{"id":209195,"date":"2026-03-28T02:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T02:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/209195\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T02:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T02:58:08","slug":"cleveland-cavaliers-get-even-vs-miami-heat-in-blowout-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/209195\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers get even vs. Miami Heat in blowout win"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2013 The Miami Heat\u2019s desire remains to get to the playoffs for a franchise-record seventh consecutive season.<\/p>\n

Friday night\u2019s game offered a reminder of what can happen when you get there as an overmatched opponent.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Heat were swept out of their first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers by an NBA-record margin of 30.5 points in those four games.<\/p>\n

Friday night, with the Cavaliers closer to full strength than they were in Wednesday night\u2019s home loss to the Heat, Cleveland rolled to a 149-128 dismantling of Erik Spoelstra\u2019s team at Rocket Arena, as if the two sides were back in the 2025 playoffs, this time with the Cavaliers\u2019 lead peaking at 36.<\/p>\n

It was the most points allowed by the Heat in their 38 seasons.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, making it to the playoffs took a decided step back for the Heat with their sixth loss in their last seven games, still at the bottom of the Eastern Conference play-in race<\/a>, at No. 10 in the conference.<\/p>\n

With the Cavaliers injecting the 7-foot length of Jarrett Allen and the outside shooting of Max Strus back into their rotation, after the two sat out Wednesday night\u2019s 120-103 loss to the Heat<\/a>, it was a game decided even before halftime, a juncture when Cleveland led 81-46.<\/p>\n

Strus, who scored 22 in the first half, led Cleveland with 29 points. Allen, who had missed the previous 10 games with a knee issue, returned to add 18 points and 10 rebounds in just 18 minutes.<\/p>\n

For the Heat, there was little in response, save for a 20-point performance from Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/p>\n

Five Degrees of Heat from Friday night\u2019s game:<\/p>\n

1. Game flow: It was humbling practically from the outset, including a stretch in the first quarter when the Cavaliers got 16 consecutive points from the combined scoring of former Heat players Strus and Thomas Bryant.<\/p>\n

That helped stake Cleveland to a 40-27 lead after the first quarter.<\/p>\n

And then came the avalanche, with the Heat outscored 41-19 in the second period, a quarter the Heat shot 1 of 10 on 3-pointers, allowed .586 Cleveland shooting from the field, with six turnovers in the period to one by the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

The 35-point halftime lead was Cleveland\u2019s largest this season, 11 more than their previous high.<\/p>\n

Then, to add insult to injury, the Cavaliers carried a 109-87 lead into the fourth when Cleveland\u2019s Evan Mobley ended the third quarter with a successful 32-foot buzzer-beating heave. Mobley closed with 23 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

3. Strus loose: Held out of Wednesday night\u2019s game, much to his chagrin as he regains his stride from an offseason foot injury, Strus made his first four 3-pointers after entering in the opening period.<\/p>\n

Strus\u2019 12 points in the opening period represented his highest scoring quarter in his six games this season. His 10-point second period was his second-highest quarter.<\/p>\n

With Strus held out,\u00a0 the Cavaliers made only three 3-pointers in Wednesday night\u2019s first half. This time they were 5 of 6 from beyond the arc in the first quarter, with 12 3-pointers by the intermission.<\/p>\n

The 22 points were one off the high-scoring half of Strus\u2019 career, when he had 23 for the Heat against the Magic on Dec. 17, 2021.<\/p>\n

He closed 10 of 14 from the field, 8 of 11 on 3-pointers, with it his highest-scoring game with the Cavaliers since leaving the Heat in 2023 free agency.<\/p>\n

4. About it: About all that could be said from the standpoint of the Heat\u2019s starting lineup is Bam Adebayo closed with a double-double, finishing with 14 points and 16 rebounds in his 31 minutes, before sitting out the final period.<\/p>\n

In addition, Adebayo extended his streak of games with at least one steal to 15, making it the longest such streak of his career.<\/p>\n

5. Onward: The Heat conclude their three-game trip Sunday against the Indiana Pacers, before returning for a three-game homestand against the Philadelphia 76ers, Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2013 The Miami Heat\u2019s desire remains to get to the playoffs for a franchise-record seventh consecutive season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114,123,125,2490,124,2295,110],"class_list":["post-209195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-heat","tag-miami-news","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}