scoring more than 100 points just once during that four-game playoff sweep and becoming known as one of the lowest scoring and slowest teams in the NBA in recent seasons, the Heat’s revamped offense totaled 140 points in Monday’s win against the Cavaliers. The Heat enters Tuesday as the NBA’s highest scoring team (125.5 points per game) and playing at the league’s fastest pace (106.6 possessions per 48 minutes) through the first three weeks of the season.
Plus, the Heat defeated the Cavaliers while again missing its leading duo of Bam Adebayo (left big toe sprain) and Tyler Herro (left ankle surgery). Adebayo missed his third straight game on Monday and Herro has yet to play this season after undergoing surgery in September.
“It’s a confidence-builder,” Wiggins said following Monday’s win over the Cavaliers that pushed the Heat to 5-0 at home this season. “Even though we’re having some guys out, we’re still able to do what we’re doing because of the system we’re in. And the guys are all just stepping up and doing it all collectively. The coaches are doing a great job getting us in position to be successful.”
The Heat and Cavaliers will see each other again for another matchup on Wednesday at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). The rare back-to-back regular-season games against the same opponent give the feel of a mini playoff series.
One thing is for sure, though, the Heat doesn’t want this quick two-game set in the first month of the regular season to feel like last season’s painful playoff series. Miami made sure things are different by escaping Monday’s matchup with an overtime win over Cleveland behind a well-executed side-out-of-bounds play drawn up by Quinn.
“It just shows we’re a different team from last year,” Wiggins said, with the Heat now riding a three-game winning streak. “Mentally, physically, we’re a different team.”
