The Cleveland Cavaliers were the best team in the Eastern Conference from Day 1, winning their first 15 games, running off two other winning streaks of at least 12 games, and finishing with the second most victories in franchise history.
The Miami Heat haven’t been nearly as good, but they’re the NBA’s team that just won’t go away. They needed to win two road games in the SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament get here, and they did just that, showing similar grit as the team that went from the Play-In to the Finals two years ago. This team was actually better, statistically, than that one. While the 2022-23 Heat were outscored in the regular season, this group had the point differential of a team that was 43-39, but really struggled down the stretch of close games.
The Cavs won two of the three regular-season meetings and will be plenty rested when the series tips off on Sunday night, but this is probably the last of the four East Play-In teams that they wanted to see in the first round.
Series schedule
Here’s how to watch the Cavaliers vs. Heat series:
All times Eastern Standard Time
- Game 1: Heat at Cavaliers (Sun. April 20, 7 ET, TNT)
- Game 2: Heat at Cavaliers (Wed. April 23, 7:30 ET, NBA TV)
- Game 3: Cavaliers at Heat (Sat. April 26, 1 ET, TNT)
- Game 4: Cavaliers at Heat (Mon. April 28, TBD)
- Game 5: Heat at Cavaliers (Wed. April 30, TBD)*
- Game 6: Cavaliers at Heat (Fri. May 2, TBD)*
- Game 7: Heat at Cavaliers (Sun. May 4, TBD)*
* = If necessary
Top storyline
With the Heat advancing out of the SoFi Play-In Tournament, they now face the top-seeded Cavaliers in a first-round matchup.
The Cleveland offense. The Cavs had the second most efficient offense in NBA history, scoring 121.0 points per 100 possessions. They ranked second in both field goal percentage in the paint (60.7%) and 3-point percentage (38.3%), with a league-high eight players who shot the league average (36.0%) or better on at least 200 3-point attempts. They also ranked fourth in turnover rate, having seen the fourth biggest drop from last season.
A year ago, the Cavs saw the third biggest drop in points scored per 100 possessions from the regular season (114.7, 16th) to the playoffs (104.7, 14th of 16). They shot just 35.5% from mid-range and 31.5% from 3-point range over their 12 postseason games, also seeing a significant drop in free throw rate.
This offense is different than that one, with Cleveland playing faster and having seen significant jumps in both ball and player movement this season. But the Heat had a top-10 defense for the sixth straight season and allowed just 101.0 per 100 over their two Play-In games.
Keep your eyes on
Defending Tyler Herro. What happens on the other end of the floor begins with how the Cavs defend the guy who led the Heat in time of possession, usage rate, scoring and assists. Herro had 34 points and seven assists in Miami’s nine-point win over the Cavs in December.
Max Strus should be the Cavs’ primary defender on Herro, who didn’t target Cleveland’s guards (Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell) much in the ball-screen actions in the regular season, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. The Heat will mostly set screens with their bigs, and we can expect center Jarrett Allen to be in “drop” coverage (protecting the rim) in Cleveland’s base defense. If Herro can punish that from the perimeter, than the Cavs will need to switch things up.
Switching it up could bring the Cavs’ bigs away from the basket, which could affect them on the glass …
1 more thing to watch for each team
For Cleveland: Rebounding. Two years ago, the Cavs got absolutely destroyed on the glass as they lost their first-round series to the Knicks. Last year, they had the lowest rebounding percentage in the conference semifinals.
In the regular season, the Cavs ranked 22nd in defensive rebounding percentage, having seen the league’s fifth biggest drop from last season. The Heat ranked just 27th in offensive rebounding percentage (26.3%), but they had a couple of huge tip-ins down the stretch of their overtime win in Atlanta on Friday, and second-chance points were 19-10 in their favor in that December win over Cleveland.
Field goal percentage is typically lower in the playoffs than it is in the regular season and more missed shots lead to more available rebounds. So every team’s ability to clean the glass will be under the microscope over the next two months.
For Miami: Secondary scorers. Herro can’t keep up with the Cavs by himself, and the Heat will need other guys to step up offensively. Davion Mitchell was the guy who provided some unexpected offense (31 total points) in the two Play-In games, and a lot could be riding on Bam Adebayo’s ability to make jump shots.
Adebayo took 36% of his shots, by far the highest rate of his career, from outside the paint. He’s more likely going to be spaced out there when he’s playing alongside Heat rookie Kel’el Ware, and the Cleveland bigs would probably prefer to not guard him too far from the basket.
1 key number to know
14.6% – This was the third straight season that the Heat played the most zone of any team, doing so on 14.6% of their defensive possessions, according to Synergy tracking.
They played just three total possessions of zone in their two Play-In games, but we saw plenty of it in the three regular-season games between these two teams. The Cavs’ offense actually saw the second fewest zone possessions this season, but almost half of them (72/150) came against Miami. They didn’t score as efficiently against zone as they did overall, but they did score more efficiently against the Heat’s zone than the rest of the league did.
The Cavs actually ranked third in the percentage of their defensive possessions (8.6%) on which they played zone, so we’ll likely see it on both ends of the floor during this series.
The pick
Cavs in five. With their two Play-In victories, the Heat have won six of their last seven games on the road. They’re a resilient bunch that can make things difficult for any opponent.
But this opponent has a better defense and more offensive weapons than either of the two teams the Heat beat to get here. And while they had the league’s ninth-ranked defense overall, the Heat ranked 19th defensively (118.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) in games against the league’s top 10 offenses.
This is one of the best offenses we’ve ever seen, and the Cavs should take care of business to advance to the conference semifinals for the second straight year.
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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