{"id":284645,"date":"2025-11-11T04:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T04:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/284645\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T04:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T04:56:07","slug":"a-wild-night-in-miami-and-the-heat-find-a-way-to-top-the-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/284645\/","title":{"rendered":"A wild night in Miami, and the Heat find a way to top the Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI (AP) \u2014 The play is called \u201cCQ.\u201d It\u2019s not the most imaginative name; those are simply the initials of Miami Heat assistant coach Chris Quinn, who drew up a play<\/a> about four years ago that head coach Erik Spoelstra has been waiting to use.<\/p>\n

That wait ended Monday.<\/p>\n

Spoelstra called the play and let Quinn run the huddle in the final time-out of the game with four-tenths of a second left in overtime, drawing up how Norman Powell would create a distraction and Davion Mitchell would set a screen and Jaime Jaquez Jr. would just hang out in the corner and Nikola Jovic would throw a lob inbounds pass and Andrew Wiggins, if all went according to plan, would have a dunk at the rim.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerfect,\u201d Jaquez Jr. said.<\/p>\n

Everything went as it should. Final score: Miami 140, Cleveland 138,<\/a> capping one of the wilder games in this wild start to the NBA season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just embracing the unknown, embracing the confidence guys are gaining in what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cIt always helps when you get some W\u2019s out of it, but guys understand our identity to defend and now can create some things for us offensively. Guys are growing right before our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleveland took 120 shots in the game, the most ever by a Heat opponent and the most by any team in the NBA since Jan. 2, 2023. The Cavaliers took 65 3-pointers, also the most ever by a Miami opponent and the third-highest total in NBA history \u2014 Houston took 70 on Jan. 16, 2019 and took 68 three nights later for spots No. 1 and 2 on that list.<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a chess game. Chess match. You\u2019ve got to give them credit,\u201d said Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, who made a crazy 3-pointer<\/a> with 0.4 seconds left in overtime \u2014 almost an afterthought because of what the Heat did next. \u201cThey made an excellent read, an excellent call and you learn from these things. This is great this happened now. This is something that, you get to a situation later in the year and say, \u2018OK, we understand where we can adjust.\u2019 We watch the film and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were numbers Cleveland didn\u2019t like, such as the 21-4 discrepancy in free-throw attempts in the third quarter \u2014 which coach Kenny Atkinson pointed out to the officiating crew and earned an ejection in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the disparity\u2019s that great, you\u2019ve got to stick up for your guys,\u201d Atkinson said.<\/p>\n

Spoelstra had a different disparity in mind coming into the game: a 55-point one that was on the scoreboard the last time the Heat and Cavaliers played.<\/p>\n

Round 1, Game 4, Eastern Conference first-round in Miami. Cleveland embarrassed the Heat, winning 138-83 to sweep what was the most lopsided playoff series in NBA history. The Cavaliers scored exactly 138 points again on Monday \u2014 and the Heat found a way to win anyway.<\/p>\n

That series led Spoelstra to change almost everything about the way Miami plays. The offense is unrecognizable compared to what it was. The pace is super-fast compared to past years. The goal is to attack on every possession, either getting to the rim or getting a 3-pointer in the air. Cleveland forced the Heat to reassess everything.<\/p>\n

So far, that seems like a good thing for Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new offense, it\u2019s night and day,\u201d Wiggins said. \u201cWe\u2019re out there, playing with a lot of joy, playing fast. Everyone\u2019s out there in great rhythm, so it\u2019s been a great start of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 The play is called \u201cCQ.\u201d It\u2019s not the most imaginative name; those are simply the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[5553,402,150303,8174,60836,13054,21016,2822,2808,150305,150306,150304,2821,8173,355,1063,56242,60839,12303,6454,99],"class_list":["post-284645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-andrew-wiggins","tag-basketball","tag-chris-quinn","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-davion-mitchell","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-erik-spoelstra","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-jaime-jaquez","tag-jaquez-jr","tag-ken-atkinson","tag-miami","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nikola-jovic","tag-norman-powell","tag-oh-state-wire","tag-ohio","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}