MIAMI — Bring out the brooms.
The top-seeded Cavs swept the Miami Heat out of the NBA playoffs Monday night, punctuating their first-round series win with a record-setting 138-83 Game 4 rout.
It’s the largest point differential in Cavaliers playoff history. It’s also just the second time in the Erik Spoelstra era that Miami has been swept — and third time ever.
“We came out here and we came down here with the right mentality,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Our maturity, our leadership, all that stuff we’ve been talking about all year, we don’t seem to have let-downs and that’s rare. There’s just a connection and a camaraderie and our leaders send the right message and everybody kind of follows.”
Prior to tipoff, Atkinson — who has repeatedly shown respect to the clearly overmatched eighth seed because of its history, reputation and pedigree — termed a closeout game in Miami a “monumental task.” He even predicted a down-to-the-wire contest.
Hardly.
Game 4 was over shortly after the last note of the National Anthem hit.
On Miami’s opening possession, Cavs center Jarrett Allen stepped into the passing lane and forced a deflection that turned into an uncontested breakaway dunk.
That play set the tone for the night. It put Cleveland up, basically for good.
The Cavs trailed once, for just 20 seconds. There were no ties. Near wire-to-wire dominance. A 48-minute flex by the East’s best team that entered the postseason with a chip on its shoulder, feeling disrespected and underappreciated.
Forget that.
Showing a level of focus and maturity, with a suffocating defense and surgical offense, Cleveland never relented. Despite not having injured point guard Darius Garland, the team’s second-leading scorer in the postseason, it led by double digits less than four minutes into the game, with Miami’s inept offense not crossing the double-digit barrier until the 1:47 mark of the first quarter.
The Heat, looking like they were mentally in Cancun already, mustered just 17 first-quarter points, the fewest in any first quarter all season. Those putrid 12 minutes were tied for the worst quarter in Miami playoff history.
It didn’t get any better.
By the end of the first half, the Cavs were ahead 72-33, their second-biggest halftime lead in franchise playoff history, only bested by the 41-point edge held at Boston in 2017.
This latest Cavalanche lasted four quarters.
At one point during Cleveland’s romp, Donovan Mitchell and Max Strus — two of the team leaders — spent the first part of a timeout passionately discussing a mental blunder. The Cavs were ahead by 34. Didn’t matter.
No slippage. No let-up. No mercy.
Cleveland is on a quest for something bigger. It’s not about winning one series. The goal is four. Miami is a mere steppingstone to the NBA’s throne.
“It’s desperation, understanding how quickly a series can change if you give a team life,” Mitchell said. “Last year we only won one road game. We’ve only won one road playoff game since I’ve been here until this year. Just never being satisfied and understand that we’ve got to be perfect, try to play as perfect as possible.”
Mitchell led the onslaught with a team-high 22 points on 8 of 15 shooting and 4 of 8 from 3-point range to go with five assists in 24 minutes.
De’Andre Hunter added 19 points. Ty Jerome chipped in with 18, the last of which came at the end of third quarter — a 37-foot buzzer-beater that left Jerome shrugging his shoulders.
Evan Mobley finished with 17 points and seven rebounds. Allen had 14 points and 12 boards, his third double-double this postseason.
The Cavs shot 56.8% from the field and 48.8% from 3-point range. The 138 points are a franchise playoff record.
“This is cool to get this series, to get this series win, but the work is far from done,” Hunter said.
Heat reserve forward Nikola Jovic poured in a game-high 24 points. Bam Adebayo tallied 13 points and 12 rebounds.
Miami’s Tyler Herro, who was engaged in a war of words with Garland and vowed that the Heat wouldn’t get swept, missed nine of his 10 shot attempts. He finished with four points in 30 minutes. With him on the court, Miami was a minus-44.
“I was telling (rookie) Jaylon Tyson, like, ‘This is special, this is your first playoff series, this is what you’re watching, this isn’t normal,’” Mitchell explained following the triumph. “This is a very talented team that we were playing against, competing against, so enjoy the moment. We’ve been doing special things all year, but we didn’t come here just to sweep in the first round and get to the second.”
Over the course of this mostly non-competitive four-game series, the Cavs outscored the Heat by 122 combined points — the largest total point differential in any playoff series ever.
The numbers are astonishing. The record books have been rewritten. Again. But there’s one more: the last team to sweep the Heat in 17 Spoelstra seasons was the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks, who went on to win the title.
Is that a sign? Will history repeat?
Up next
The Cavs will play the winner of Indiana and Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The start date is still to be determined. Game 5 of the Pacers-Bucks series is set for Tuesday night at 6 p.m. ET in Indianapolis. Indiana holds a 3-1 series lead.
