Cote: Giannis? Durant? Embarrassed Heat needs major help after 55-point loss & playoff sweep | Opinion
How much fight did the Miami Heat have left? How much bone-deep belief could they muster? Any at all? The answers came fast Monday night. The game, like this series, fell like an avalanche on the Heat, starting the clock on their offseason after Miami was swept like dirt from the NBA playoffs’ first round by Cleveland.
Bam Adebayo had called the Heat’s 37-point loss in the previous game “embarrassing.”
This one was by 55 — the third-worst playoff defeat by any team in NBA playoff history.
This series has exceeded mere embarrassment for a proud franchise built on “Culture,” a team that dropped four straight games to the No. 1-seed Cavaliers by a combined 122 points. This wasn’t much less than a public humiliation finished by the Cavs’ 138-83 closeout rout, the Heat’s most lopsided postseason defeat ever.
“We are humbled,” said coach Erik Spoelstra. “It’s a shame we’ll be remembered for these last two games and this sweep. I feel for the lockerroom, to overcome a lot of things and then (win) those two play-in games. I’m gonna spend all summer over-analyzing everything.”
This is the worst, most dispiriting playoff ouster by a major South Florida pro team since the 62-7 Dolphins loss in January 2000 that chased Dan Marino into retirement.
(A resounding playoff win was happening just northwest Monday, at least, as the Florida Panthers rallied to win at home over Tampa Bay, 4-2, for a 3-1 series lead entering Game 5 in Tampa Wednesday. Late goals by Seth Jones and Carter Verhaeghe less than two minutes apart lifted the Cats to the cusp of advancing).
The Heat hole Monday was 43-17 after the first quarter, an insult to the fans who filled the downtown arena for Miami’s eighth consecutive home playoff loss.
“To get down that quick, a little bit of doubt creeps in,” said Tyler Herro, held to four points.
The series was an abomination of epic scale for Miami, but one that maybe shouldn’t have shocked following a 37-45 regular season and 10th playoff seed that worked up in the play-in to No. 8. The Heat was that mediocre in a season hijacked by the Jimmy Butler drama, suspensions and trade.
And Cleveland is that good — an expertly constructed team that led the league in scoring and and plays great defense as well. Ask Herro, who was 1-for-10 shooting.
Herro admitted during this series he felt lost post-Butler, and seemed to speak for his team.
“Obviously, I know I need Jimmy to win. If we had Jimmy right now, I feel like it’d be a completely different situation,” he told The Athletic. “We probably wouldn’t even be the eighth seed. So finding that middle balance of, like, damn, we need him, but also understanding, [bleep], that’s his career and what he wants is ultimately his right to want what he wants. It was just tough to be in the middle of both sides.”
Miami certainly was better with Butler but to say the series would have been a “completely different situation” with him is a bit absurd (not to mention sort of a veiled insult to Adebayo.) Heat was never going to win a fourth NBA crown as long as Butler was their best player. They won’t win now with Herro and Bam Adebayo as their two best guys.
(As I write these words the Heat is down 63-23 in the second quarter. You get a score like this when the really great varsity team is playing the injury-wracked JV squad. Or when the Heat is playing the Golden Oldies).
“We were playing random basketball,” said Adebayo.
It was 72-33 at the half, third-worst disparity at the break in NBA postseason history, and what do you say at that point if you’re Spoelstra? The Heat was 5-for-26 on 3’s. The TNT guys were having a halftime yuk-fest at Miami’s expense.
“This might be the worst game I’ve ever watched,” said Ernie Johnson.
“This is quitting at its finest,” added Charles Barkley.
Shaquille O’Neal: “Miami has no fight.”
The offseason can’t get here soon enough, and Pat Riley and company need to attack it -- and win it. That hasn’t happened to a championship degree since LeBron James left in 2014.
Two things looking ahead:
1) Nobody on the Heat roster should be considered untouchable or above trading. I’d try to hang onto Herro or Adebayo but be willing to trade either, and anybody, else for a prize big enough.
2) The prizes I have in mind are Giannis Antetokounmpo of Milwaukee or Kevin Durant of Phoenix. Durant, still great at 36, has been sought three previous times by Miami. Fourth time’s a charm? He may be available. So might Antetokounmpo. The cost would be steep, but it’s time for Miami to swing big.
There of course would be rival suitors for both, especially the in-his-prime Giannis. Houston and Brooklyn come to mind. Miami might have to involve a third team to score an additional first-round draft pick to sweeten its offer.
Herro, Adebayo and the rookie Kel’el Ware are a nice nucleus to build on if they elect to be patient. Davion Mitchell feels like a keeper. But the Heat have financial wiggle room to be aggressive as well, with three tradeable first-round picks and at least five expiring contracts including Duncan Robinson and dead-wood Terry Rozier.
They can act this summer and wait until ‘26, but from what I saw, this club needs more than tinkering.
Spoelstra in his series and season post-mortem accentuated all this team has been through, and the team’s promising young stars. But let the optimism not blind him to the brutal lesson of this series: Miami is nowhere close to competing to the standard this franchise sets for itself.
“There’s gonna be a lot of changes this summer,” Adebayo predicted. “I know how the guy in the silver hair (Riley) works. You never know who’s gonna be in the lockerroom next year.”
Does Riley, at 80, have one last whale in him of the Giannis or Durant scale?
Based on this series, the Heat need at least that, or some comparable miracle.
This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM.
